Professional Experience
Assistant Professor @ SDU MMMI Metaverse Lab
2025-present
University of Southern Denmark
Odense, Denmark
Co-Founder, HCI/AI Lead @ Humanfeedback.ai
2025-present
Malta
Postdoctoral Fellow @ University of Malta, IDG
2022-2025
Msida, Malta
Senior Member of Technical Staff @ modl.ai
2022-2024
Msida, Malta/Copenhagen, Denmark
AI Researcher @ modl.ai
2021-2022
Msida, Malta/Copenhagen, Denmark
AI Research Consultant @ modl.ai
2019-2021
Msida, Malta/Copenhagen, Denmark
Research Support Officer @ University of Malta, IDG
2017-2022
Msida, Malta
Game Designer & UX Specialist @ benchmarked.games
2017
Budapest, Hungary
Education
Game Research - Doctor of Philosophy @ University of Malta, IDG
2017 - 2022
Msida, Malta
Supervisors: Prof. Georgios N. Yannakakis & Prof. Antonios Liapis
Thesis title: “The Anatomy of Gameplay: General Affect Prediction Across Games and Genres”
Cognition & Communication - Master of Arts @ University of Copenhagen
2013 - 2016
Copenhagen, Denmark
Supervisor: Prof. Andreas Lindegaard Gregersen
Thesis title: “Frustration and Adaptation”
Communication & Media Theory - BA Supplementary@ Corvinus University of Budapest
2012-2013
Budapest, Hungary
Political Science - Bachelor of Arts @ Pázmány Péter Catholic University
2008-2012
Piliscsaba, Hungary
Supervisor: Prof. Balázs Zoltán
Thesis title: “Legitimacy Crisis of the European Union”
Lecturing
Player Modeling: From Game Analytics to Affective Computing @ University of Malta, IDG
2017-2025
- 2017-2025: MSc Student Supervision
- 2020-2022:Introduction to Annotation and Preference Learning
- 2018-2022:Emotion Elicitation and Sensing
- 2018-2021:Tutorial on Preference Learning
- 2017-2021:Tutorial on Physiological Sensors
- 2017-2021:Tutorial on Feature extraction with Cameras
- 2017:Emotion Elicitation and Annotation
- 2017:Sensing for Emotion Detection
- 2017:Tutorial on Physiological Sensors
Game AI @ IDG, University of Malta
2019-2025
- 2019-2025:MSc Student Supervision
- 2019-2022:Tutorial on Monte-Carlo Tree Search
- 2021:Tutorial on Genetic Algorithms
Masterclass in Games @ Lusofona University
2024
- 2024:Orthogonal Decisions: Creating Meaningful Choices in TTRPG Systems
Affective AI Workshops @ University of Barcelona (Lusofona University)
2024
- 2024:Facial Expression Recognition - Learning How to Model Facial Expressions in Python
Methods for Games Research @ IDG, University of Malta
2017-2024
- 2017-2024:Qualitative Game Research Methodology
Editorial Experience
Associate Editor @ IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing
2025-present
Editorial Assistant @ IEEE Transactions on Games
2022-present
Review Editor @ Frontiers in Human-Media Interaction
2022-present
Guest Associate Editor @ Frontiers in Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour
2022
Special Issue of User States in Extended Reality Media Experiences for Entertainment Games
Seminar Participation
Dagstuhl Seminar Series
- 2025:The Future of Games is Society
- 2024:Computational Creativity for Game Development
- 2023:Game Measures and Player Experience
Public Talks
Keynote
- 2023:The Ethics of AI in Games
European Conference on Artificial Intelligence @ Ethics of Game AI Workshop (EGAI @ ECAI)
Panels
- 2024:AI in Games: How AI is Changing the Game Industry - Ethics in Game AI and Education
Lusófona University - 2023:Ethics of Game AI Round Table
European Conference on Artificial Intelligence - Ethics of Game AI Workshop (EGAI @ ECAI)
Presentations
- 2024:Ethics of AI in Games
Bernardo O'Higgins University, Chile - 2024:AI Ethics in Games
Keywords Studios — AI Conversations - 2023:The Ethics of AI in Games
International Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Games - 2023:Thinking Outside the Box: Cheap Ways to Squeeze More Out of Your Data
International Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Games
Awards & Nominations
AAAC Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award-Nominated (Runner Up)
2023
IEEE Conference on Games – Best Paper Award-Nominated (Runner Up)
2021
Melhart, D., Liapis, A., & Yannakakis, G. N. (2021). Towards General Models of Player Experience: A Study Within Genres. In Proceedings of IEEE CoG, Copenhagen, Denmark.
IEEE Conference on Games – Short Video Competition-3rd Place
2019
Team: David Melhart, Jasper Schellekens, Ahmad Azadvar, Alessandro Canossa, Antonios Liapis & Georgios N. Yannakakis
Organisational Experience
International Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Games
2018-present
Chief Coordinator, Head of Staff, Member of the Organizing Committee, and Publicity Chair
Roleplay Research Retreat
2023, 2025, present
Main Organizer
Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) Conference
2025
Web Chair
CHI-Play Workshop on Ethics and Transparency in Game Data
2024
Organizer
Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games
2020, 2022, 2023
- 2023:Member of the Organizing Committee, Workshop & Panels Chair
- 2022:Member of the Organizing Committee and Website Chair
- 2020:Communication Chair
Games And Learning Alliance Conference
2019
Communication & Promotion Chair
IEEE Conference on Games
2019
Member of the Program Committee for the Game Design, Analysis & Player Modelling, Demo, and Short Paper Tracks
EPIA Conference on Artificial Intelligence - AI for Games (AI4G) Track
2019
Member of the Program Committee
FDG2018 - 1st Workshop on Tabletop Games
2018
Web Design and Management