João de Mendonça Salim

Born in Brazil

Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Started A.A. — Seneff Honors Program

Valencia College

Began higher education in the Seneff Honors Program at Valencia College.

A.A. Completed — General Studies (Honors)

Valencia College

Graduated from the Seneff Honors Program.

Holocaust Memorial — Student Curator

Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center

Began contributing to public educational exhibit as part of the Student Curatorial Team for the Daryl Davis Exhibition.

Started B.A. in Digital Media

University of Central Florida

Began undergraduate studies in digital media and interactive systems.

Creative Coding Projects

UCF — Professor Mosher

Built Vista Page, NonSense Games, Quantum Quest, and HOLD 404 — exploring satire, game design, and digital endurance through p5.js.

DTO Project — City of Orlando

City of Orlando — Dept. of Tourism

Created an interactive sensory installation for downtown Orlando storefronts using creative coding.

Quest Me — UI/UX Concept

UCF

Designed a mobile app concept in Figma for randomized user quests.

Newt Mobility — Full-Time

Newt Mobility

Joined as 3D Printing Engineer, UI Designer, and Frontend Developer. Built web apps, managed 3D printing lab of 10+ printers, designed marketing materials.

Florida Drive Easy — Founded

Founded and launched a multilingual DMV exam prep platform with Google Ads, Stripe, and SEO across 4 languages.

Adam T. Lee Endowed Scholarship

UCF

Awarded the Adam T. Lee Endowed Scholarship in Digital Media Excellence.

ARCA — Undergraduate Thesis

UCF — Thesis Chair: Adam J. Parrish

Published thesis on a collaborative mobile platform for disaster management and relief, inspired by the 2022 Petrópolis flooding. 103 downloads on STARS repository.

Holocaust Memorial Interactive Exhibit

Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center

Designed a physical interactive installation where visitors push through panels labeled with forms of prejudice. Received an Excellent evaluation.

B.A. Completed

University of Central Florida

Graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Web Development and Interactive Media.

Started M.A. in Digital Media

University of Central Florida

Began graduate studies with a Dean Fellowship. Research focus on games, AI, ethics, and education.

Graduate Teaching Associate

UCF — Nicholson School

Supporting undergraduate digital media courses through instructional assistance, student mentoring, and technical guidance.

Research Assistant — Dr. Sercan Sengun

UCF

Researching intersections of games, AI, ethics, and digital culture. Exploring how emerging technologies reshape creative practice and scholarly labor.

Maker Space Workshops

UCF

Developed and taught public workshops on resin printing and model painting — reducing barriers to technology access.

Red Manifest

Gothic interactive fiction game built in Ink with procedural audio and mobile-compatible HTML deployment.

Tall2Ride

Created a theme park ride height checker covering 1,154 rides at 101 parks globally.

DIRT — Disaster Image Recognition & Triage

Building a multi-phase deep learning system for disaster detection: flood segmentation (U-Net++), road damage detection (YOLOv8), and scene classification.

iLRN 2026 — Conference Paper Accepted

iLRN — Greece

"Cataloging the World Exhibition: A Living Survey of Physical World Representations in Videogames" accepted for presentation.

ACM Journal Article — Minor Revision

Games Research and Practice (ACM)

"Community Contextualization of Mobile Game Ads Through YouTube Essays" in minor revision at ACM.

Frontiers — Journal Under Review

Frontiers in Computer Science

"A Graduate Student Perspective on AI Augmentation, Ethics, and the Emergence of the Academic Cyborg" under review.

ICFA 2026 — Algorithmic Oracle

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts — Orlando

Attending ICFA 2026 in Orlando with the project Algorithmic Oracle.

Spark STEM Fest 2026 — Project Showcase

Orlando Science Center — UCF Office of Research

Interactive particle text installation showcased at Spark STEM Fest at the Orlando Science Center, representing UCF's creative coding and digital media research.