Three UGA PhD students honoured at the Scientific Game Jam in Tokyo

Accolade/Award Educational innovation
November 14, 2025 - November 16, 2025
Scientific Game Jam Tokyo
The Scientific Game Jam brings together PhD students of all nationalities and students of all levels—programmers, graphic designers, sound designers, and more—to create video games inspired by their thesis topics. Three PhD students brilliantly represented UGA, returning with an impressive list of achievements.

This year, fifty participants, divided into nine interdisciplinary teams, took up the challenge: to transform, in a single weekend, the complexity of a young scientist's research work into a captivating video game. Once the language and disciplinary barriers had been overcome, each team used the skills of its members to bring science into play. Each team can be proud of the game they presented, which is a wonderful tool for disseminating knowledge to a wide audience.

Three PhD students from the Université Grenoble Alpes, whose travel expenses were funded by the French Embassy as part of the ‘Exploration Japon’ programme, participated in this edition with great success, as all three were awarded prizes with their teams.

Awards

  • Namazu's Fault team with Zaccaria El Yousfi (ED STEP, ISTerre), inspired by his research in seismology: Gold Pixel and Gameplay Pixel;
  • Novas Carbon Quest team with Mathilde Dehue (ED STEP, ISTerre), focused on reducing the carbon footprint of concrete: Sound Pixel;
  • Team Sensor Quest with Pauline Kiefer (ED ISCE, TIMC) based on a new generation of non-invasive blood glucose measurement technology: Pixel Science and Game.
All games are available at: https://itch.io/jam/scientific-game-jam-tokyo-2025

Scientific Game Jam Tokyo - Les équipes
From left to right: Namazu's Fault teams with Zaccaria El Yousfi, Carbon Quest teams with Mathilde Dehue, Sensor Quest teams with Pauline Kiefer

Scientific Game Jam - Tokyo - Equipe Namazu’s Fault avec Zaccaria El Yousfi



Awarding of the Golden Pixel to Zaccaria El Yousfi from the Namazu's Fault team
Published on  January 20, 2026
Updated on  January 20, 2026