Gamification Group
Good game, have fun!
About the Research Group
The Gamification Research Group at Tampere University, led by Professor Juho Hamari, is dedicated to exploring how gamification can motivate, enhance and augment human behavior across diverse contexts. Our interdisciplinary team combines expertise from psychology, computer science, marketing, and education to investigate the theoretical foundations and practical applications of gamification.
Since its inception, we have collaborated with industry partners, public institutions, and international research networks to translate our findings into real‑world impact. Through workshops, seminars, and open‑access resources, we aim to foster a vibrant community of scholars and practitioners who share a passion for leveraging the potential of play and games for good.
Research Leader
Juho Hamari
Group Leader
Professor Juho Hamari
✉️ juho.hamari@tuni.fi
☎️ +358 50 318 6861
🔗 TUNI ● Web of Science ● ORCID ● Google Scholar ● X ● LinkedIn ● ResearchGate
Juho is a Professor of Gamification at Tampere University, where he leads a multidisciplinary research group focused on gamification, game‑based learning, motivational systems, and extended realities across fields such as HCI, media studies, and education.
He has secured roughly €25 million in national funding, supervised over 70 PhD/postdoc scholars, and authored more than 320 papers with 50 000+ citations, ranking him among the top‑0.1 % of researchers worldwide (according to Web of Science).
Our People
Timo Nummenmaa
Senior Research Fellow
Timo designs and researches innovative gameful experiences for data collection and now leads Augmented-Reality‑based forest‑monitoring research (GamiLiDAR). In the TTKM project on arts, travel and sustainable tourism, he leads the activities in Tampere. Timo is also the vice-impact coordinator in the UNITE Flagship and the head of the administrative gamification lab substructure in the computing sciences.
✉️ timo.nummenmaa@tuni.fi
🔗 Google Scholar ● ORCID ● LinkedIn
Ana Carolina Tomé Klock
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Ana is a computer science researcher interested in understanding how gamification can shape and be shaped by our society, especially towards supporting equitable, diverse and inclusive design and creating opportunities for gameful learning. She was previously responsible for the MSCA-IF Gameful approaches for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion education (GamInclusive), while now managing the work package on the impact of video games in shaping a more inclusive society within the GameHearts project.
Wilk Oliveira
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Wilk is a Postdoctoral Researcher who specializes in game‑based and personalized learning, computing education, and mental‑health‑focused edtech. He combines a PhD in computer science with experience as an educator, startup co‑founder, and collaborator with Brazil’s Ministry of Education to create accessible, gamified learning solutions.
✉️ wilk.oliveira@tuni.fi
🔗 Google Scholar ● LinkedIn ● ORCID
Simo Järvelä
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Simo is a cognitive scientist, who studies how emotions, cognition, and technology intersect—focusing on embodiment in Extended Reality by linking bodily movement, biofeedback, and affect through workshops, simulations, and lab experiments, and also applying these insights to LARP design.
✉️ simo.jarvela@tuni.fi
🔗 Personal Website ● Google Scholar ● LinkedIn ● ORCID
Kaisa Liimatainen
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Kaisa specializes in LiDAR, augmented reality, and 3‑D data, using game engines to streamline the collection, analysis, and immersive visualization of spatial information.
Mila Bujić
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Mila is a post-doctoral researcher that explores how enmeshed, personalized, and interactive media shape experience and society: Using a multidisciplinary toolkit, she researches through lab experiments, speculative and anticipatory methods, and surveys to uncover risks like surveillance and opportunities for empowerment.
✉️ mila.bujic@tuni.fi
🔗 Personal Website ● Google Scholar ● LinkedIn ● ResearchGate
Emma Jane Pretty
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Emma is a Post-Doctoral Researcher from sunny Australia, who combines her psychology background with cognitive neuroscience and HCI to study non‑player characters, personalized gaming experiences, and mixed‑reality embodiment.
Daniel Fernández Galeote
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Daniel is a multidisciplinary designer and journalist with a decade of experience. He researches playful systems that harness gamification to engage people with complex issues like climate change and sustainability.
✉️ daniel.fernandezgaleote@tuni.fi
🔗 Google Scholar ● LinkedIn
Can Gursesli
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Can is a post-doctoral researcher that designs and evaluates game-based and immersive interventions to explore how technology influences human psychology and physiology. His research integrates bio-engineering, psychology, artificial intelligence, and human–computer interaction to investigate emotional processes, motivation, and behavior in interactive environments.
✉️ can.gursesli@tuni.fi
🔗 Google Scholar
Joseph Macey
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Joseph is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Game Cultures (University of Turku) who works interdisciplinarily, drawing from social anthropology, game studies, psychology, HCI, and information systems. He studies the overlap of video‑gaming, esports, and gambling, and he was one of the first scholars to coin a foundational definition of “gamblification” in digital media. He co‑founded the global Esports Research Network.
✉️ joseph.macey@tuni.fi
🔗 Google Scholar ● LinkedIn ● ORCID
Georgina (Ginnie) Guillén-Hanson
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Ginnie is a sustainability expert with 20 years of experience in public, private, and nonprofit sectors across 40+ countries. With a PhD in gamifying sustainable consumption and degrees in marketing, strategic leadership, and political science, she promotes circular‑economy transitions using engaging, human‑focused gamification that empowers people worldwide.
Elpida Bampouni
Doctoral Researcher
Elpida is a Doctoral Researcher who studies how multisensory extended‑reality setups—like full‑body motion with haptic, auditory, and olfactory cues—impact cognition, decision‑making, spatial awareness, attention, and memory.
✉️ elpida.bampouni@tuni.fi
🔗 Google Scholar ● LinkedIn ● ORCID
Nevena Sicevic
Doctoral Researcher
Nevena is a Doctoral Researcher, who researches new avenues of grassroots peacebuilding through collaborative game design and games with social impact; drawing from her expertise as a language teacher, youth worker and educator.
✉️ nevena.sicevic@tuni.fi
🔗 LinkedIn ● ORCID
Jurgis Peters
Doctoral Researcher
Jurģis is a Latvian new media artist and Doctoral Researcher. His practice-based research explores how Generative AI can augment artistic abilities and mediate transformative, intimate experiences.
Prajwal DSouza
Doctoral Researcher
Prajwal develops gamified applications—especially web‑based interactives and virtual‑reality experiences—to enhance public engagement and comprehension of bioinformatics and statistics, focusing on identifying the most effective methods for science communication.
✉️ prajwal.dsouza@tuni.fi
🔗 Personal Website ● GitHub ● X ● Google Scholar ● BlueSky
Wu Li
Doctoral Researcher
Wu Li is an esports journalist and event coordinator with more than a decade of industry experience. He joined Gamification Group in 2023 to investigate performance‑influencing factors, aiming to build an analytical framework, redesign esports training, and develop a user‑focused classification of game titles.
✉️ wu.li@tuni.fi
🔗 TUNI ● ORCID ● X
Dion Deng
Doctoral Researcher
Dion is a Doctoral Researcher in virtual reality who investigates how embodied avatars affect emotion, motivation, and performance, integrating gamification into everyday activities—particularly fitness and exergames—to enhance well‑being. His work combines immersive VR design with user studies, experimental methods, text mining, and quantitative analysis.
Faith Opeyemi Ilesanmi
Doctoral Researcher
Faith is a Doctoral Researcher on the GameHeArtS project within the Gamification Group. Her research interests include gamification, ethics, and trust. Her doctoral work focuses on gamification, ethical dilemmas and behavioural change.
✉️ faith.ilesanmi@tuni.fi
🔗 Google Scholar ● LinkedIn ● ORCID
Carlos Álvarez Barroso
Pre-Doctoral Researcher
Carlos is a predoctoral researcher jointly appointed at Tampere University and Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, developing videogame experiences that use procedural rhetoric and semiotics to raise awareness about climate‑resilience in coastal areas. His work sits at the intersection of game studies, edutainment, and climatic adaptation.
✉️ carlos.alvarezbarroso@tuni.fi
🔗 Google Scholar ● LinkedIn ● ORCID
Annique Smith
Doctoral Researcher
Annique is a lecturer in Interactive Technology at the University of Pretoria and PhD candidate at Tampere University. She researches gamification and metacognitive design to enhance student autonomy and reflective learning in digital and flipped classrooms, creating frameworks that balance structured (ludus) and open‑ended (paidia) play.
✉️ annique.smith@tuni.fi
🔗 LinkedIn ● ORCID ● Google Scholar
Bernice Beukes
Doctoral Researcher
Bernice is a senior lecturer in Auditing at the University of Pretoria. She teaches governance and assurance through a vibrant mix of interactive technology. Bernice is pursuing a doctorate on gameful scaffolding in online higher‑education environments.
✉️ bernice.beukes@tuni.fi
🔗 Google Scholar ● LinkedIn ● ORCID
Ville-Veikko Uhlgren
Doctoral Researcher
Ville is a doctoral researcher, developing gamified and immersive tools for environmental data collection. He combines AR, VR, and mobile technologies with game design expertise to create interactive gameplay for environments that enhance ecological monitoring and user engagement.
Anatolii Belousov
Doctoral Researcher
Anatolii works on the closer integration of science fiction into HTI research and technology foresight. He investigates the interplay between fictional narratives and stakeholder perspectives to understand the emerging futures of consciousness-altering technologies.
✉️ anatolii.belousov@tuni.fi
🔗 LinkedIn ● ORCID ● Google Scholar
Terho Ojell-Järventausta
Doctoral Researcher
Terho is a Doctoral Researcher, who utilises futures studies to explore the societal drivers and implications of emerging digital technologies. His current focus is on a phenomenon called Digitally Induced Altered States of Consciousness (DIAL).
✉️ terho.ojell-jarventausta@tuni.fi
🔗 LinkedIn ● Google Scholar
Ana Cláudia G. Santos
Doctoral Researcher
Ana is a Doctoral Researcher and teacher with over 15 years of experience in software engineering, gamification, and educational technologies. She investigates how user profiles shape the use and engagement of gamified learning software.
✉️ ana.guimaraessantos@tuni.fi
🔗 LinkedIn ● ResearchGate ● Google Scholar
Shermain Puah
Doctoral Researcher
Shermain is a Learning & Research Analyst at the Singapore Institute of Technology who studies how applied learning improves teaching. She is pursuing a PhD at Tampere University to examine how commercial off‑the‑shelf games can increase engagement, motivation, and deep learning in higher education.
Anna-Leena Macey
Doctoral Researcher
Anna‑Leena is a Doctoral Researcher who investigates how embodied cues, affective design, and avatar‑mediated interaction in virtual reality can regulate emotions and promote well‑being.
José Siqueira de Cerqueira
Doctoral Researcher
José is a Doctoral Researcher, who investigates AI ethics and LLM trustworthiness by designing gamified, trustworthy agents and GenAI‑assisted software‑engineering prototypes. He draws from Design Science Research to mitigate the societal risks of large language models. His work is part of the Convergence.
✉️ jose.siqueiradecerqueira@tuni.fi
🔗 LinkedIn ● ORCID ● Google Scholar
Amirhosein Asghari Tavana
Researcher
Amir researches hedonic haptic experiences, using co‑design, research‑through‑design, and lab experiments to create playful, affective tactile interactions—such as a virtual‑forest environment—for people with dementia. His work seeks to advance haptic‑driven virtual reality beyond technical prototypes toward immersive, multisensory play.
✉️ amirhosein.asgharitavana@tuni.fi
🔗 Google Scholar ● ORCID
Weichen (Lev) Li
Research Assistant
Weichen (Lev) explores XR, games, gamification, and AI agents to understand and redesign how we relate and interact with the world, following a simple credo: AI means love, virtuality is reality.
Visiting, Remote Researchers and Alumni
Samuli Laato
Lecturer / Post-Doctoral Researcher Alum
Samuli is an information‑systems lecturer at the University of Turku, specializes in spatial computing, location‑based media, crowdsourced nature‑data collection, and the human‑forest‑machine interplay. He was previously a post-doctoral researcher, supervised by Prof. Hamari (2021‑2024).