Doris Hardoon led the design of recent Disney themeparks like
Doris Hardoon led the design of recent Disney theme parks like Shanghai Disney Resort.
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Ex-Disney designer Doris Hardoon on training students to design theme parks

Doris Hardoon spent 31 years at Disney designing theme parks. And she helped create the Themed Entertainment program for students at the University of Southern California.

USC Games is holding its seventh annual USC Games Expo on May 10 with an expo for over 60 student-made games. In honor of the annual event, students in the Themed Entertainment program at USC created a mini golf course for attendees, and that led to my chance to interview Hardoon.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.