Federico Alvarez Igarzábal is a game studies scholar researching the time in video games with a mixed approach that combines theoretical and experimental methods. He concluded his PhD in 2018 at the Institute of Media Culture and Theatre of the University of Cologne and the Cologne Game Lab of the TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences. His thesis “Time and Space in Video Games. A Cognitive-Formalist Approach” was published by transcript in 2019.
After his PhD he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, working in the EU-funded VIRTUALTIMES project. The aim of this project was to create virtual reality environments to diagnose and treat psychopathologies such as depression through the manipulation of time perception. Some of Federico’s further research interests include philosophy of art and the theory of play.