Steve Rabin's Game is Artificial Intelligence
Computer Science & Engineering Professional Master's Program
Steve Rabin remembers his first video game, a mini arcade version of Pac Man, a gift from his grandma when he was 7 years old. By age 11 he was programming games in Basic on his Commodore 64, and by age 17 he was working part-time in phone support as a game play counselor for Nintendo of America, a job he held through his college years as a computer engineering major at UW. He estimates he answered game-related questions for 100,000 Nintendo players.
It's no surprise he launched his career by working with a series of startup gaming companies here in Seattle, including Surreal Software, WizBang, and Gas Powered Games. He also organized and edited the AI Game Programming Wisdom series of books and has edited hundreds of articles on artificial intelligence game programming. By 1999 he was back at Nintendo, where he is a principal software engineer researching techniques and developing tools for the Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and next-generation game consoles. Rabin is an example of the highly accomplished professionals who are alumni of CSE's professional master's program (PMP). He entered six years after earning his BSCE.
"One reason I returned for a master's degree is that most of the people writing the books and articles I was editing had advanced degrees, so I thought my education should be on par with them, and I also wanted to expand my skills to further my work at Nintendo," Rabin said. "A business course focused on the software industry and managing technical staff was especially helpful to my supervisory work."
A course on human-computer interfaces also benefits his work developing tools for developers and a profiler for the Wii and 3DS hand-held system. He found courses on compilers and quantum computing to be interesting but tough. "I had no background for the complex math involved and often had to go talk with the professor. It's hard to learn about topics like quantum computing on your own, so hearing explanations from experts is great. All the professors in the PMP are leaders in their respective fields and they bring so much value to the courses," he said.
Before he even finished the PMP program, Rabin was invited to teach game AI courses in both the UW Game Development Certificate Program and at the DigiPen Institute of Technology.
I discovered I just loved teaching," he said, "and it turns out that earning a master's degree boosted my credentials to continuing on with teaching."
Rabin's reputation is such that he has served on a peer review panel to pick the best video games for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering for the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. He was a keynote speaker at the 2010 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games, held in Copenhagen, and in early 2011 delivered the keynote talk at a national MENSA conference, speaking on the impact of video games on society.
Rabin's favorite game is "Rock Band" because the whole family can play together. His son and daughter both play guitar, his wife sings, and he plays drums. With four players, hundreds of songs, and a fog machine, it's a family favorite.
Master of Computer Science & Engineering
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- Complete the 40-credit program by taking one 4-credit course and a 1-credit colloquium session each quarter over two years.
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