Ryan M. Moeller earned his PhD from the University of Arizona, where he studied the cultural and pedagogical import of video and computer games with Ken McAllister, a leader in this groundbreaking new field. He is principal investigator for the Learning Games Initiative (LGI), an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional consortium made up of scholars and researchers studying computer games and gaming culture. As Assistant Professor of rhetoric and technology in the English department at Utah State University he employs a teaching philosophy that emphasizes play, through games or writing, as critical to the social process of learning.