People
Co-Directors
Josef Nguyen
Co-DirectorDr. Josef Nguyen (he/him/his) is an associate professor of critical media studies at The University of Texas at Dallas. His book The Digital Is Kid Stuff: Making Creative Laborers for a Precarious Economy (University of Minnesota Press, Dec 2021) argues that debates over creative digital youth operate to assuage profound anxieties about—and to defuse valid critiques of—both emerging digital technologies and the precarity of employment for “creative laborers” in twenty-first-century neoliberal America. He is also interested in feminist and queer game studies, the politics of consent, and DIY, craft, and maker cultures.
website: www.josefnguyen.net
email: josef.nguyen@utdallas.edu
Hong-An Wu
Co-DirectorHi there! I’m Dr. Hong-An Wu 吳鴻安, and I go by Ann with she/her pronouns. My interdisciplinary scholarship redresses the failures of technologies in education and their inequitable consequences by theorizing critical, careful, and playful pedagogies with technologies oriented toward social justice. My published works appear in Catalyst, Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, OneShot: A Journal of Critical Games and Play, among others. Currently, I serve as an assistant professor in critical media studies at the University of Texas at Dallas.
website: www.wuhongann.tw
email: hongan.wu@utdallas.edu
UT Dallas Collaborators
Abby Cole
UT Dallas CollaboratorAbby Cole is a PhD student in the ATEC program at UTD. She works in media psychology, critical media studies, and pop culture studies to explore the ways technology shapes social and cultural behaviors. She received a master’s in journalism education from the University of Missouri and a bachelor’s in advertising from the University of North Texas. She has 16 years of experience teaching journalism and communications courses.
email: abby.cole@utdallas.edu
Cameron Irby
UT Dallas CollaboratorFascinated by storytelling media of all kinds, Cameron Irby explores narrative through a mix of critical media studies, queer theory, and fandom studies. His ongoing dissertation project—Escape Routes: Escapism in the COVID Era—details how the stories we tell shape the world we live in by taking a serious look at “mere entertainment.” His list of scholarly interests also includes analog gaming, games and sexuality, and the concept of “so bad it’s good” media.
website: cirby.neocities.org
email: cli170000@utdallas.edu
Jaz Qamar
UT Dallas CollaboratorCurrently a part-time lecturer of digital art, design and time-based media at the University of Texas at Dallas. Cat enthusiast, gamer, digital artist, and video editor. Has experience with game design but found a new passion doing commissioned art.
email: JazQamar@outlook.com
Luke Hernandez
UT Dallas CollaboratorLuke Hernandez is currently a master’s student in ATEC studying Emerging Media Studies. Their research interest include queer studies, video game studies, sexuality studies, and pleasure politics. They are an aspiring writer and poet based in Aquarius.
email: Luke.Hernandez@utdallas.edu
Shonte Clement
UT Dallas CollaboratorShonte ‘Sho’ Clement is a sculptor and experimental interactive media artist based in Dallas, Texas. Their work sits at the intersection of Black feminist scholarship, Queer studies, and play studies. Through participant interaction with sculptural objects and interactive media, Shonte crafts figurative objects with the purpose of making visceral the emotions they feel sitting at the intersections of their identity. Participants are encouraged to see themselves reflected in the constellation of experiences of another.
Remote Collaborators
Amory Beardsley
Remote CollaboratorAmory received their BA from UT Dallas in 2021. They are currently working at Chewy and making homemade craft goods in their spare time for their etsy shop. Having run the Women in Games program in their latter years at UTD, Amory continues to have an interest in activism and relevant media, and they’re working on getting ready for their master’s. In their free time, they enjoy playing games with friends and petting their cat.
email: amory.beardsley@gmail.com
Atanur Andıç
Remote CollaboratorDr. Atanur Andıç currently works as a visiting lecturer in the department of Communication Design at Özyeğin University. Atanur received his Ph.D. in the program of Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication at the University of Texas at Dallas where he was an active member in Fashioning Circuits Lab and the Studio for Mediating Play. Atanur presented his works in conferences such as HASTAC and ASA. His scholarly interests are new media, video game studies, and critical media studies.
website: https://www.atanurandic.com/
email: atanur.andic@ozyegin.edu.tr
Cenk Köknar
Remote CollaboratorDr. Cenk Köknar is a senior lecturer (the equivalent to an assistant professorship) of game design at the Cambridge School of Creative Industries at Anglia Ruskin University. His research interests include but are not limited to applied game design, inclusive design, and game studies.
Chelsea Brtis
Remote CollaboratorChelsea Brtis (she/her) is an assistant professor of digital illustration at University of North Carolina at Charlotte in the College of Arts and Architecture. She received a Bachelor of Architecture from Iowa State University and an MFA in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication from the University of Texas at Dallas. In her research, Brtis interrogates topics such as environmental politics, animal-human relations, and inclusive representation through game development. Brtis is the creator of the recognized game concepts Together, which focuses on building communal awareness during COVID-19, and Local Goods, which highlights how our role as consumers impacts the environment.
website: bakiara.itch.io
email: clbrtis@gmail.com
Diamond E. Beverly-Porter
Remote CollaboratorDiamond (She/Her) is an Assistant Professor, Tenure-track with Washington State University in the Digital Technologies and Culture department. Her work explores play, multimodal representations, critical making, and narrative storytelling through digital games and technology. Her work centers around blackness in gaming spaces; fandoms, identity, and Black girlhood. Outside of work, Diamond enjoys playing Dungeons and Dragons, reading fanfiction, playing with her cat J’zargo, and, of course, playing video games. She is also a teaching artist and collaborator with The SmART Project based in Dallas.
email: diamondebp@gmail.com
Jack Murray
Remote CollaboratorJack Murray is a PhD Student in the Texts and Technology program at the University of Central Florida. Jack also received an M.A. in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication and a B.S. in Software Engineering both from the University of Texas at Dallas. Their research is interested in the intersections of analog and digital games and play, specifically looking at the ways that games mediate the relationships between players and technology. Jack is also interested in designing and building games and controllers that disrupt normative configurations of play. When not thinking about games, weird controllers, or fencing, Jack likes to collect irresponsible amounts of board games, plush figures, and fake fantasy creature skulls while also telling his dog, Kiska, how much of a good girl she is
website: www.jackademia.com
email: jack@jackademia.com
twitter: @jackademia
Juan Llamas-Rodriguez
Remote CollaboratorDr. Juan Llamas-Rodriguez is assistant professor of global media in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching mobilize media theories to critically analyze social phenomena on a global scale.
website: www.llamas-rodriguez.com
email: jalr@asc.upenn.edu
Mohammed Rashid
Remote CollaboratorDr. Mohammed Rashid (he/they) is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Digital Culture and Society at University of Pennsylvania. His research explores digital media cultures of Bangladeshi and South Asian queer counter-publics, specifically focusing on practices that thrive in contexts of extreme gender and sexual marginalization through negotiating digital visibility. Rashid has a PhD in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication from the Bass School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology at the University of Texas at Dallas.
website: https://mohammedrashid.net/
email: morashid@asc.upenn.edu
Rinaldo Del Gallo
Remote CollaboratorI also go by Ray (he/him/his). My academic interests involve digital games studies, science and technology studies, and media studies. I also participate in game development, online esports, and TTRPGS. Right now, my work focuses on patch notes and the patching process in live service esports games like League of Legends. I’m also interested in harmful play and ideologies in hardcore gaming cultures.
Sam Owens
Remote CollaboratorSam Owens has a Bachelors of Science in Visualization from Texas A&M University and Masters of Fine Arts from University of Texas at Dallas where she studied game design and game studies. Her research focused on female representation in games and games culture. Currently, she is a QA tester at Dire Wolf Digital where she works on various digital board game and trading card projects. Sam feels her biggest accomplishment since after school was reaching out to make a small group for women at one of her previous QA companies, which allowed them to connect in the workspace and share their concerns of the workplace culture to seek help and change. In her free time, Sam is an avid consumer of k-pop and video games and is often found reading or writing.
website: samowensdesign.wordpress.com
email: samlynnowens@gmail.com
Shad Miller
Remote CollaboratorAfter working in the games industry in Canada and Switzerland, Shad Miller is now a McDermott Fellow pursuing an ATCM Ph.D. with a concentration in Games Development and Narrative at the University of Texas at Dallas. His primary research interests involve play, improvisation, and games as communication.
website: shad-miller.squarespace.com
email: eric.miller@utdallas.edu
Stephen Mallory
Remote CollaboratorStephen Mallory is an Assistant Professor of Game Design in the College of Architecture and Design at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan. His research involves the use of educational games to question existing state-approved history curricula. He is also exploring the role of Digital Games in establishing a new critical framework of analysis called Digimodernism (Kirby, 2009).
email: smallory@ltu.edu
Taryn Henry
Remote CollaboratorTaryn Henry received her Bachelor of Arts in Game Studies from UT Dallas in 2019. She is a freelance artist, feminist, and game designer. She co-created the Women in Games organization at UTD, and continues her activist efforts as well as create safe spaces for creators from all walks of life. An aspiring professor, Taryn has interests in alternate reality games, consent in games, and fan studies. In her free time, she loves to watch horror films, knit, and visit abandoned and historic locations.
email: talia.henryart@gmail.com
