Mark Claypool

Mark Claypool is a Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Interactive Media & Game Development at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He joined WPI in 1997 after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. His research spans multimedia networking, congestion control, network games, and information filtering, with over 100 peer-reviewed publications and two books on computer games.

Education:

• B.A. Mathematics, Colorado College (Magna Cum Laude, 1990)
• M.S. Computer Science, University of Minnesota (1993)
• Ph.D. Computer Science, University of Minnesota (1997)

Claypool's research integrates networking and gaming, focusing on latency effects, quality of experience (QoE), and cloud-based systems. Recent work examines frame rate variations, input delay, and network turbulence in cloud gaming (e.g., Google Stadia). He also develops tools like Reflex for reaction-time measurement and contributes to TCP protocol improvements for wireless networks.

His publications show a strong trend toward empirical studies of gaming QoE, with 2022-2025 papers analyzing latency compensation, player skill, and cloud-streaming robustness. This work bridges human-computer interaction and network systems, often using custom software for controlled experiments.

Claypool chairs ACM conferences on networks/games and serves on technical program committees. He created the Dragonfly game engine for educational use and has advised projects on game development and network optimization.