Mads Grønne Bärenholdt is conducting research on social design, using various design games to carry out ethnographic fieldwork in vulnerable communities. His work places a strong emphasis on sensitivity and care for participants, ensuring that their well-being is prioritized throughout the research process. Currently, Bärenholdt is finishing a PhD project at the University of Southern Denmark that explores the perception of loneliness and how it becomes visible through interactions and narratives during gameplay with different types of games.

Edmond Y. Chang, PhD is an Associate Professor of English at Ohio University. His areas of research include technoculture, race/gender/sexuality, queer game studies, feminist media studies, popular culture, and 20/21C American literature, particularly speculative literatures of color and games of color.  He is the creator of Tellings, a high fantasy tabletop RPG, and Archaea, a live-action role-playing game.  He is the Editor-in-Chief for Analog Game Studies.

Megan Condis, PhD is an assistant professor of Communication Studies at Texas Tech University.  Her book, Gaming Masculinity: Trolls, Fake Geeks, and the Gendered Battle for Online Culture was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2018.  She is a Senior Editor of Analog Game Studies.

 

Luke Hernandez is Ph.D. student studying Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at the University of Texas at Dallas. His research lies at the intersection of Critical Game Studies, Latinx Studies, and Queer Media Studies. His work focuses on how online marginalized communities thrive throughout games spaces. He is an Editorial Intern for Analog Game Studies. Luke is also an Aquarius.

Shelly Jones, PhD is a Professor of English at SUNY Delhi, where they teach classes in transmedia storytelling, mythology, and writing. Their research examines games through the lenses of intersectional feminism and disability studies. A Pushcart nominee and Best Microfiction finalist, their creative works have been published widely.  They are a Senior Editor of Analog Game Studies.

Beatrix (Bea) Livesey-Stephens (she/her) is an MPhil candidate and researcher at Abertay University, where she studies player calibration in intimacy games and researches European gaming clusters. She received her MA (Hons) in Language & Linguistics from the University of Aberdeen. Her research interests lie at the intersections of linguistics, sex and relationship education, accessibility, and ethics, in which she attempts to map the limits of transformative play and ludic vulnerability. She is particularly interested in using frameworks informed by asexual embodiment to better understand player ethics both in and beyond the play space.  She is also an Editorial Intern for Analog Game Studies.

Evan Torner, PhD is Associate Professor of German Studies and Film & Media Studies at the University of Cincinnati, where he also serves as Undergraduate Director of German Studies and the Director of the UC Game Lab. He is co-founder and a Senior Editor of the journal Analog Game Studies. To date, he has published 9 co-edited volumes and special journal issues, as well as over 40 articles and book chapters in various venues. His fields of expertise include East German genre cinema, German film history, critical race theory,  science fiction. role-playing game studies, Nordic larp, cultural criticism, and second-language pedagogy.

Dr. José P. Zagal is a game scholar and avid game player as well. He is also a Professor with the University of Utah’s nationally ranked Division of Games where, among other things, he teaches courses on game design, ethics in videogames, and experimental games. He taught his first university-level class in 2000, has since supervised multiple award-winning student projects, and many of his former students work at leading game studios worldwide. Dr. Zagal has edited and authored numerous books and articles on game ethics, games education, game design, role-playing games, and more. He most recently co-authored Seeing Red: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy (MIT Press 2024) and co-edited Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons (MIT Press 2024) and The Routledge Handbook of Role-Playing Game Studies (Routledge 2024). He was honored as a Distinguished Scholar by the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) and named a Fellow of the Higher-Education Videogame Alliance (HEVGA) for his contributions to games research. He also serves as the Editor-In-Chief of DiGRA’s flagship journal Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association (ToDiGRA).