We are raising funds to contribute to founding an award that will exist in perpetuity in memory of Jeff Watson, a beloved professor at the School of Cinematic Arts at USC. The annual award will recognize talented students whose work embodies the sense of creativity, play and generosity that Jeff was known for.

Jeff Watson was an artist, mentor, friend, and colleague who deeply inspired people with his intellectual brilliance, his generosity of spirit, and his passion for teaching and learning through play. He began his academic faculty career at OCAD University in 2013-2014, where he co-founded the Situation Lab with Stuart Candy. From there, Jeff went on to become an Assistant Professor of Interactive Media and Games at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, and remained as faculty in that department until his passing from cancer in November of 2020.

Jeff was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1973. He received a BA in Cultural Studies from McGill University, an MFA in Film and Video from York University and a PhD in Media Arts and Practice from the University of Southern California in 2012. Jeff's academic focus was on how game design, pervasive computing, and social media can enable new forms of storytelling, participation, and learning. Jeff’s work received coverage in many media / tech / design news outlets and magazines including Fast Company (Co.Exist) and Wired. His pervasive game (the subject of his PhD thesis) Reality Ends Here, won the Impact Award at the IndieCade International Festival of Independent Games.

Jeff was a gifted artist and an inspiring mentor. This connection with his art and teaching is deeply rooted in his wisdom and empathetic character. Many people, students, colleagues, friends, and family members looked to Jeff for guidance in their own work and lives. Jeff always had a way to provide some perspective. In Jeff's own words:

"So: reality is an emergency, and we’re all in it together. That’s kind of the starting point here. I like to think of what we do as artists as a kind of mercy, a way to mitigate this dire situation of being alive. At its best, art is a gift we give others because we recognize on some level that our fellow beings, whoever they may be, are just as baffled and longing for insight and hopeful and fragile as we are, and we make art to make things better somehow, if only for a moment (but also forever because every moment is forever fixed in the landscape of time), by enlightening, distracting, comforting, empowering, thrilling, inspiring, tickling, or what-have-you. It’s a wonderful thing, art: it’s a light in this sometimes very dark world, and you know it’s true. What I’d like to ask you to do is take that merciful, giving, empathetic attitude that’s already obviously built into you in one way or another, into every corner of your lives."