Nicholas Mizer's research sits at the intersection of anthropology, interactive design, phenomenology, and gonzo ethnography. From this position, Mizer investigates questions of how collaborative imagination shapes the human experience of worlds, especially how imagining other worlds together can serve as a way to re-enchant and re-make our own world. One direction this works take him is through developing critically gameful pedagogy; that is courses-as-games that re-imagine the classroom community as a playfully democratic space. His work primarily focuses on tabletop role-playing games, but also includes other analog, digital, and mixed media forms of play. Mizer is appointed in the Communication & Media Department and the Games & Simulation Arts & Sciences (GSAS) program, where he teaches courses on the history and culture of games, game design, worldbuilding, and storytelling through games. He is also the founder and curator of the Interactive Media Archaeology Lab, which provides students with immersive learning opportunities through first-hand experience with games in their original formats. Mizer also serves on the Gameful Learning Task Force, charged with developing and implementing innovative models of gameful learning throughout RPI. An editor for The Geek Anthropologist, a website which offers critical analysis of popular culture, and as co-chair of Game Studies for the Popular Culture / American Culture Association, and a member of the AnthropologyCon collective, which seeks to develop the role of games in anthropological teaching and research, Mizer is committed to keeping research and its products engaged with the public, to mentoring young scholars, and to working across disciplinary boundaries. He further pursues these goals through serving as Director of the academic tracks for the Bradley Board Game Symposium and Metatopia. His book, Tabletop Role-Playing Games and the Experience of Imagined Worlds, was published through Palgrave-Macmillan in 2019, and his writings on play, imagination, and geek culture have appeared in The Journal of Popular Culture, Role-playing Game Studies, Analog Game Studies, and Evolution and Human Behavior.