Jonathan Ehrich Email & Phone Number

Redmond, Washington, United States

I currently lead research efforts in support of Undead Labs, the studio responsible for the State of Decay franchise, while also overseeing various products for Xbox Game Studios' Publishing team. This work has included providing insights to the studio on larger strategic initiatives, the defining features and experiences of the State of Decay franchise, player motivations, partnership on initiatives to improve studio culture, as well as research support for various game titles in development.User Research Project Lead game credits:Crackdown 3Ori and the Will of the WispsState of Decay 2: Juggernaut EditionAra: History UntoldOther UR credits:Rise of the Tomb RaiderGiganticDead Rising 4Other key contributions:- Drove development of panels used to recruit participants for most Xbox Research studies, including our first-ever panel of game developers, and drove improvements to participant gender balance and ethnic diversity- Expanded competitive research program by building out post-release survey support of all first party titles, standardizing the XR Monthly Pulse program to support live service titles and game services like Game Pass, and expanding the XR player motivations database- Co-developed Xbox Research's telemetry data analytics and survey contact list generation service- Developed LITE, a modified RITE method optimized to generate high quality usability data for games with complex systems that require long-term engagement to achieve mastery

Redmond, Wa

Redmond, Washington, United States

Greater Seattle Area

Design and carry out qualitative and quantitative experiments to understand the user experience of games across all phases of development, translate data into actionable findings, and relay them to product teams.Project history:* Rise of the Tomb Raider (Xbox One, 2015)* Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta (2015)* Minecraft VR (Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR, 2016)* Gigantic (Xbox One and PC, 2016)* Dead Rising 4 (Xbox One and PC, 2016)

Prepared manuscripts across all neuroscience topics for journal submission by proofreading, copyediting, and reviewing for logical flow, scientific impact, and persuasiveness.

Greater Seattle Area

How does exposure to stress alter the rewarding properties of addictive drugs? What mediates the ability of stress to induce a dysphoric state? The evidence suggests a key role in the ability of the Kappa Opioid Receptor to modulate dopamine signaling. However, the mechanism also appears to be much more complicated than a basic model mediated by KOR-induced inhibition of dopamine release. For my graduate research, I have attempted to clarify our understanding of this mechanism.As such, I oversaw two parallel series of experiments studying pharmacological and molecular mechanisms of decision making through four phases: Hypothesis, Experimental Design, Data Collection, and Writing/Publication for a long-term project with a total five-year budget of $1.4 million. These projects resulted in publication of two primary research papers written by me, representing work of fifteen people from four separate labs, and I presented data from these projects at six different conferences. I also improved lab financial and experimental efficiency by introducing a collaborative document-sharing system to track supply usage and maintain protocol consistency along with a collaborative scheduling system to track use of limited research space.• I used in vivo fast-scan cyclic voltammetry to functionally dissect mesolimbic subcircuits and demonstrate that kappa opioid receptor-induced changes in dopamine signaling can model stress-induced, proaddictive increases in cocaine reward. Results published in Neuropsychopharmacology.• Using in vivo and in vitro fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, behavioral assays, directed viral gene expression, in vivo electrophysiology, and transgenic mouse models, I identified a key role for kappa opioid receptor-stimulated activation of p38 MAPK in dopamine neurons in mediating stress-induced aversive and prodepressive behaviors. Results in preparation for submission to Nature Neuroscience.

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

How does the brain create neural representations of haptically explored objects? One hypothesis proposes that complex shapes are synthesized from a series of geometric primitives. While collaborating with the lab of Martha Flanders, I was a primary researcher and oversaw a series of psychophysical experiments from the hypothesis phase through to the writing/publication phase.Practically, this involved the creation of interactive graphic user interfaces in Matlab and Labview, design of shapes intended for haptic exploration utilizing a manipulandum, and programming for the manipulandum itself in UNIX. The results of these experiments were published in IEEE Transactions on Haptics, and were also presented at two conferences.

Minneapolis, Mn

Performed behavioral assays studying interactions between stress responses during morphine withdrawal and reward. Results published in Neuropsychopharmacology.

Saint Paul And Minneappolis, Mn

I assisted in setting up and tearing down laboratory activities and addressed student questions for BIOL 1001 (Evolution & Ecology), BIOL 1002W (Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology with writing emphasis), and NSCI 4015 (Neurobiology Laboratory I).

Saint Paul, Mn

Working full-time at an independent bookstore is basically training for a career as jack-of-all-trades. At the Hungry Mind (also known as Ruminator Books), my responsibilities included the following: maintaining the Fantasy & Science Fiction section (ordering new books / maintaining stock / returning books), managing the physical plant to keep the physical store itself and all of the computers on the network up and running, and a host of other jobs including receiving shipments and updating inventory, tracking down obscure small publishers to place special orders, and many more.

Ph.D., Neurobiology

Bs, Neuroscience, 3.90

Ba, Religious Studies

Activities and Societies: WMCN Radio, Macalester Gaming Society (Vice President), Macalester Anime Society (Librarian)