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Position title: Assistant Professor of Interactive Art, Performance & Games
Salary range: Commensurate with qualifications and experience; academic year (nine-month basis). A reasonable estimate for the annual salary of this position is $89,400 – $135,000.
Percent time: Full-time (100%)
Anticipated start: July 1, 2026, with the academic year beginning September 2026. Degree must be in hand by June 30th, 2026 for employment beginning on July 1, 2026 and beyond.
Application Window
Open date: September 15, 2025
Next review date: Friday, Nov 14, 2025 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)
Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.
Final date: Tuesday, Jun 30, 2026 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)
Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.
Position description
The Department of Performance, Play & Design (PPD), at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) invites applications for the position Assistant Professor of Interactive Art, Performance & Games in the Art & Design: Games & Playable Media BA Program (AGPM).
We are particularly looking for artists making games that are inclusive and interdisciplinary. This hire will play a major role in expanding our practice-based curriculum and help guide our community of creative practitioners.
PPD is a one-of-a-kind, uniquely interdisciplinary department that blends faculty in theater, performance studies, dance, game design, digital art, music and interactive media to create a shared environment for creative research. The department stands at the forefront of performance, play, and design in the fields of digital and analog games, digital art, digital performance and interactive media. Within this context, faculty continue to grow the AGPM program to develop innovative approaches to game design and game creation, to encourage artistic and experimental approaches to play, and to engage with contemporary issues and critical approaches to play and interactivity in order to push the bounds of interactive media.
AGPM faculty teach and collaborate across the university and beyond in research and creative fields such as art, earth and planetary sciences, feminist studies, critical race and ethnic studies, film and digital media, music, and digital art and new media. We are particularly looking for artists making games whose work is at the intersection of two or more of the above disciplinary fields. This position will contribute to our core curriculum, which includes such classes as Aesthetic Designs, Games as Art and Activism, and Designing Experiences. This position also allows for the development of upper division elective courses in our three core categories of Craft Refinement, Social Interventions, and Performance/Portfolio/Exhibition. See a full list of our courses.
The AGPM program is committed to inclusive teaching and mentoring pedagogies and creating a learning environment for undergraduate and graduate students that embraces all lived experiences. The successful candidate will engage in service at the program, department and campus-wide levels with a commitment to advancing inclusive excellence in all realms of institutional endeavor.
The ideal candidate’s application file will demonstrate the following achievements and practices: an established artistic and critical practice with emerging national and international impact, and a trajectory of prominence in the field of Interactive Art, Performance & Games; a history of engaging with a teaching philosophy that allows students to take creative risks and discover their unique voices; an approach to play as an artistic and humanitarian practice; and a deep understanding of the fields of game design and game studies through their research. We are particularly interested in candidates with a multidisciplinary research portfolio that includes areas such as games as art and social consciousness; virtual environments and ecological games; visual, audio, interface and narrative design; games as social practice; and the physical and embodied connection of games to play and performance.
UC Santa Cruz is a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI) with a high proportion of first-generation and low-income students. We welcome candidates who can clearly articulate how their research teaching, mentoring, creative/professional activity, and service can contribute towards building an inclusive scholarly community that maximizes student success.
Performance, Play & Design Department: https://play.ucsc.edu/