Hello!
Thanks for checking out my Portfolio!
I’m a Game Developer specializing in User Experience Research and Design
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I've earned a BA in Psychology with Honors from the University of Southern California and a Masters of Science in Games and Playable Media from the University of California: Santa Cruz.
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I hope to apply my research skills and game dev experience as a Games User Researcher, helping teams improve their games by locating pain points, conducting playtests and player interviews, analyzing player feedback, and finding innovative ways to make a good game great!
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The following are professional projects where I have directly applied my Games User Research Testing (Playtests, Posttest Survey Analysis, etc.) skills, as well as research projects I've conducted through my academic and professional career.
Key Projects
“Because I'm Bad at the Game!” A Microanalytic Study of Self Regulated Learning in League of Legends
Research Assistant
Project Description:
This is a study I co-authored alongside PhD candidate Erica Kleinman and my first published research paper. The goal of the study was to see if a framework for Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) in physical sports translated to E-sports, specifically by exploring how League of Legends players of varying skill levels learn and improve at the game.
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My Role:
I converted participant responses into code for statistical analysis and provided additional research on external stat tracking websites for LoL (Mobalytics, Blitz, etc.).
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This was my first taste of doctoral research and gave me additional experience in analyzing participant testimonials, which I applied to my Capstone Projects the following two quarters.
Black Games Archive
Freelance Archival Researcher
Project Description:
The Black Games Archive is a joint research project between USC and Purdue University. It is a multimedia, public-facing database of games, digital resources, accessible scholarship, and designer interviews that are relevant to the intersections between Black culture, games, and play.
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My Role:
I researched games that featured black characters, had prominent/notable black devs, or borrowed from black culture throughout gaming history (1970s - present). I used Wikipedia, various games articles, MobyGames, and more to find games, then added their name, release date, and other demographic info to a spreadsheet for review by my professors. Once approved, I created an article for on the Black Games Archive website.
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I created just over a hundred of these articles in just over 5 weeks, greatly expediting a project that would have taken multiple months otherwise.
The End of the Line
Student Useability Lead
Project Description:
The End of the Line (EotL) was a visual novel student project created through USC's Advanced Games Project in Fall 2018.
My Role:
As the team's UX Lead I recruited participants, scheduled and conducted playtests, created and delivered surveys, and presented my findings to my team.
I ran weekly playtests of new game builds for about a year, examining participant responses to new features, story beats, and accessibility features.
My findings informed the design of our game's features and stories over the course of the project.
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What I learned:
This was my first real exposure to games UX as a field of study and my first experience in game dev.
My time on this project let me apply my psych and research skills to games, gave me the space to learn and make mistakes, and helped me grow as a UX researcher.
This experience solidified my desire to enter the games industry and directly led to me applying to UC Santa Cruz, where I completed my own capstone project.
