Charles Linscott Appointed McClure School Undergrad Director

Charles Linscott has been appointed as the ECT School’s Undergraduate Admissions Director for this coming fall semester.

Linscott’s experience lies primarily in the field of audio, as he is the audio director for the GRID Lab. Linscott has helped develop a curriculum for those interested in virtual reality, especially for those interested in the audio aspect of VR.

Linscott received his BA and MA from the University of West Florida and taught high school for eleven years in Pensacola. He came to OHIO in 2006 to pursue a PhD.

Linscott currently works in the Game Research and Immersive Design (GRID) Lab, where he teaches a series of classes on virtual reality theory, history, criticism, and production. He has been exploring audio production and experimental sound in various capacities since the late 1980s, and his writing deals principally with the implications of sound, image, technology and mediation for blackness (and vice versa). His book project, Sonic Overlook: Blackness between Sound and Image, examines the ways in which sonicity intervenes in black visuality. Linscott's writing has appeared in Black Camera, In Media Res, liquid blackness, ASAP/J, and the anthology At the Crossroads. He is on the editorial board of liquid blackness journal.

The GRID Lab has been around for 15 years, and just this year, has received a $900,000 grant from the university for new equipment. The GRID Lab began as a collection of consoles, but throughout time, has evolved to be the main hub of emerging immersive technologies for students.

In 2019, Linscott joined the McClure school of emerging technologies and has since been an active member on the PR team. Linscott has aided in streams and various projects employed by the McClure school.

Personally, Linscott has had a passion for technology, music and audio since a young age, and has been an active guitarist since his teenage years. Linscott earned his doctorate in 2015 and, with Eric Williams and John Bowditch, developed a VR curriculum in 2016 and 2017.

For the future of both the ECT School and for the GRID Lab, Linscott aims to, “push the envelope and be on the bleeding edge of technology” which has been seen in his work as audio director at the GRID Lab.

Linscott says that he looks forward to increasing the reach of the ECT School and expanding the school to more students. Linscott hopes to further increase the presence of esports and VR at OU, as well as helping students find passion through the ECT School.

The McClure School of Emerging Communication Technologies strives to offer the best academic programs in the IT (Information Technology), the game development and the Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR) industries. Our programs and certificates cover numerous aspects of the rapidly changing industries of information networking, information security, data privacy, game development, digital animation and the academic side of esports.