I'm Joel Gonzales. I received my Masters in Computer Science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. While working on those, I started a student group called The Student Video Game Alliance - SVGA. I started it because there were no classes about game development and I wanted to change that. The computer science department was very receptive to the idea and as a graduate student I got to research the various classes that would have to be part of it. While I'm no longer at the university, the "Video Game Design & Production" concentration has expanded to cover 3 classes and growing. These days, I'm a contractor for game companies doing programming and research. I also give talks at universities and events about game related subjects.