Born: 20 November 1950, United States
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is republished from the National Endowment for the Arts. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
In the early 1970s, Brenda Laurel was studying theater at Ohio State University. One night a friend invited her to take a look at some computer imaging he was working on, and that, as they say, changed everything. As she recalled, “I kind of fell to my knees and said, ‘Oh, my God, whatever this is, I want a piece of it.’” About a year later, that same friend founded Cybervision, an early computer game console company, and asked Laurel to work with him on creating interactive fairytales. Having since become heavily engaged in interactive theater, Laurel jumped at the chance. From there she moved on to Atari and several other companies in the video game arena.
But Laurel became frustrated with the tired chestnut she frequently encountered: that girls don’t play video games. So in the early 1990s, she undertook a research study to find out if and why that was true. She then used that research to springboard her own company Purple Moon, which developed games specifically for girls and helped prepare young women to join the computer age.
Today, Laurel has shifted her career from video games to interactive technology. Recent projects include developing a mixed-reality system for schoolyard gardens and working with the U.S. Department of Defense on how to use biofeedback wearables to combat post-traumatic stress.