Mitu Khandaker is a game designer, engineer, scholar, and entrepreneur. She is an Associate Arts Professor at the NYU Game Center, where she teaches game design and development. She was also CEO and co-founder at Glow Up Games, a game studio centering diverse audiences and stories about Black and brown joy, that operated from 2019-2024, and made Insecure: The Come Up Game, a tie-in to the popular HBO TV show.
She holds a PhD in designing games for immersive interfaces such as VR and AR and has a background in computer engineering. She was previously on the founding team at Spirit AI, a game-related AI tools company, and launched a location-based games startup.
She also worked in the indie game space on titles such as the social simulation game Redshirt. She has received several international accolades, including a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit in 2013 and the Creative English Trailblazer Award in 2014. Mitu has served on the advisory board for the Advocacy Track at the Game Developers’ Conference since 2014. She lives with her husband, Justin, and her toddler in New York City.