About
A brief description of who you are and what you do.
This section will only display on your public profile if you’ve added content.
You can update this in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading and then ‘Curriculum and research description’, select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select - ‘About’.
Write about yourself in the third person. Aim for 100 to 150 words covering the main points about who you are and what you currently do. Clear, simple language is best. You can include specialist or technical terms.
You’ll be able to add details about your research, publications, career and academic history to other sections of your staff profile.
Research
Research interests
- Games for Social Impact and Wellbeing – designing and studying games that address societal challenges, foster change, and support collective futures.
- Human Behaviour and Interaction Design – investigating rituals, gestures, mental models, and social and cultural values in digital and physical interfaces.
- Participatory and Co-Design Methods – developing inclusive design practices that foreground collaboration, diversity, and underrepresented voices.
- Playful Technologies – from data and wearables to alternative controllers for memorable experiences.
Current research
- Participatory and Role-Playing Game Design – exploring citizen agency, democratic decision-making, expansive learning, empathy, and community building.
- Youth, Parenthood, and Kinship in Play – investigating how games foster agency, hope, and empathy across generations and contexts.
- Immersive and Interaction Design – designing meaningful experiences through technologies, interfaces, and playful practices.
You can update the information for this section in Pure (opens in a new tab).
Research groups
Any research groups you belong to will automatically appear on your profile. Speak to your line manager if these are incorrect. Please do not raise a ticket in Ask HR.
Research interests
Add up to 5 research interests. The first 3 will appear in your staff profile next to your name. The full list will appear on your research page. Keep these brief and focus on the keywords people may use when searching for your work. Use a different line for each one.
In Pure (opens in a new tab), select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading 'Curriculum and research description', select 'Add profile information'. In the dropdown menu, select 'Research interests: use separate lines'.
Current research
Update this in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’ and then ‘Curriculum and research description - Current research’.
Describe your current research in 100 to 200 words. Write in the third person. Include broad key terms to help people discover your work, for example, “sustainability” or “fashion textiles”.
Research projects
Research Council funded projects will automatically appear here. The active project name is taken from the finance system.
Publications
Public outputs that list you as an author will appear here, once they’re validated by the ePrints Team. If you’re missing any outputs that you’ve added to Pure, they may be waiting for validation.
Supervision
Current PhD Students
Contact your Faculty Operating Service team to update PhD students you supervise and any you’ve previously supervised. Making this information available will help potential PhD applicants to find you.
Teaching
- Design Thinking
- Games Design (TTRPGs, board games and videogames)
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Creative Research Methods
- Games User Research
You can update your teaching description in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading and then ‘Curriculum and research description’ , select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select – ‘Teaching Interests’. Describe your teaching interests and your current responsibilities. Aim for 200 words maximum.
Courses and modules
Contact the Curriculum and Quality Assurance (CQA) team for your faculty to update this section.
External roles and responsibilities
You can update your external roles and responsibilities in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘+ Add content’ and then ‘Activity’, your ‘Personal’ tab and then ‘Activities’. Choose which activities you want to show on your public profile.
You can hide activities from your public profile. Set the visibility as 'Backend' to only show this information within Pure, or 'Confidential' to make it visible only to you.
Biography
Vanissa Wanick is a Senior Lecturer in Interaction Design at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She holds a PhD in Design from the University of Southampton, an MBA in Marketing from Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), and a BA in Design from PUC-Rio, Brazil.
Her research explores the intersections of game design, human–computer interaction (HCI), and creative technologies, with a focus on participatory and playful approaches to civic engagement, diversity, sustainability, and cross-cultural design. She has published widely on topics including game design methods (both analogue and digital games), user experience, immersive technologies (VR/AR/XR), and design for behaviour change.
With more than a decade of international experience in digital and user experience design, Vanissa has collaborated with industry and community partners in Brazil and the UK. She has also contributed to major international conferences, including CHI PLAY, GALA, Graphica, and SBGames. She currently serves as a board member of the Serious Games Society and as a Women in Games Ambassador. She is also a member of the UKYA, an initiative supported by the Royal Society.
Vanissa is co-founder and co-director of Nucleolus Software, a spin-out studio established in 2020 that creates games for social good.
Prizes
- Technology Advancement Award (2025)
You can update your biography section in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select your ‘Personal’ tab then ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading, and ‘Curriculum and research description’, select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select - ‘Biography’. Aim for no more than 400 words.
This section will only appear if you enter the information into Pure (opens in a new tab).
Prizes
You can update this section in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘+Add content’ and then ‘Prize’. using the ‘Prizes’ section.
You can choose to hide prizes from your public profile. Set the visibility as ‘Backend’ to only show this information within Pure, or ‘Confidential’ to make it visible only to you.