Tom Dowd (MA, Communication) is a 25-year veteran of the game design business, having been first published while still in high-school. He is one of the co-creators of the award-winning Shadowrun role-playing game, as well as writer/contributor to other role-playing titles and two novels. He was a developer at FASA Corporation, working on the Shadowurn, BattleTech, and EarthDawn game lines and joined the Microprose-FASA Corp join venture FASA Interactive in the mid-90’s where he was senior designer on the RTS computer game MechCommander. In 1999 he was the lead designed on the Microsoft/Day:1:Studios Xbox/Xbox-Live million+ selling release, MechAssault. His other computer game credits include Shadowrun games for the NES and Sega consoles, the MechWarrior 2 (Activision; PC) and MechWarrior 3 (Microprose; PC) game series, Axis & Allies: Iron Blitz (Hasbro; PC), Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude (Vivendi Universal; PC, Xbox, PS2), and DuelMasters (Atari; PS2). He is currently the lead of Skotos Tech’s online multiplayer text-based social/rpg game Castle Marrach and is a full-time instructor at Columbia College Chicago in the Interactive Arts and Media department teaching and building curriculum in their Game Design major.

In October 2006, he was a featured guest at the inaugural Game Forum of the Animation School of the Beijing Film Academy in Beijing, China, at which time he also addressed the game development students of the Communication University of China, also in Beijing.