Katryna Starks
Teaching Assistant Professor
PhD, Psychology, University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia
Research focus
Game studies, interactive narrative, and the psychology of serious games.
Biography
Katryna Starks is a teaching assistant professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include game studies, interactive narrative, and the psychology of serious games. With a doctorate in psychology from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, she focuses her research on how video games can be leveraged to foster health-promoting behaviors, influence player identity—particularly among youth and female players—and enhance learning through prosocial impact.
She is notably recognized for developing the "Cognitive Behavioral Game Design" (CBGD) framework, a model designed to integrate psychological principles into game mechanics for therapeutic and educational purposes. In addition to her research, she has played a pivotal role in academic curriculum design, including the co-development of a Bachelor of Serious Games and the creation of an interactive narrative minor. During her studies in Australia, The Guardian included her in a roundup of "people pushing Australian gaming forward."
In addition to her doctorate, Starks holds a BS in communications from Pepperdine University and an MS in psychology from Walden University.