Maria Shurupova
M.F.A. – 3rd Year
Game Design | Storrs
Hometown: Rostov-on-Don, Russia
UConn location: 119 Bishop Center
Email: laiskusn7@gmail.com / maria.shurupova@uconn.edu
Website: https://toaddoesnot.wixsite.com/portfolio
M.F.A. – 3rd Year
Assistantship: DMD
Education: B.A. in Game Design and Virtual Reality, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, 2021
Language(s) Spoken: Русский (Russian)
Area of Research / Artistic Focus: Serious Games, Game Studies, Game Development
Maria is a 3r year M.F.A. candidate and graduate assistant in the DMD department. In 2021 she graduated from the prestigious HSE Art and Design School in Russia, which has one of the few game design programs in the country. During her undergraduate studies, Maria spent a semester abroad at Uppsala University in Gotland, Sweden studying game design on a remote island in the middle of the Baltic Sea with students from around the world.
During her undergraduate studies, Maria completed 12 individual projects, including board games, interactive novels, and 2D and 3D video games. It was ultimately this experience that made her an indie developer, as she did everything involved in game design – the animation, programming, graphic design, and even sound design on her own, which brought her to study game design at UConn. While she enjoys all aspects of the game creation process, she prefers taking a leadership role and bringing all of the aspects and assets together.
Maria has been involved in volunteering activities and found passion in creating Games for Change, and her senior thesis project addressed climate change. Now, she continues to devote her Master’s degree studies to researching and developing digital media solutions to other pressing issues the world is facing today.
Recent Achievements:
- HSE Graduation With Honors (2021)
- HSE Endowment Fund Scholarship for Academic Excellence (2020)
- Finalist in Computer Games Scriptwriting in ArtMasters National Competition, Russia (2020)
Fun Fact: I once was the head of a student environmental organization, where my team and I manually sorted around 1000 lbs of plastic bottles.
