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Game in Lab honors its women researchers on the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science

Game in Lab honors its women researchers on the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science

In 2015, February 11 was chosen to be the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. With the adoption of Resolution 70/212, the United Nations General Assembly aims to promote access to, and full and equitable participation in, the sciences for women and girls. Game in Lab shines a spotlight on its women researchers on this important day. 

Women in science

Since its creation in 2018, Game in Lab has been encouraging and supporting research on board games, welcoming women doctoral students under a CIFRE contract, and financing international research projects on board games. 

While UNESCO reports that currently only 33% of researchers worldwide are women––which says a great deal about the inequalities that continue to persist in the fields of research and science––Game in Lab seems more willing to work toward parity as 45% of the researchers it supports are women. 

Elsa Brais, Gray Atherton, Melissa Rogerson, Chloé Germaine, Anick Pelletier, Léa Martinez, Ariela Holanda, Marion Sourd, Rebecca Sayeck, Gabrielle Trépanier Jobin, etc.: Game in Lab is proud to honor all these women of science on February 11 every year. 

Two researchers specializing in metacognition

Two of our researchers––Léa Martinez, a doctoral student in cognitive psychology, and Anick Pelletier, orthopedagogue, founder of Optineurons Clinic and leader of the JeuMETACOGITE research project––are studying the impact of games on cognitive functions. 

Léa Martinez

Léa Martinez

Supported by Game in Lab, Léa Martinez is preparing a thesis at the CeRCA laboratory of the University of Poitiers. Focusing on “the impact of playing board games on the development of cognitive functions”, her research project aims to better understand the links between playing board games and the development of certain cognitive functions, which are essential in many cases of learning. Léa Martinez has presented the progress of her research at international events on several occasions, including at Educators’ Day in Essen, Germany, and at ESCOP, an international cognitive sciences congress. She has also published an often-cited article on entertaining games and learning at school. 

Anick Pelletier

Anick Pelletier

For twenty years, Anick Pelletier has been using assessment and remediation in her work with students with physical disabilities or with adaptation or learning difficulties (EHDAA).
Since beginning her work in the educational field, she has developed expertise in the complete treatment of executive functions and other cognitive and instrumental functions necessary to develop learning, thereby creating pedagogy using the OptiFex game.
In partnership with Game in Lab, she is conducting a research project evaluating the effects of the JeuMETACOGITE program in schools on self-regulation in primary school students (aged nine and ten) through a metacognitive approach using board games. She also participated in the discussions and research that led to the creation of Access+, a range of adapted games for people with cognitive impairment. 

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    Generation Analog 2025 - PUNK

    Analog Game Studies and Game in Lab are happy to announce the return of Generation Analog for the fifth year in a row. The online event is free and open to the public with registration. All presentations will be recorded and made available after the event AGS YouTube’s channel.   This edition will explore Punk through games. Questionning Punk attitude, aesthetics, mode, legacy and histories in play. The conference will examine mechanics, genres, platforms, stories embracing the Punk spirit.   The event also aims to to highlight recover, remember, and reinvigorate the stories, voices, bodies, places, practices, and play of those forgotten and marginalized. Give back a place to forms of play and universes too often set aside, promoting alternative, subversive or experimental dynamics of play.   Generation Analog 2025 is open to researchers, teachers, artists, professionals and curious minds altogether!
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    Multiplatform 2025: Rituals of Play - Shaping Alternative Futures with Games and Occulture

    The Manchester Game Centre and Game in Lab, in collaboration with DVRK – the Dark Arts Research Kollective, are proud to present Multiplatform 2025, a symposium exploring the intersections of games, play, and contemporary occulture. Held at the Burgess Foundation and the MMU Arts and Humanities Building on 12–13 June 2025, this edition focuses on the ritualistic and speculative dimensions of play and how they can help shape alternative social, political, and cultural futures. Bringing together academics, designers, engineers, and artists, Multiplatform 2025 examines how games are increasingly entangled with mysticism, esotericism, and ritual. From analog role-playing games to immersive digital experiences, the symposium explores how these practices enable forms of worldbuilding that go beyond narratives and offer new perspectives on play and society. Participants will have the opportunity to experience The Museum of Lost Futures, an immersive game experience, and to attend talks by leading figures such as Jeff Howard, Associate Professor of Games and Occulture at Falmouth University, and Rob Donkin, game designer of Strange Horticulture. Researchers, designers, educators, artists, students, and all curious minds are invited to register and delve into the mysteries of games and occult play.
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    Generation Analog 2024

    Analog Game Studies and Game in Lab are proud to announce Generation Analog 2024, to be held on 24 and 25 July 2024. The online event is free and open to the public upon registration. All presentations will be recorded and made available after the event. Check out the presentations from previous years on AGS’s YouTube channel.    The theme of this year’s conference will be “HOME”, exploring games and home, play and home, playing at home, being stuck at home, playing with others, and playing alone at home. It will examine playing at home, play(ful) rooms, game rooms, gaming tables, home squares, home bases, home teams, home brews, house rules, and play as (sometimes) “safe as houses.” Finally, it will imagine alternative domesticities, materialities and economies, found families and gaming groups, and even queer(er) and more radical places, spaces, and possibilities of play.    Home is not only about shelter and stability but also a sense of personal, cultural and political connection and recognition, from our communities and a larger public…[and] the many ends that home may serve—the normative and the queer, constraint and liberation, isolation and community… Making a queerer home means recognizing the material, psychological, and cultural meanings embedded in the everyday practice of homemaking––neither to deny nor reify its power and primacy, but to question and expand its limits.    Here are some of the ideas that are expected to be discussed at this conference. Board games, role-playing games and even children’s games are all extraordinary spaces for exploring these questions, as they require a conversation about who is playing, how they are playing, why they are playing and what they are playing.    Researchers, teachers, artists, postgraduate students and curious intellectuals are invited to submit proposals for Generation Analog 2024. Designers, educators and researchers at all stages of their careers are also encouraged to apply.