Donald Marinelli

Donald Marinelli is the ‘Director of Innovation’ for Inven Global, the English-language website portal for Inven-Korea, the leading Esports and video game website in Korea with over 90% market share.

Dr. Marinelli is a Visiting Professor in the School of Arts, Media, and Engineering at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, an Adjunct Professor in the Entertainment Technology Management graduate program at Columbia University in the City of New York, and has served as an Adjunct Professor with the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, Advisory Board member for the Penn State University Stuckeman School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture, and Adjunct Professor at Duquesne University. He is a sought-after motivational speaker and consultant on the impact of digital media in education and society.

Dr. Marinelli retired from Carnegie Mellon University in April 2012, concluding an illustrious 31 years of service to the university in a variety of capacities.

Together with the late computer science professor, Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture), Dr. Marinelli co-founded the world-renowned Carnegie Mellon Entertainment Technology Center (ETC).  Dr. Marinelli was also a tenured Professor of Drama and Arts Management at Carnegie Mellon University, and served as Associate Head of CMU Drama from 1981 to 1995.

Dr. Marinelli was integral in creation of the Carnegie Mellon University's Master of Arts Management program, the Master of Fine Arts in Acting degree program with the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia, and the Master of Entertainment Technology degree program within the ETC.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Professor Marinelli completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Tampa majoring in Speech & Drama, and Psychology. He received a M.A. in Clinical Psychology, specializing in Existential-Phenomenological Psychology from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Professor Marinelli subsequently attended the University of Pittsburgh where he received his Ph.D. in theatre history, literature, and criticism in 1987 with a dissertation on the early life and career of the Italian Futurist, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

His book about co-founding the ETC with the late computer science professor Randy Pausch, author of the critically acclaimed, The Last Lecture, was published in the spring of 2010 by Sterling Innovation, a division of Barnes & Noble. Titled The Comet and the Tornado, the book recounts the six years Don and Randy shared an office creating the center that has become recognized internationally as Carnegie Mellon’s “Dream Fulfillment Factory.” It was Barnes & Noble’s “Book of the Month” in April 2010.