White House office studies benefits of video games

If you're training for a new job someday soon with a video game controller in your hands, thank Constance Steinkuehler. This summer, when your kids' favorite science museum boasts a new augmented-reality environmental simulation? Same deal. If in the next few years a video game teaches you anything — how to conserve energy, eat a balanced diet or solve quadratic equations — consider the invisible hand of one of the most unconventional White House hires in recent memory.

Steinkuehler studies video games. Since last September, she has been a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she's shaping the Obama administration's policies around games that improve health, education, civic engagement and the environment, among other areas. On leave for 18 months from the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin with MacArthur Foundation funding, Steinkuehler says the job represents "an incredible opportunity to make good on the claim that games have real promise."