Billy Cain has worked on hundreds of games over his career for such game companies as Electronic Arts, Sony, and THQ. He was a co-founder of BigSky Interactive, Critical Mass Interactive, and now Sneaky Games, a world-class game developer of Facebook games. He has spoken at many conferences and universities.

Chad is a veteran technical artist, animator, manager and director specializing in character animation for games and game cinematics. He has been creating character set-ups, MEL and Python scripts and tools as well as building art and animation pipelines. He is a two-time Autodesk
MasterClass presenter, adjunct instructor at Mount Ida College and also an advisory board member and past course director at Full Sail University. He continues to contribute to high quality game projects, focusing on art and animation pipelines and workflows. As a manager, he strives to cultivate a positive collaborative environment.

Over the last 5 years he has transitioned to a leadership role, first as a Lead, then Manager of animation at SCEA (Sony) and currently is the Technical Art Director at Turbine Games. He recently co-founded riggingmentor.com, to teach the art and science of character set up.

Tim Naylor has over 10 years of experience in the computer graphics industry, working with everything from virtual reality to high-end visual effects. He is currently a Lead Creature Technical Director at Industrial Light & Magic, with film credits that have included Transformers, on which he served as Creature Supervisor, overseeing the character setup and animation tools. Naylor also worked on Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest developing the key frame rigging system for Davy Jones' tentacles, and as a Sequence Supervisor and Development Lead on Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, where he was responsible for character setup, creating toolsets for creature artists and animators, pipeline development, and rigid body dynamics.

Before joining ILM, Tim was a Course Director at Full Sail, where he taught Maya to students in the Computer Animation Program. His curriculum covered character design, modeling, and setup.  He has also worked for defense contractors, specializing in virtual reality technology for sophisticated military training programs.

Sumer Ortiz is the University Relations manager at Blizzard Entertainment, a role that includes managing both the internship program and new graduate talent hires. She has been involved in education for 10 years, including being an adjunct faculty member at Santa Monica City College, California State University, Fresno, and Fresno City College. Sumer also served as an outreach recruiter and communications specialist in the California State University system for five years, and before entering the gaming industry, she managed the Southern California internship program at Google. Sumer has a degree in International Political Economics and a Master of Science in Counseling.

John Thornton graduated from Columbus College of Art & Design in 1989 with a BFA in Illustration. He received an internship with Walt Disney Feature Animation in 1993 and worked there creating hand-drawn effects animation on a string of high-profile films from The Lion King to Brother Bear.  In 2004, he migrated to Blue Sky Studios in metro New York City to create computer-generated effects, starting on Robots and working to his most recent credit, Rio.  In the summer of 2011, he left Blue Sky voluntarily to pursue other venues in animation and is currently working as a freelance animation professional.

Ryan has been in the video game industry for over five years, and has contributed his animation work to such titles as Wrestlemania 21, Quake 4, Wolfenstein, and Singularity. Before joining Raven Software, Ryan was a lab specialist at Full Sail and also worked in the motion graphics industry.

Jayme studied Fine Art at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Computer Science at the University of Akron, and Cinematography at Ohio State University Cranston Csuri Group (CCG). In his twenty-plus-year career, he has worked at various postproduction companies – as an industrial designer for Telxon Corporation designing portable computer equipment, at Alias|Wavefront using Autodesk® Maya® software in its earliest stages, and at Walt Disney Animation Studios where he contributed to projects like Lilo and Stitch, Brother Bear, and My Peoples as CGI lead/Technical Coordinator. He continued his career in CG animation at Electronic Arts/Tiburon where he worked as CGI Supervisor/Technical Art Director on such projects as NASCAR 2005, NASCAR 2006, and Madden 2006.

In 2006, Jayme joined Blue Sky Studios, and was Technical Supervisor on Ice Age: The Meltdown and Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears A Who. Jayme then supervised the stereoscopic 3D effort on Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Blue Sky’s first stereoscopic 3D film. Currently he is working as Stereographer/Stereoscopic Supervisor on their latest project, Rio.

Allison Powell is the Vice President for the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL). She worked for the Clark County School District in Nevada as the Coordinator for K12 Digital Content and Distance Education to develop an Online Professional Development Program and online content for teachers across the district. She is a past member of the NACOL Board of Directors and is a co-founder and board member of the Nevada Online Education Consortium, and currently serves as a board member of the Computer Using Educators of Southern Nevada and the Southern Nevada Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development chapter.

Wade Ammon is a Computer Graphics Producer and Director, holding degrees in Computer Animation, Computer Information Systems, and German. His passion for 3D Art started while he was working in the Architecture industry as a student in Munich, Germany. He later developed the CG Graphics Department at Humboldt State University's Center for Indian Community Development in Arcata, CA. He also helped redesign and teach the 3D Foundations course at Full Sail University. Working with Pendulum Studios in San Diego, he has produced commercial CG projects and many high-end game cinematics; he continues to serve there locally on art curriculum development committees. Wade most recently established the Game Art Outsourcing pipeline for the game publisher Trion World Network in San Diego, and is presently establishing a California-based production company.

Nate Howe is a freelance Art Director based in Los Angeles. As a freelancer Nate works with a diverse set of clients in film, television, advertising and music videos. Recently, FX Networks and Nate Howe have worked to rebrand and promote several of their hit shows including launching the look of Louie, rebranding and promoting It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and creating new styles and artistic directions for Rescue Me. Nate has also worked with TBS and Buster Design to create designs for the launch of Conan on the network, as well as with  Nickelodeon and Blur Studios to create designs for the 2010 Kids Choice Awards show. Beyond film and television, Nate has also worked on games such as Red Dead Redemption, creating designs for commercials and viral marketing. Some of Nate’s other notable clients have included American Idol, NBC, Disney, ABC, Showtime, NBA, NFL, Discovery Channel, Microsoft, and many others.