Marieke van Rooijonline
Short bio
Assistant prof. and data geek at the GEMH lab, dynamical modelling, personalisation, wants to put the I back into AI, news junkie, cat lover.
Top-3 games
- DEEP
- Fireboy and Watergirl
- Elder Sign
"It’s all fun and games until someone divides by zero"
About me
I am assistant professor at the Games for Emotional and Mental Health Lab and the department of Developmental Psychopathology. I have a cross-disciplinary background and received both my B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from Delft University of Technology, where I later also held my first postdoc postdoc position in Affective Computing. I received my Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cincinnati, OH. My research interests include nonlinear dynamical systems modelling, applied games, and behavioural and clinical change processes. My specific focus is on the analysis of in-game behaviour and physiological states towards real-time personalization of game interventions for children and adolescents with mental health problems (work that is supported by a ZonMw Off-Road grant). I am involved in many of the GEMH Lab projects and the daily supervision of several of its students.
Projects I’ve worked on
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CategoryAnxietyDate19/06/2019Study/CourseLocation
Biofeedback Videogames for Anxiety Regulation
About the projectThis project aims to develop and assess the use of biofeedback videogames to help youth cope with stress and anxiety. In addition it aims to identify physiological markers and patterns of emotion regulation. The current studies within this project focus on exploring the potential of the virtual reality biofeedback game DEEP where players use deep diaphragmatic breathing to move through a beautiful underwater world.
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CategoryAnxietyDate19/06/2019Study/CourseLocation
Gaming Against Anxiety: New Methodology for Personalized Game Interventions
About the projectAnxiety disorders are among the most common psychopathologies in children. This project investigates the effects of a biofeedback virtual reality game (DEEP) on breathing and anxiety-related symptoms in anxious children and develops new algorithms to detect changes in the player’s behavior during the game. The aim is to enable game interventions that are personalized to each individual child.
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CategoryDepressionDate30/10/2017Study/CourseLocation
Sampling Information on Social Media & Mental Health
About the projectHuman beings are only able to perceive and process a limited amount of information, and we have evolved to sample parts of information and attempt to draw accurate and workable conclusions based on this sample available to us. Especially social information is particularly salient and, we believe, strongly related to mental health outcomes. Social media are immensely popular, and - as it happens - an immensely dense source of social information. In this project, we investigate what sort of information and experiences young people encounter on these social media, and how these things relate to their mental wellbeing.
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CategoryResilienceDate19/06/2019Study/CourseLocation
Reducing Stress Through Virtual Social Support
About the projectPeople with large social networks on average live longer, happier, less stressed lives. We can potentially leverage video games and virtual spaces to increase the experience of social support and impact daily stress and anxiety. Therefore, this project aims to show that virtual social support can lower stress, and potentially impact stress coping behaviours.
My updates
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@Marieke van Rooij - 21-09-2018
RT @AniekWols: Thanks to everyone who attended our symposium today at #eara2018 'Promoting emotional resilience through games for emotional…
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Classic TED-talk worth watching
Marieke van Rooij - 08-09-2017Do schools kill our kids' creativity?
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Social media and young people’s mental health and wellbeing
Marieke van Rooij - 24-05-2017Report by the RSPH about the relationship between social media and young people’s mental health and wellbeing: https://www.rsph.org.uk/our-work/policy/social-media-and-young-people-s-mental-health-and-wellbeing.html
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Dungeons & Dragons as therapy?
Marieke van Rooij - 04-05-2017Check out this interesting article about using the tabletop roleplaying classic D&D to help kids improve their emotional and/or mental health.
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Vacancy for Research Assistant with Machine Learning Experience
Marieke van Rooij - 19-06-2019The GEMH Lab is looking for a full-time research assistant to model physiological data from players of a virtual reality biofeedback game using machine learning methodology.
Events View all events
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UNTILL23March25MarchAbout the event
International Convention of Psychological Science
LocationVienna, Austria
A large group of GEMH Lab members will be presenting our various study findings in a series of symposia, talks and poster sessions. We'll be sharing our latest findings, our challenges, our breakthroughs and, of course, our games!
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26FebruaryAbout the event
Games for Mental Health in the Lowlands
LocationKU Leuven
The symposium will be held in the renovated building 'Collegium Veteranorum'
My publications
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Marieke van Rooij on Google Scholar
Nonlinear Methods, Dynamical Systems Theory, Affective Computing, Applied Games
Author: Marieke van Rooij
Upload date: 06-19-2019
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DEEP: A Biofeedback Virtual Reality Game for Children At-risk for Anxiety
van Rooij, M., Lobel, A., Harris, O., Smit, N., & Granic, I. (2016). CHI'16 Extended Abstracts, May 07-12, 2016, San Jose, CA, USA
Author: Marieke van Rooij
Upload date: 05-07-2016
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Exploring the Role of Self-efficacy in Biofeedback Video Games
Weerdmeester, J., van Rooij, M., Harris, O., Smit, N., Engels, R. C., & Granic, I. (2017, October). Exploring the role of self-efficacy in biofeedback video games. In Extended Abstracts Publication of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (pp. 453-461). ACM.
Author: Joanneke Weerdmeester
Upload date: 10-15-2017
Worked together with
PhD-candidate interested in how and why applied games for mental health work.
PhD-Candidate
In house game designer, artist, producer and lover of games. I bring diversity, design experience and the NOISE!!!!
Creative Director
Researcher, psychologist, PhD-candidate, gamer, language enthusiast and lover of all things geeky.
PhD-Candidate
Professor and Chair of the Developmental Psychopathology department in the Behavioural Science Institute; writer; voracious podcast consumer; mother of two upstanding little gamers
Director of GEMH Lab
User Research Analyst at Ubisoft Montréal. My favorite games tell emotionally rich stories and challenge me to think differently
User Research Analyst
Graduate and psychologist interested in the effect of games on mental health. Likes why-questions, social impact and multidisciplinary collaboration. Bubbly, (not so crazy) cat lady and outdoor enthusiast.
Graduate
Assistant Professor at the Developmental Psychopathology Department, mainly interested in general processes and principles of clinical change; mother of two wild boys.
Assistant Professor
PhD Candidate passionate about psychopathology prevention, intrinsic motivation and the use of video games for this purpose. Loves to read, cook and making sure that bomb does not explode.
PhD-Candidate
PhD candidate interested in using social regulation of emotion and multidisciplinary game design to promote mental health in youth. Disheveled multi-tasker and provider of snacks.
PhD-Candidate
PhD candidate with a background in neuroscience, now combining her love of gaming with her interest in the brain and human behaviour. Collector of useless skills, photographer, illustrator, and ukulele player.
PhD-Candidate
Laurie Buitenhuis
Research Master's Student
Shengnan Chen
Research Master's Student
Niki Smit
Game Designer & Artist
Owen Harris
Game Designer, Teacher & Human
Nerd, loves the brain even more than your average zombie, into etymology and reading, drawn to anything tech-related, especially artificial intelligence. Wants to explore information sampling aspects of youth's social media use and how these experiences relate to young people's wellbeing.
PhD-Candidate