As a programmer with a background in cultural studies, Jonas Zimmer works as a research assistant mainly in the field of expanding cultural systems by means of new technologies. After graduating from the University of Cologne with a Master’s degree in Media Cultural Studies/Media Informatics, he worked for several years as a leading programmer in a company for serious games. To start his PhD in Digital Humanities, he joined the Cologne Game Lab in 2017 and has been part of the research laboratory as technical director since then. In this role Jonas was responsible for the development and implementation of the mixed reality game Porta Praetoria, as well as for the implementation of various mixed reality applications for museums and research institutions. In addition to this development work, he is researching the cultural influence of mixed realities as well as the immersive engagement of players. Jonas Zimmer presented this research at various conferences and talked about the potential of enriching the museum context with mixed reality technologies. At the Cologne Game Lab he teaches Game Programming in the Bachelor and Master Program Digital Games.

Since 2018 Jonas has participated in the multicultural project to establish a video game development community in Khartoum, Sudan. There, several workshops together with the cooperation of Goethe Institut Khartoum have enhanced the education of video game developers and promoted the foundation of a game development community.