By day, Ellen Burns-Johnson is a learning experience designer (LXD) and consultant. With more than a decade of experience in the education and training industries, she has crafted the instructional strategy and design for dozens of major initiatives across diverse topics, from classroom safety to IT sales. Emphasizing collaboration and playfulness in her approach to creating learning experiences, Ellen’s work has earned multiple awards for interactivity and gameful design.

By night (and on the weekends) Ellen stays as plugged into the Twin Cities Gamedev scene as she’s able to, contributing to game jam teams and local projects. She was a level designer and “explosion czar” on Widget Satcheland a designer/producer for a few different Ludum Dare and Global Game Jam teams.

Ellen lives in Saint Paul with her husband Eric and their two dogs, Dante and Pixel. Ellen is terrible at racing games, she always picks the sniper build, and she loves a good puzzle/platformer.