I am currently a PhD student at the School of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University, currently working on my dissertation. I research how people interact with one another in video game communities. I’m particularly interested in how women and non-male folks fit into video game spaces, and in exploring community building and social support as a means of combatting the largely white, heteromasculine, ableist culture surrounding video games in the U.S.
My background is in human computer interaction (HCI) and user experience. I received my Masters in HCI from the School of Information at the University of Michigan in 2013. For several years after, I worked as a user experience designer on a variety of web-related projects. Most recently, I worked at Deque Systems as a user experience designer and researcher.
I also enjoy playing video games. My favorites are the Civilization series, Katamari Damacy, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and the Legend of Zelda series. I also spend lots of time reading (scifi, fantasy, and comics are my jam), knitting, and cross-stitching.
And I have two extremely photogenic cats.