Who We Are

Amanda Cote is an Associate Professor and Director of the Serious Games Certificate in the Department of Media & Information at Michigan State University. Her work focuses on the industry and culture of digital and analog games, with an emphasis on areas such as gender, identity, and representation; game development and labor; and collegiate esports. Her first book, Gaming Sexism: Gender and Identity in the Era of Casual Video Games, was published in 2020 by New York University Press. She has also published in locations including Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Games and Culture, Feminist Media Studies, and edited book collections.

Maxwell’s primary research focus is on how play manifests in non-game contexts—including social media, emerging media, politics and journalistic institutions. He is co-author, with Dr. David Nieborg, of Mainstreaming and Game Journalism from MIT Press. Foxman is also director of the Game Studies Minor at the University of Oregon.

Brandon Harris is an Assistant Professor of Sports Media at the University of Alabama’s Department of Journalism and Creative Media. He earned a Media Studies Ph.D. from the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication. He’s broadly interested in labor, media production, gaming and esports, platforms, and the creative media industries. Dr. Harris researches cultural production, often focusing on the tensions and interplays between creators and commercial interests that structure norms, policies, and divisions of labor within the creator economy. His research has been published in venues such as Social Media & Society, Digital Journalism, New Media & Society, Games & Culture, Media Industries, Convergence, and Critical Studies in Media Communication.

Waseq Rahman, PhD. Faculty Affiliate. Waseq Rahman is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science, Design, and Journalism Department at Creighton University. His research focuses on media psychology and strategic communication, with a specific interest in designing persuasive messages in virtual and analog simulations. Waseq’s work with the EGR lab is interested in the strategic communication opportunities presented by gaming spectatorship and esports fandom.

Shane L Burrell Jr. is a Ph.D. student in the School of Journalism and Communication. Shane’s research is on the relationship users of virtual reality have with their virtual characters. Shane investigates this through the critical and post-positivist lens, using a mixed method and grounded approaches. Shane’s research focuses on the uses of innovative technologies and media while examining this through the media psychology paradigm.

Shane’s primary focus in immersive media is games and culture. Specifically, he uses media effects to understand the enclave of individuals who use immersive media to play games and how their virtual avatars impact their attitudes and behaviors.

In addition to Shane’s academic prowess, Shane is also an avid tennis player, a video game enthusiast, an explorer of extraterrestrial terrain (in VR), and an advocate for low socio-economic student success.

Andy is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Journalism and Communication who works at the intersection of game studies and critical/cultural studies, focusing on the memetic discourses and paratexts produced by online gaming communities. His dissertation examines the influence of the online far-right in gaming culture, especially its potential for shaping attitudes and expectations around games and gaming. Andy has published original research in New Media & Society(forthcoming) and the Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports. His writing also appears in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies and Popular Music and Society.

Henry researches fans, branding, and communication, with a particular focus on how sports organizations communicate to their stakeholders. Henry has collaborated with numerous sports organizations across the US, Australia, India, and the EU including the MLB, NASCAR and FIFA and brings a critical academic perspective to industrial issues.

Jared Hansen earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon and studied the communities of players still playing Star Wars Galaxies nearly 13 years after the servers closed. His research interests are the history of video games and retro development. He is also a solo developer who has made games for retro hardware, as well as designed rules for TTRPGs https://jaredchansen.itch.io/. He is currently working on a book about the history of homebrew development during the height of the Nintendo DS.

John’s expertise includes neuroeconomics, consumer neuroscience, and judgment and decision making. His research on these topics has been published in journals including the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Neuroscience, PNAS, and Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

Onder Can is a Ph.D. student in the School of Journalism and Communication. Onder’s research is on the political economy of esports where he investigates issues of labor, gender and affect using ethnographic methods. For his PhD proposal, he wants to explore global infrastructure technologies by focusing on the ways in which esports is constituted in Turkey.

Tara the author of The Race Card: From Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities (NYU Press, 2019, winner of Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award). Her research and teaching interests include Asian/Asian American literature, Game Studies, the Digital Humanities, and Comics Studies.