Sebastian Kelle, Ph.D.

Because your question searches for deep meaning, I shall explain in simple words.

Dante/Inferno

Hi. I’m Sebastian Kelle. I work as an Instructional Designer at the Department of Computer Science at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Together with my team, I support our Faculty in their teaching wherever online methods of instruction are concerned, and more. My specialties are:

  • Audio and Video content production
  • Intellectual Property and Licensing
  • Academic Integrity, FERPA compliance, etc.
  • Online Proctoring (hint: avoid this if you can!)
  • Extended Reality
  • Game Based Learning
  • Learning Management Systems
  • Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and scalable content
  • How to keep all the above simple and inclusive

My Ph.D. is in Educational Technology (you can download my thesis here). I did it in the Netherlands, before I moved to the United States. My country of origin is Germany. I settled down in Urbana in 2020 together with my wife, and we’ve since added a daughter to the family, as well as some 4-legged friends.
Work-wise, the job is many-faceted, but one of my favorite fields is Extended Reality (applied to learning and game design). I’m affiliate of our University’s Center for Immersive Computing and I’m always happy to collaborate on that topic. Here is a talk about the topic showing things in action.


I’m also a musician and play bass in the locally popular band “Prairie Sharks” (click link for website and concert dates). From time to time, I stray into the world of “full sonic expression” and projects like this come to life.

Home Recording Studio
Home office and music production studio at our home in Urbana/IL, and Sassafras the cat