University of Utah

Maria K. Alberto (she/her) is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Utah, where she is currently working on her dissertation on canons in popular culture, as exemplified procedurally with Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). More broadly, her research interests include digital storytelling, transformative fanworks, fandom community practices, and genre literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. She is a member of the Fan Studies Network-North America (FSN-NA) organizing committee and a co-founder of the Critical Role Bibliography (#CritRoleBib).

At this very moment, Maria is probably working on said dissertation or playing D&D. Either way, coffee with way too much sugar is involved.

University of Central Florida

PS Berge (they/she) is a doctoral candidate at the University of Central Florida. Her research examines toxic technocultures, trans play, and the so-called unplayable. Their work has appeared in New Media & Society, Game Studies, Feminist Media Studies, and elsewhere. 

She is also an award-winning game designer as well as a cofounder and Director of the Discord Academic Research Community.

University of California, Irvine

Lorem Brandon Blackburn (he/him) is a second-year PhD student the University of California, Irvine studying queer and racial monstrosity at intersections of games and society.

He is currently researching Black antiracist narrative imaginaries in tabletop spaces, as well as queer intimacy in digital spaces.

University of California, Irvine

Adrianna Burton (she/they) is a third-year doctoral student. Her research interests focus on the intersection of representation and identity-making in roleplaying games. Their work has been published across venues such as Game Studies, Analog Game Studies, and Gamers with Glasses. Adrianna is a founding member of the Tabletop Research in Practice Collective and a copyeditor at the Journal of Games Criticism.

University of California, Irvine

Kimberly Dennin (any pronouns) is a PhD student in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. They study queer representation in games with a special interest in how queer players insert queerness in games and create communities of resistance.

At this moment Kimberly is staying motivated by running multiple D&D games and diving deep into the world of folk dancing.

University of Michigan

Hibby Thach (they/she) is a PhD student at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. They study identity, content moderation, and digital gaming cultures. She is a co-founder of the Discord Academic Research Community (D/ARC) and has published in Press Start and New Media and Society, and at ACM CHI.

They are currently working on a dissertation project live-streaming on Twitch, studying marginalization and content moderation on the platform and within gaming spaces broadly.