
The Computational Media Department (CM) engages in boundary-pushing research and education that integrates technical, interpretive, and design work to create human-centered media that address complex problems for societal impact.
These are the core values we hold, which form the foundation on which we perform work and conduct ourselves as scholars, researchers, and members of communities:
- Impactful: We create media, experiences and ways of understanding that have an impact in the world we live in.
- Socially responsible: We actively perform research and education that benefit society at large and advance social goals.
- Open: We embrace diverse ideas, disciplines, approaches, concepts, and methods in our work and community.
- Boundary-pushing: We are forward facing while being reflective of the past.
- Collegial: We engage in partnership across our communities in a respectful manner.
- Address “messy” problems: We are unafraid of handling real-world problems that are naturally messy.
#5
best undergraduate computer science specialty: game development programs (U.S. News & World Report, 2023)
1st
university in the country to offer a program in Serious Games
#5
best game/simulation development program in the nation (U.S. News & World Report, 2024)
9th
undergrad game design program (U.S. News and World Report 2022)
#5
top game design master’s programs (Animation Career Review, 2022)
#19
in the top 25 public augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) schools in the U.S. (Animation Career Review 2022)
Turning on the Switch
Level up! Squish, a game designed by UC Santa Cruz undergraduate students for a senior capstone project was picked up by a major publisher and released onto the Nintendo Switch platform.
CM Research News
Ph.D. Opportunities

Computational Media faculty are recruiting Ph.D. students for the 2023–24 academic year.