As a Research Fellow at Coventry University's Serious Games Institute, Dr. Dunwell has recently completed the evaluation of the Department for Transport's £2.5m Code of Everand serious game for road safety. As a multiplayer online roleplaying environment, this game sought to create communities amongst its players as a basis for social learning.

As lead author of the project's final evaluation report, he co-ordinated in-depth qualitative and quantitative research to gain insight into the game's 100,000 user base. Technical research interests include the application of semantic web technologies to populate games with validated and context-sensitive educational content: as a co-investigator on the ALICE (Adaptive Learning via Interactive, Collaborative, and Emotional Approaches) FP7 STREP, his work has explored the integration of serious games with learning content management systems, exploring the pedagogic as well as technical advantages of such approaches.

As of January 2012, he has begun directing a PhD studentship fully funded by Jaguar Land Rover, examining the use of avatars as vehicle interfaces, and is principal investigator of an I-CASE studentship in liaison with industrial partner PlayGen, exploring the use of the semantic web as a resource for serious game development.

My key research interests lie in the assessment and evaluation of game-based learning solutions, and how best to feed this research into pragmatic and participatory design processes. Having worked extensively across industrial and academic research projects, my goal is to generate a deep understanding of how games can be best applied and designed to address educational, behavioural, or technical goals, and support industry across sectors in translating academic evidence to commercial and industrial success.