Biography

Spencer Striker, PhD, is Professor of Digital Media Design in the Communication Program at Northwestern University in Qatar and a founding member of NU-Q's Artificial Intelligence and Media Lab (AIM-LAB). Across Northwestern, his digital learning productions have drawn support from the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, the Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO), the Center for Talent Development (CTD), the Office of the Provost, and the Alumnae of Northwestern.

Working as creator, producer, and design director at the intersection of interaction design, narrative-driven learning, and multimodal digital media, Dr. Striker designs and produces interactive media for education in the humanities, the sciences, and civic life. His current work spans four areas of production, each shaped by the generative AI pipeline he has built since 2023:

AI-animated cinema. Creator and director of Al-Khwarizmi: Father of Algebra & the Algorithm (2026), an AI-animated docudrama funded by the Doha Film Institute and released free on YouTube as a 45-minute cinematic edition and 30 short episodes, with an Arabic-language edition in production. The film debuted at the Qatar Government Communications Forum in Jan 2026, screened at Web Summit Qatar 2026, earned selection to DFI's Qumra 2026, and reached the shortlist for the 2026 QS Reimagine Education Award in Immersive Experiential Learning.

Learning games for STEM, media literacy, and AI literacy. Creator and design director of Chaos Corp: Troll Farm Simulator (2025), a satirical strategy game about disinformation funded by the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South. The game won the 2025 Anthem Award for Responsible Technology, Reimagine Education Gold, and w3 Silver, and earned a James Paul Gee Learning Game Award nomination for Best Indie; the Buffett Institute supports its sequel, Chaos Corp 2: Serpent of House Sung, now in development. Dr. Sara: Disease Detective (2021), funded by the HBKU Innovation Center, has passed 50,000 organic downloads on iPhone and Android and holds Teacher Approved status on Google Play. He is now producing two AI-literacy games, CLIP and 50% P(DOOM), with support from the Qatar Research, Development and Innovation Council.

Interactive narrative history and VR. Creator of History Adventures: World of Characters, a cross-platform series funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps program, and Northwestern INVO, and piloted with the Center for Talent Development and in schools in California, Arizona, Minnesota, and Spain. Titles include Empires & Interconnections (2024 Anthem Award for Best Literacy Platform, Horizon Interactive Gold, James Paul Gee Learning Game Award nominee), Revolutions & Industrialization, and the NEH-funded Generation Revolution, set in New York during the American Revolution. The series' Global Pandemics chapters include Plague of Athens VR for Meta Quest, Steam VR, and Pico (funded by the Qatar National Research Fund; Reimagine Education Bronze), Black Death Interactive (Horizon Interactive Best of Category), and Plague of Athens Chromebook (Reimagine Education Gold, Anthem Bronze, Bett Awards nominee).

Podcasts and multimedia journalism. Creator and host of Rendered by Robots: AI & the Future of Design Education (2025 to 2026), an eight-part podcast and video series on AI and education funded by Northwestern's Alumnae Award for Curriculum Innovation, with guests including Nataliya Kosmyna of MIT, Clay Shirky of NYU, and James Walsh of New York Magazine. Founder of QatarPodcasts.com and principal investigator and host of the QNRF-funded Digital Doha Podcast.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Striker served as founding creative director of Galxyz Inc., the Silicon Valley learning-game startup that raised $4 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Relay Ventures, and Emerson Collective based on his original concept, and founded GameZombie TV (2007 to 2012), the student-powered game media studio that won the 2010 Webby Award and People's Voice Webby for Online Film & Video. He has secured more than $1 million in competitive funding and keynotes international conferences on AI, media, and education. At NU-Q he developed AI Tools for Digital Media Design and teaches studio courses in AI animation, sound design, game design, and Vibe Coding, a course in AI-assisted creative coding. He holds a Ph.D. in Digital Media from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.S. in Media Arts & Science from Indiana University Bloomington, and dual B.A./B.S. degrees with Highest Honors (Phi Beta Kappa) from the University of Texas at Austin.