About.

The Flood Resilience Challenge (FRC) Game brings together a variety of stakeholders who affect, and are affected by, flooding in order to better understand different perspectives and interests to enhance decision-making.

Meet the Team

Eva (Evalyna) Bogdan
Co-designer

Evalyna is fascinated by crises and disasters and the opportunities they present for learning and changes. She is an Assistant Professor in the Disaster & Emergency Management Program at York University. Her research focuses on building capacity for difficult conversations on flood risk management in Canada, as well as social and environmental resilience. She met Heather at IHE-Delft during a visiting scholarship to the Netherlands to learn about their Room for the River program. Evalyna applies an interdisciplinary lens and innovative stakeholder engagement approaches for addressing complex social and environmental issues. Visit evabogdan.ca for more information.

Heather Murdock
Co-designer

Heather's passion is urban infrastructure, water, and resilient communities. Heather, a civil engineer with a specialization in flood risk management, is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Potsdam in Germany. Her research and professional work is focused on understanding and managing flood risk for the public and infrastructure design. Her interest in finding creative approaches to outreach on flood adaptation sparked her interest in Serious Games, as a tool. Heather, a co-designer of the FRC (Flood Resilience Challenge) Game, has used and designed other flood management serious games for academic and professional applications. Heather holds a Masters in Water Science and Engineering from UNESCO-IHE in the Netherlands and a Bachelors in Civil Engineering from Queen's University in Ontario. She is a professional engineer registered in the province of British Columbia, Canada.

Sina Golchi
Assistant

Sina Golchi is the mastermind behind transferring the in-person version of the FRC game online. He received his BEng. in Chemical Engineering from Science and Research University in Iran. His capstone project was on carbon quantum dots and their applications. He has participated in two research studies on waste and wastewater management and renewable energies as a research assistant during his undergraduate program. In October 2018, Sina joined the NSERC Chair in Water Treatment as a MASc. candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering (Water) at the University of Waterloo.

Shaieree Cottar
Communications

Shaieree Cottar is the coordinator for the Canadian Coastal Resilience Forum and a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo. Her research is on flood risk management and Canadian policies related to disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, managed retreat and resilience building against hazards across communities in Canada. Shaieree has a breadth of experience working in academia and the public sector from working for the Ontario Public Service to Environmental NGOs in the Global South. ​

AC Atienza
Design

AC Atienza is a board game designer and graphic designer focused on FRC's visual and gameplay design. They completed their Masters in Experimental Digital Media at the University of Waterloo in 2020. Their Major Research Project explored how games harness medium-specific affordances to aid in expression. Prior to FRC, AC built experience publishing games in different fields including "Captain's Gambit", funded on Kickstarter; "Energize", built in the Perimeter Institute; and "The Golden Ticket Game", released in Target. AC merges their academic and industry experience to focus on optimizing both the playing and learning experience of serious games.

Gloria Michalchuk
Project Coordination

Gloria Michalchuk, PhD, believes in the value of the FRC Game as an interactive educational tool. She applies her qualitative research, organizational skills and former teaching experience in public, private and overseas institutions in her roles as research associate and project manager for the FRC team. Previously, Gloria worked for over 10 years in the Government of Alberta as a senior manager (Education), corporate senior performance measurement analyst (Energy), and research analyst (Service Alberta). Currently a small business owner, Gloria supports initiatives with research or educational foci that build understanding of and solutions for pragmatic issues affecting society and the health of the planet. 

Erin Murphy
Design & Research Assistant

Erin Murphy is a visual designer and illustrator with an interest in gamification and the intersection between art and science, especially as it pertains to learning. A graduate of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology’s Digital Media and IT program, her capstone focused on the conceptualization and visual design of educational materials for Think Equal, a non-profit, education-focused humanitarian organization founded by BAFTA Award winner, Leslee Udwin. Erin’s current work with FRC focuses on UX and UI design, branding, and research support.
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