Emilie Butt
Lecturer
MS, Library and Information Science, Illinois
Other professional appointments
- Instruction and Engagement Coordinator, CU Community Fab Lab
Research focus
Tabletop and escape games, games and learning, game design and experiential learning. Community engagement, youth services, makerspace and youth maker practices, new media and digital literacies, media analysis and critique, and identity formation and performance.
Honors and Awards
- Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement
Biography
Emilie Butt is a makerspace and game design educator with specialties in escape room design, board games, game literacies, art, and community engagement with a focus on youth and teen services. She currently has eight years’ experience developing and teaching courses around makerspaces/makerspace librarianship, board games, escape rooms, and introductory game design; prior to teaching at the university level, she worked in teen services librarianship and makerspace programming for teens.
Her current interests center around course design for experiential and project-based learning that support the growth of key design and learning skills in students, particularly those around collaboration, communication, critical thinking and handling ambiguity. She is also interested in how these experiences affect students’ self-concept, identity, and evaluation of their own capacities.
Presentations
Butt, E., and Drake, A. "Building an after-school board games program to support children's social emotional and learning skills." Play Make Learn. University of Wisconsin. July 2026. Madison, WI. Lecture.
Butt, E., and Drake, A. "The Framework of an After-School. Games Program to Support Learning Skills Development" Play Make Learn. University of Wisconsin. July 2026. Madison, WI. Poster Presentation.
Butt, E., and Drake, A. "Analog Game Jam." Play Make Learn. University of Wisconsin. July 2026. Madison, WI. Workshop.
Koh, K., Teasdale, R., and Butt, E. “National Forum to Connect and Advance Library Makerspaces” Makerspaces for Innovation and Research in Academics Conference. Online. July 2025.
“Libraries & Makerspaces as Centers of Creativity and Design” Playful by Design Symposium. Moderator and Panelist. Urbana, IL. October 2023. Panel Presentation.
Koh, K., Butt, E., Dunn, J. “Everything you need to know to start a Makerspace.” Learning Technology Center of Illinois. August 2022. Webinar.