Hello!

I’m Maria, a designer and creative developer, with a passion for creating impactful virtual reality experiences and a wide variety of skills and interests.

I spent the last three years at Prisms Of Reality working as a Lead Spatial Designer. I started when the company had a small prototype for just one virtual reality lesson, and by the end of my tenure (Fall 2023), the library expanded to more than 50 lessons and was available to middle schoolers in 32 US states. I’ve been designing immersive learning scenarios, programming gameplay flows, creating educational and character animations, working on UI and UX systems, and creating procedural 3D assets in Houdini.

Before that, I was a co-founder of my own small studio, Synesthetic Echo in Brooklyn, NY. At Synesthetic Echo, I had the opportunity to work on a variety of amazing client and in-house projects: from conducting research and development on multi-modal interactions, prototyping spatial fitness mechanics, to creating an online course about how to use Python in Houdini to create real-time controller animations.

Even before that, I earned my master’s degree in Game Design at NYU Game Center and taught there for a bit after graduation. Fun fact: my thesis game Bizarre Barber about cutting hair at a subway station was funded by Meta and later received additional support from NYU Game Center Incubator.

In almost prehistoric times, I moved to the States from Kazakhstan, where I worked as a creative director and producer, focusing on impactful projects like exhibition design and social advertisements.

The resume has more information about my accomplishments, awards, and experience.

I am most active on Twitter and Linkedin, say hi!