USA TODAY is out this week with an interesting article featuring the work of MacArthur Foundation Fellow Constance Steinkuehler, an Assistant Professor in the Educational Communications & Technology program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — who’s on assignment for 18 months as a Senior Policy Analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to study video games that improve health, education, civic engagement and the environment, among other areas.
According to the USA TODAY piece:
If you’re training for a new job someday soon with a video game controller in your hands, thank Constance Steinkuehler.
This summer, when your kids’ favorite science museum boasts a new augmented-reality environmental simulation? Same deal.
If in the next few years a video game teaches you anything — how to conserve energy, eat a balanced diet or solve quadratic equations — consider the invisible hand of one of the most unconventional White House hires in recent memory.
Steinkuehler studies video games. Since last September, she has been a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she’s shaping the Obama administration’s policies around games…
![DARPA announces Proposers Day for new PERFECT program [image courtesy DARPA].](http://www.cccblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/darpa.gif "DARPA announces Proposers Day for new PERFECT program [image courtesy DARPA].")
![The 2012 Go Viral to Improve Health Challenge [image courtesy IOM/NAE].](http://www.cccblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/hdilogo1.jpeg "The 2012 Go Viral to Improve Health Challenge [image courtesy IOM/NAE].")
