PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Kimberly Voll

Also known as Kim

Kimberly Voll is a computer scientist and game-studio executive whose AI work spans radiology speech-recognition error detection, sentiment analysis, and human behaviour in games. She completed a computing-science PhD at Simon Fraser University in 2006 on a hybrid AI method for radiology dictation and coauthored a 2007 statistical error-detection study. While teaching at the University of British Columbia, she coauthored the June 2011 Semantic Orientation CALculator (SO-CAL) sentiment-analysis paper, which won the 2021 ACL Test-of-Time Paper Award, and received a 2012 UBC Faculty of Science Achievement Award. Moving into game development and community design, she co-founded the Thriving in Games Group in 2017 and Stray Bombay in 2019, and authored an updated Digital Thriving Playbook method on emotional regulation in January 2025. She is CEO of Brace Yourself Games, serves on the Minecraft Safety Council as of February 2026, and teaches game design, user experience, and project management at the Centre for Digital Media.

Now at
Brace Yourself Games, Centre for Digital Media and Thriving in Games Group
Badges

Timeline

  1. 2006

    An AI thesis at Simon Fraser

    At Simon Fraser University, she completes a PhD in computing science in 2006 with the thesis A Methodology of Error Detection: Improving Speech Recognition in Radiology. Her hybrid algorithm combines four AI heuristics and raises recall by up to 24% and precision by 8% over the best single technique on thirty real-world radiology reports.

  2. 2007–2008

    Speech-recognition error detection

    In March 2007, she publishes a study with Stella Atkins and Bruce Forster on detecting errors after speech recognition in radiology reports; the Journal of Digital Imaging issue appears in December 2008. Their statistical method reaches an error-detection rate as high as 96% in some cases.

  3. June 2011

    SO-CAL for sentiment analysis

    While teaching at the University of British Columbia in June 2011, she coauthors Lexicon-Based Methods for Sentiment Analysis in Computational Linguistics with Maite Taboada, Julian Brooke, Milan Tofiloski, and Manfred Stede. The paper proposes the Semantic Orientation CALculator (SO-CAL) as a methodological tool for analyzing sentiment.

  4. 2012

    UBC Faculty of Science award

    In 2012, the University of British Columbia gives her a Faculty of Science Achievement Award for building the TechTrek Saturday workshops and curriculum, designing and launching the TechTrek summer camps, and running the Vancouver Global Game Jam.

  5. 2017–2019

    Thriving in Games and Stray Bombay

    In 2017, Voll co-founds the Thriving in Games Group, formerly the Fair Play Alliance, to spread practices for creating gaming experiences. With Chet Faliszek, she co-founds Stray Bombay in 2019 to build cooperative games.

  6. 2021

    An ACL Test-of-Time award

    In 2021, she and Maite Taboada, Julian Brooke, Milan Tofiloski, and Manfred Stede receive the ACL Test-of-Time Paper Award for their 2011 article Lexicon-Based Methods for Sentiment Analysis.

  7. 2025

    Game design and studio leadership

    In January 2025, she writes the updated Digital Thriving Playbook method “Designing to Support Emotional Regulation.” By March 2025, she is CEO of Brace Yourself Games alongside founder Ryan Clark as the independent British Columbia studio receives support through the Canada Media Fund–Creative BC video-game development program.

  8. As of October 2026

    CEO and game-design educator

    At the Centre for Digital Media, Voll teaches game design, user experience, and project management after many years teaching computer science at the University of British Columbia. She is CEO of Brace Yourself Games and a co-founder of Thriving in Games Group, with expertise spanning AI, game design, and human behaviour. In January 2026, she discusses matchmaking, community health, and inclusive game design with Matt Soeth in a Thriving in Games Group webinar, and in February 2026 she serves on the Minecraft Safety Council.

Career

  1. NowBrace Yourself GamesCEO
  2. NowCentre for Digital Media
  3. NowThriving in Games GroupCo-founder

Education

  1. 2006Simon Fraser UniversityPhD

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Simon Fraser University. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Simon Fraser University. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Simon Fraser University. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  4. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Simon Fraser University. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Kimberly Voll yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Theses: 1981 to present www2.cs.sfu.ca. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Improving the Utility of Speech Recognition Through Error Detection - PMC pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Lexicon-Based Methods for Sentiment Analysis - ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Professor Maite Taboada and team win Test of Time Award - Department of Linguistics - Simon Fraser University sfu.ca. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. Kimberly Voll Receives 2012 UBC Faculty of Science Achievement Award | Computer Science at UBC cs.ubc.ca. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Designing to Support Emotional Regulation - Digital Thriving Playbook digitalthrivingplaybook.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Stray Bombay presskit.straybombay.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. ACL Test-of-Time Papers Award Recipients - Admin Wiki aclweb.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. Five B.C.-based video game studios are the first recipients of funding through the new Canada Media Fund Creative BC video game development program - Creative BC creativebc.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  10. Dr. Kimberly Voll | Centre for Digital Media thecdm.ca. Checked 22 October 2026.
  11. About - Brace Yourself Games braceyourselfgames.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  12. Player Dynamics & Matchmaking: Designing Healthier Gaming Communities with Dr. Kimberly Voll – Thriving in Games Group thrivingingames.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  13. The Minecraft Safety Council | Minecraft minecraft.net. Checked 22 October 2026.