Dr. Natalie Underberg-Goode is Professor, Games and Interactive Media, at the Nicholson School of Communication and Media, and affiliate faculty in the Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies program at the University of Central Florida. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master’s and Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research examines the use of digital media to preserve and disseminate folklore and cultural heritage, with a focus on digital storytelling and participatory new media design and practice. She has published three peer-reviewed books: Exploring Digital Ethnography: From Principles to Practice (Routledge, 2025), Multiplicity and Cultural Representation in Transmedia Storytelling (Routledge, 2023) and Digital Ethnography: Anthropology, Narrative, and New Media (University of Texas Press, 2013), and was guest editor for two special issues of international journals: Contemporary Legend (2025) and Visual Ethnography (2016). She has authored more than 40 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings. She has also directed or co-directed multiple digital heritage projects over the years, including Portal to Peru (https://projects.cah.ucf.edu/portaltoperu), which presents and interprets the weaving traditions and experiences of weavers in Cuzco, Peru, a project completed in collaboration with the non-profit Center for Traditional Textiles of Cuzco. She has been PI or co-PI on research and teaching grants and fellowships totaling over $205,000, in addition to receiving two competitive two-semester sabbaticals at ¾ pay and being Key Personnel on a $185,000 Department of Education grant. These grants and fellowships include two Florida Humanities Council, two Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs grants, The Strong Research Fellowship, and flow-through funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her research has been presented at 35 regional, national, and international conferences, including the Bilan du Film Ethnographique seminar in Paris, France and the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA).

In addition to research, Dr. Underberg-Goode served as Assistant and later Associate Director in the Nicholson School of Communication and Media, where she directed the Games and Interactive Media program from 2019-2025, during which time the bachelor’s program rose in the Princeton Review rankings from #13 to #5. Dr. Underberg-Goode has developed core courses for the Digital Media and Latin American Studies programs and electives for the Film and Texts and Technology programs at UCF. She has taught or teaches courses in a variety of areas including digital and interactive storytelling, research methods, video game history, and Latin American popular culture, as well as Visual Anthropology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru-Lima. Over the course of her career, she has served her profession through such activities as co-organizing three international and three regional conferences, being electronic media editor for Visual Anthropology Review, electronic media featured and reviewed projects editor for the Journal of American Folklore, and digital story and electronic literature curator for Aquifer: The Florida Review Online. She has twice chaired the Department of State Florida Folklife Council and is a member of the Advisory Group for Research Evaluation at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru-Lima.

Please note that the statements on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of UCF.