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I’m a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) with an interest in higher education (particularly equality, diversity, and inclusion), learning and teaching, and video games. I’m based in the University of Glasgow’s School of Computing Science, where I’m the head of the Education & Practice section and Programme Director for the Graduate Apprenticeship in Software Engineering. I’m also co-director of the University’s Games and Gaming Lab.

I was appointed Director of Education for SICSA (the Scottish Informatics & Computer Science Alliance) in 2021 and I’m a founding editor of the journal, Open Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. I’ve previously served as Vice Chair of British DiGRA (the Digital Games Research Association) and as a Trustee and Director of the Scottish Game Developers Association. Until 2022, I was a member of the BAFTA Scotland Committee, where Iacted as the Games Jury Chair.

I’m also director of the Ada Scotland Festival, which aims to improve gender balance in Computing Science education across Scotland. Related to this, I also try to champion inclusion and diversity through mymembership of several Scotland-wide groups, including the Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board Equalities Group, and the Scottish Government’s Digital Economy Skills Group and National Digital Ethics Expert Group.

Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning by Matthew Barr

My first book, Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning, was published with Palgrave in 2019. An edited collection, Approaches to Work-Based Learning in Higher Education, was published with Routledge in 2024.

You can find me on Bluesky, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and I also have a limited presence on ResearchGate. My University of Glasgow staff profile is here and my School of Computing Science webpage is here.