hej!

My name is David Melhart, I'm an Assistant Professor at the Metaverse Lab of the Southern University of Denmark (SDU), where I teach Game Design and Game AI, and research how games and interactive experiences can support people with ADHD and autism by improving attention, self-management, and care. I earned my PhD at the University of Malta in 2022, under the supervision of Georgios N. Yannakakis and Antonios Liapis. After my studies, I was part of the team at the Institute of Digital Games (IDG), University of Malta as a Postdoctoral Fellow, until 2025. I joined the team at modl.ai (a tech startup specialising in AI-driven quality assurance for games) in 2019, first as an AI Researcher, and later as a Senior Engineer. I was working at modl.ai until 2024, helping to grow the company from a Startup to Series A. In 2025, I joined the SDU Metaverse Lab as an Assistant Professor. Earlier in the same year, I co-founded HumanFeedback.ai with Georgios N. Yannakakis, Daniele Gravina, and Lars Henriksen, where we build platforms for fast, reliable, and time-continuous human feedback on video and other dynamic content.

My research focuses on the intersections of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Affective Computing in User Modelling and Games. I have experience in Game Design and Development, leveraging a strong theoretical background in Self-Determination Theory, Intrinsic Motivation, Flow Theory, and Cognitive Science. I am very interested in the hierarchical structures of experiences and working on projects that can help us understand how we cognitively structure play. My technical expertise extends to Human-in-the-Middle Annotation methods, Games User Research, and building Adaptive and Emotionally Intelligent Systems. I have developed a rigorous approach to research design and building data collection pipelines.

My expertise in these domains allowed me to support researchers far beyond my own reach. The tools I have built, the experimental games I have developed, and the datasets I have collected and compiled were received remarkably well by the HCI and Affective Computing community, enabling research in Deep Learning, Sentiment Analysis, Attention Research, Affective Computing, and Games Research. My annotation software, PAGAN, attracted almost 300 projects from over 40 institutions around the globe including academic institutions and industrial labs. At the IDG, PAGAN alongside my dataset called the Affect Game AnnotatIoN dataset (published in the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing) is still iterated on and used today to enable the next generation of PhD students to accelerate their own research.

Beyond research and work, I am Chief Coordinator of the International Summer School Series on AI and Games since 2018, responsible for communication, coordination, finance, and screening and selecting candidates for multiple successful scholarship schemes. Over the years the Summer School has attracted well over 1000 participants from over 30 countries, at times even outnumbering major Game AI conferences. Through organising the Summer School I was able to develop my organisational skills and build meaningful relationships across the games industry.

In my free time, I play and design Table-Top Role Playing Games (TTRPG). I have been playing TTRPGs since 2002, mostly as a Game Master (GM). In addition to being a grognard player and GM, together with Antonios Liapis and Jasper Schellekens I also create small weird roleplaying games and scenarios as part of the Goblin Goulash art collective.