Kurosh ValaNejad is an Iranian-American who was born an American-Iranian in Tehran in 1966 to an Iranian father and an American mother.  In 1977, just before the Iranian Revolution, he moved to Midwest City, Oklahoma.  He now lives in the west Mid-City neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.  

Since 2001, he has helped develop well-meaning computer applications, aka Serious games, at USC research labs where his work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the USC Annenberg Center, and the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences.  

He is currently a research artist at the USC Game Innovation Lab, and was the art-director of The ReDistricting Game  a video game about Gerrymandering that launched at the United States Capital Building,  The Night Journey, an  interactive museum installation about spiritual enlightenment directed by New-Media Artist Bill Viola, The Cat and the Coup, a documentary video game recently acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and The Body Scrub Device, a virtual fun-house mirror.  Body Scrub, Lego was recently added to the Field of Play, a long-term exhibited at The Strong National Museum of Play.