May 30, 2014 –
From left, team members Gamboa, Tran, Han and Bediones celebrate. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision for the Television Academy/AP Images)
Designing an iPad game that teaches children the basics of the human digestive system doesn’t sound terribly glamorous. But for Cathy Tran, a UC Irvine fourth-year doctoral student in the School of Education, who leads the project under the auspices of UCI’s Multidisciplinary Design Program, it led to a visit to the red carpet visit and a red-letter night.
The site of Tran’s Hollywood moment was the Television Academy’s Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in the San Fernando Valley, where on April 23, she was presented with a prestigious award at the 35th annual College Television Awards ceremony for her efforts on the “Down with Food” project.
Tran was one of four recipients from across the country of this year’s $10,000 Mister Rogers Memorial Scholarship for those working in children’s media and development; her award was designated for “new media.”
The Mister Rogers award is administered by the Television Academy Foundation and Ernst & Young to advance the values and principles of late children’s television star Fred Rogers by supporting graduate students pursuing careers in children’s media. The College Television Awards, presented by the Academy’s Foundation, also awarded prizes for excellence in video, digital and film work produced by college students.
“It was fun … and very fancy,” says Tran of the awards ceremony, where she singled out MDP, which is co-sponsored by CALIT2 and UCI’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, in her acceptance speech.
“Down with Food” started during MDP’s inaugural year. Tran has led the multidisciplinary team, along with two fellow graduate students, since its inception 2-1/2 years ago.
The team, which now includes seven undergraduates, has made mighty progress. The game has evolved from storyboards to a series of mini-games to a narrated mobile storybook in which games are embedded. Prototypes continue to be tested with children, leading to a number of design changes and game upgrades. And the student researchers have published papers and presented their work at prestigious conferences in the U.S. and abroad.
Andy Sale of Ernst & Young, presents Tran with the Mister Rogers Memorial Scholarship. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision for the Television Academy/AP Images)
Tran, who brought team members Christine Bediones, James Gamboa and Martha Han with her to the ceremony, will use the $10,000 award to continue game development. She expects the project to be completed within a year, and eventually hopes to market the game through Apple’s App Store.
In addition to the prize money, Tran found an unexpected benefit included with her award. At a pre-ceremony luncheon, she met one of the competition’s judges, television producer Nancy Steingard, who was impressed enough with the “Down with Food” game to offer her assistance. Steingard, who executive-produced the “Pound Puppies” series as well as a “Harriet the Spy” movie and other children’s programming, offered to provide ongoing feedback and even offered to visit Irvine to mentor the team.
“She was great – super-supportive and very encouraging,” says Tran.
The Mister Rogers Memorial Scholarship is not the only prestigious award in Tran’s collection; she is also a recent recipient of a highly competitive $25,000 National Academy of Education Spencer Dissertation Fellowship.
“This is a really big deal. It’s a very prestigious award that goes across disciplines so everyone is competing for the same award,” said AnneMarie Conley, Tran’s MDP mentor, advisor and co-chair of her dissertation committee. “Basically, the review committee is saying ‘your dissertation idea is fantastic.’ Among academics, it’s hard to think of a more coveted award for a grad student at this stage of her career than the Spencer.”
Conley, who added that Tran’s efforts on “Down with Food” have played a large role in her ongoing dissertation work, is not surprised by her protégé’s many achievements. “Cathy is incredibly bright and extremely motivated,” she said. “Her work is at the forefront of innovative and emerging research in multiple fields, and her energy and insight are astonishing.”
— Anna Lynn Spitzer
Editor’s Note: Tran encourages parents whose children might be interested in testing the most recent version of the “Down with Food” app to contact her at cathy.tran@uci.edu. “We would love more kid expertise to inform our project and help with its development,” she says.
