# Jessica Hammer

jessica hammer is an assistant professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. == Early life and education == Hammer, who was a finalist in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, attended the Maimonides School, in Brookline, Massachusetts.She is the daughter of Michael Martin Hammer.She earned her B.A. at Harvard University, her MS from the NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program and her Ph.D. in cognitive studies at Columbia University, where she developed the game design course sequence and was a founding member of the Teachers College EGGPLANT game research laboratory. == Career == Hammer's research focuses on the psychology of games, focusing on the way specific game design decisions affect how players think and feel.While a graduate student at Columbia, Hammer helped create Lit, a mobile game designed to help individuals quit smoking.