Gaming Against Violence

Experts and Advisors

Advisory Board for Jennifer Ann's Group

Violence prevention requires a multi-disciplinary approach. The experience of the members of the Advisory Board for Jennifer Ann's Group reflects this, with backgrounds in social services, education, public health, law enforcement, and community engagement. Through cross-discipline collaboration, the Advisory Board provides advice and strategic solutions to address the root causes of violence. Jennifer Ann's Group is grateful to its esteemed Advisory Board members, past and present, for their support and counsel.

Dr. Elizabeth L. Richeson, Ph.D., M.S. PsyPharm

Advisory Board Chair

Dr. Richeson has been volunteering with nonprofits for more than 40 years, beginning with school organizations in the United States and a wide variety of groups in the Marshall Islands, Japan, Thailand, and Korea before moving to El Paso, Texas. She then worked with a variety of organizations in the El Paso area, including Las Americas and NAMI, while also serving on their boards.

Dr. Richeson worked as a Program Administrator for HCA at a psychiatric hospital before beginning her private practice which she has run for nearly 40 years. She has a BA, MA, Ph.D. in psychology, a postdoctoral Masters in Clinical Psychology / Psychopharmacology, and completed her Fellowship at Texas Tech where she went on to teach in the Department of Psychiatry.

A University of Maryland - Far East Division teacher was the impetus for her interest in professional speaking which she continues today. She speaks on a variety of subjects with a primary focus on Dating Violence Prevention and related titles.

Her dedication to protecting youth has been ongoing through her professional life, however, it became personal with the loss of her granddaughter, Jennifer, for whom this organization is named.
Dr. Beth Abbott

Beth Abbott, Ph.D., is a retired psychologist with a passion for helping women avoid violent relationships and engage in healthy ones through education and counseling. Initially, she worked in social services through the Peace Corps in Uruguay, a Spanish-speaking country, and in community services as director of Presa Community Service Center, and for St. Mary's University. From there, she worked at the University of Texas at El Paso Counseling Center and in private practice. During this time, she evaluated patients who were planning to give or receive a kidney transplant.

She has served as a volunteer for many years with the Center against Family Violence and the Paso Del Norte brain trust, focusing on eliminating stigma around mental illness. She is on the board of Jennifer Ann's Group and makes presentations to teens to avoid teen dating violence and engage in healthy relationships.
Dr. Katherine Brehm

Dr. Katherine Brehm was previously a school psychologist in the Ysleta Independent School District and Denver Pub lic Schools. Dr. Brehm has coauthored a book on interventions for school emotional and behavioral problems and is a co-author of Resilient Clasrooms.
Drew Crecente, JD

Drew Crecente is founder and executive director of Jennifer Ann's Group and also runs their Gaming Against Violence program. Drew is a teen dating violence lead at Emory's Injury Prevention Research Center (IPRCE) and a published researcher on violence prevention through video games. Drew speaks at conferences about the use of video games as an innovative intervention for preventing violence. Drew's violence prevention efforts were recognized by Everytown as a 2024 Changemaker.
Michelle Esper-Martin

With several decades of experience in community engagement and nonprofit leadership, Michelle has volunteered and chaired fundraising efforts for various nonprofits, bringing strategic insight and hands-on experience to the board. Michelle has worked for the State of Texas for more than 10 years, including serving as Executive Director for the Women's Commission, where she led initiatives focused on promoting healthy living for women and girls and combating human trafficking.

As a single mother who raised a daughter, she deeply understands the importance of protecting teens in ways that resonate with them. Jennifer Ann's Group's innovative approach using video games to educate and empower teens about dating violence aligns with her belief that meaningful engagement requires meeting young people where they are and leveraging interactive tools to foster awareness and change.
Aaron Setliff, JD

Aaron Setliff serves as the Division Chief of the Protective Order Unit at the El Paso County Attorney's Office. Previously he has worked as the Director of Policy at the Texas Council on Family Violence and Chief of the Domestic Violence Unit at the El Paso District Attorney's Office.

That's work stuff. Here are the main ingredients to bake an Aaron Setliff: start with a base of energy, add some lawyer, a strong dose of feminist, two dashes of yoga and tennis, and a heaping spoonful of running. Let steep, then throw in podcast hosting, doggie dadding, gardening, and a love for the arts. Throw the whole concoction into an air fryer. Garnish with a new found love for acting and: voila. You got yourself an Aaron Setliff.
Dr. Homero Silva

Dr. Silva was principal of Loretto High School and Middle School in El Paso, Texas from 2017 - 2023. He has over 28 years of experience in education as a teacher, professional development specialist, and administrator.
Dr. Jeff Temple

Dr. Temple is a professor, licensed psychologist, and the Associate Dean for Clinical Research at the School of Behavioral Health Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, where he also holds the Betty and Rose Pfefferbaum Chair in Child Mass Trauma and Resilience. As the Director of the first CDC-funded Injury Control Research Center in Texas, his work focuses on the predictors, course, consequences, and prevention of intimate partner violence.
Dr. Thenral Mangadu

Dr. Mangadu is an associate professor in public health sciences at the University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Mangadu's research interests include minority health disparities, global health, public health program evaluation, and violence prevention.
Stephanie Valle

Stephanie Valle spent more than two decades at KVIA ABC-7 as a journalist and news anchor. During her career, Stephanie served as an anchor and investigative reporter. She turned her passion for trial court reporting into the Borderland Crimes Podcast. It received numerous accolades, including the prestigious National Edward R. Murrow Award in 2024.

Now, Stephanie works in the El Paso District Attorney's Office as the Special Projects Administrator. She is the media liaison, the DA's grant manager, and the coordinator for the Region 19 High School Mock Trial competition and crime victims remembrance events.

As a member of El Paso's Plaza Classic Film Festival Advisory Committee, she interviews the festival's special guests live onstage and co-hosts the Plaza Classic Podcast. Along with Jennifer Ann's Group, Stephanie also serves as a board member of the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence, Jennifer Ann's Group and the regional Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Panel of Expert Judges

Experts play a critical role in critiquing the violence prevention video games submitted for the Annual Life.Love. Game Design Challenge.

Professionals from diverse fields bring unique perspectives to the evaluation, critique, and selection of these prosocial games. The professionals below have backgrounds in a variety of fields, including anthropology, communications, education, game design, gender studies, journalism, law, media studies, nonprofit management, psychology, public health, sociology, and violence prevention. Their critiques go beyond selecting the winning video games -- their advice ensures that the published games are evidence-based, trauma-informed, and meet the needs of our communities.

The following background and biographic information was current at the time that these experts served as judges; their information has not been updated since. These expert judges have supported the Gaming Against Violence program at various times throughout the program's history, beginning in 2008.

We are eternally grateful to the many experts who have graciously provided their time and expertise.

Leigh Alexander

Leigh Alexander is a journalist working at the intersection of technology and popular culture. She hosts the Guardian’s tech podcast, writes a technomancy column at Motherboard called "Oracles of the Web", and occasionally does narrative design for independent video games. She recently published Monitor, a cyberpunk novella, and launched an ASMR video series devoted to vintage computing. More projects can be found at leighalexander.net/about.

Harley Baldwin

Harley Baldwin has been a designer and leader in the AAA console game industry at notable game studios, including 2K, Nihilistic Software, Demiurge, Crystal Dynamics, LucasArts, and Her Interactive. She has worked on many titles and in many genres, from Rock Band and Tomb Raider to Call of Duty and XCOM. As a regular on the conference circuit, she is often found representing Schell Games as speaker and participant. Harley also makes sure to poke at things, look under rocks, and play every day.

Michele Perryman Beam

Michele is a fashion blogger and personal style consultant who writes about fashion, fitness, and furnishings from the perspective of a mother with young children. In her spare time she volunteers as an advocate working to prevent cancer and dating violence. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her two children and family dogs.

Dr. Ian Bogost

Dr. Ian Bogost is an award-winning videogame designer and media philosopher. He is Associate Professor at Georgia Tech and Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC. He is also the author or co-author of seven books, including Unit Operations, Persuasive Games, Racing the Beam, Newsgames, and the forthcoming How To Do Things with Videogames and Alien Phenomenology. His most recent game, A Slow Year, won the Vanguard and Virtuoso awards at the 2010 Indiecade Festival.

Susan Bonner

Susan Bonner (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University teaching in the Serious Games Certificate and the Games and Interactive Media program. Educational games she produced through The EPIC Project have won Serious Play and Meaningful Play Awards. She is the creator of The Road Crew Social Emotional Health Game, which aims to teach young children coping skills for anger, loneliness, and anxiety through an AR experience. Accessible, universal, and inclusive design is at the heart of her teaching, art, design, and the work she produces. Susan actively participates on panels for the National Science Foundation, specifically focusing on Small Business Innovative Research in VR, AR, AI, and Learning Cognition. Susan holds an MFA from the University of Cincinnati and a BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design. Find out more at SusanBonner.com

Dr. Erica Bowen

Dr. Erica Bowen is a Registered Forensic Psychologist with the Health Professions Council, a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society, and Reader in the Psychology of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) at Coventry University. Dr. Bowen is also the director of the Violence and Interpersonal Aggression (VIA) research group and the academic lead on the EU Daphne funded project "Changing Attitudes to Violence in Adolescence" (CAVA) which has developed "Green Acres High School," a video game used as part of a classroom curriculum to prevent violence in teenage relationships.

Nicola Bowes

Dr. Nicola Bowes is a Forensic Psychologist and Senior Lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Her practice and research interests relate to violent offending. She is interested in methodologies used for risk assessment of violent offenders and exploring the development of more effective interventions. She has many collaborative projects including National Offender Management Service and Cardiff Youth Offending Team.

Dr. Nick Bowman

Nick Bowman is Professor and Programs Director of the MA Media Studies and PhD Mass Communication curriculum in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He is a media and communication scholar with an extensive research career focused on the uses and effects of video games. He has published more than 140 peer-reviewed academic manuscripts, with recent studies focused on the functional role of video games in daily life, from video game nostalgia to use of gaming for mood management. He works with other scholars and game developers to advance the study and design of video games for prosocial purposes, including violence reduction and perspective-taking. He is the Launch Editor of the newest journal of the International Communication Association, Global Perspectives in Communication, and was recently the Fulbright Taiwan Wu Jing-Jyi Arts & Culture Fellow at the National Chengchi University in Taipei. He has taught courses on video games and media psychology in Belgium, Germany, Mexico, and Taiwan.

Brenda Brathwaite

Professor, Savannah College of Art and Design

Dan Butchko

Dan Butchko oversees all operations for Playcrafting globally and carries out planning and execution of all New York activities. Through Playcrafting, Dan and his team work to empower and grow game development communities through events and education that cater to veteran and aspiring developers alike. He aims to help gamers and enthusiasts become developers and active developers become successful businesses.

Simon Carless

Simon Carless has been working in and around the video game industry for the past 20+ years. He’s passionate about games, art, people, and bringing amazing creative endeavors to light via discoverability and curation. He’s most known for his role helping to shape the Game Developers Conference and the Independent Games Festival for the past decade plus, runs the popular Game Discoverability Weekly newsletter, and is also an investor and partner in indie game publisher No More Robots, which has published notable independent & PC console games including Yes, Your Grace, Hypnospace Outlaw, Descenders, & Not Tonight.

Dr. Mark Danger Chen

Mark Danger Chen is a games scholar and assistant teaching professor of media and learning at Appalachian State University. They oversee Esoteric Gaming, an alternative publication outlet that celebrates gaming diversity through detailed accounts of arcane and marginal gaming practices. Mark also wrote Leet Noobs: The Life and Death of an Expert Player Group in World of Warcraft, an ethnographic account of how a new team learned to excel through the use of game mods and then died in a fiery meltdown catalyzed by the same mods. In a previous life, Mark was a webmaster and game designer for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Mark wants a die-cast 1st generation Soundwave for Christmas. You can reach Mark at @mcdanger.

Jane Cocks

Jane Cocks is a psychology and games researcher and a consultant on serious game design and is completing her doctorate as part of the Engage Research Lab at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Her research synthesises psychology, game design and narrative. With a decade of experience in psychology and behavioural science research, Jane focuses on giving game development teams the tools and shared language needed to design games for positive change and help people live their best lives. Jane regularly contributes to industry research and publications on the topics of ethical design guidelines for VR impact games; games industry work best practices; and frameworks for playful interactivity applying care, connection and personal growth. She believes the stories, art and play we create can change our lives for the better.

Hannah Corcoran

Hannah Corcoran is an Associate Producer at Auroch Digital, a freelance artist, and a registered Member of the British Psychological Society. Holding both a BSc and MS in Psychology from Lancaster University, her passion for the arts and gaming often spilled into her studies. This interest in the intersection of games and psychology led her to volunteer as a research assistant for the psychology department's Game Lab; here she worked alongside Sunway University to investigate how the portrayal of violence against women in video games effects attitudes to women in the real world.

Brian Crecente

Brian Crecente founded video gaming site Kotaku and co-founded Polygon. He was also the video games editor for Rolling Stone and for Variety and wrote a weekly gaming column for McClatchy-Tribune News Service for about a decade. He currently consults for publishers and the video game industry. Past and current clients include The Washington Post, LEGO, Minute Media, Survios, and Epic Games. He can be reached at Pad and Pixel.

Drew Crecente, JD

Drew Crecente (they/them) is founder and executive director of Jennifer Ann's Group and also runs their Gaming Against Violence program. Drew is a teen dating violence lead at Emory's Injury Prevention Research Center (IPRCE) and a published researcher on violence prevention through video games. Drew speaks at conferences about the use of video games as an innovative intervention for preventing violence. Game production credits include the consent game ADRIFT, the healthy relationship game HONEYMOON, and the media literacy game Culture Overlord, a Games for Change Awards Finalist in the category of Best Learning Game. Drew's violence prevention efforts were recognized by Everytown as a 2024 Changemaker.

Eve Crevoshay

Eve Crevoshay joined Take This as Executive Director in 2018. She is a 20-year veteran of the nonprofit sector, with a focus on fundraising and executing strategy. Her background spans education, social services, and the arts, and she is committed to identifying and enabling systemic change. Eve is a member of the advisory boards for GDC (in the advocacy track), the Fair Play Alliance, The Games and Online Harassment Hotline (gameshotline.org), and The International Game Summit on Mental Health (TIGS.ca); and is the recipient of the inaugural GamesBeat Up and Comer award (2020) and the 2022 Games for Change Festival Vanguard Award. She’s also an avid gardener, cook, and gamer. She lives in the Seattle area with her husband, daughter, and dogs. Eve is a white, heterosexual, cisgender woman.

Sabrina Culyba

Sabrina Culyba (she/her) is a Pittsburgh-based game designer and founder of Ludoliminal. Her professional work has spanned online games, VR, mobile apps, location-based entertainment, and board games across a variety of industries from healthcare to education. She is the author of The Transformational Framework (ETC Press, 2018) and has spoken on game design and the transformational power of games at a number of conferences including the Games for Change festival, Serious Play, Meaningful Play, and Dataviz+Cancer. Sabrina serves on the Board for Global Game Jam and Broke the Game. She also co-hosts the yearly XR Brain Jam at the Games for Change Festival.

Lyndsey Dearlove

Lyndsey Dearlove is a passionate advocate for social justice with nearly 20 years of experience addressing and preventing domestic and sexual violence. As the Global Director of Operations for The NO MORE Foundation, she leads an international movement dedicated to ending domestic abuse by raising awareness and driving culture change. Before joining NO MORE, Lyndsey led Hestia's response to the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and launched initiatives like 'Safe Spaces' and 'Online Safe Spaces.' She co-developed the Bright Sky app and works extensively with employers to address domestic violence in the workplace. Lyndsey also serves as a trustee for The Next Chapter charity and is a 2025 Churchill Fellow.

Dr. Pat DeLeon

Pat is an American psychologist, former chief of staff for United States Senator Daniel Inouye and past president of the American Psychological Association. He has written nearly 175 peer-reviewed papers and has served as a faculty member at several U.S. universities. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, is a recipient of the APA Award for Lifetime Contributions to Psychology, and has been named an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Mark DeLoura

Mark DeLoura leads Level Up Games, a learning game consultancy in Seattle, and is CTO/Co-founder of Games and Learning Inc. Mark worked as Senior Advisor for Digital Media in the Obama White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, finding ways to increase the use of games for impact and broadening the availability of K-12 computer science education. He's spent 25 years building games and game platforms at companies such as Sony, Nintendo, Google, THQ, and Ubisoft. In 2017, Mark was awarded the Ambassador Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards to recognize his contributions to the game industry.

Danielle DeZao

Danielle DeZao is founder and president of h<3rt1, an organization working to eliminate dating violence. She has appeared on the ABC series "What Would You Do?" (shown here with John Quinones); participated in discussions about teen dating violence at the White House; and been featured in CosmoGirl for her efforts to prevent teen dating violence.

ElsaMarie D'Silva

ElsaMarie D'Silva is an award-winning social entrepreneur and founder of Red Dot Foundation (Safecity), a platform that crowdsources stories of sexual and gender-based violence to make public spaces safer. With over a decade of experience at the intersection of gender equality, technology, and urban safety, she works globally to empower women and girls to break the silence and influence policy through data. ElsaMarie has been recognised by the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards, the United Nations, and the Government of India, among others. She is also a co-founder of the Brave Movement to end childhood sexual violence and has served as an advisor to the W7 under the G7. Formerly an aviation professional, she brings a disciplined, systems-thinking approach to social change. ElsaMarie lives between Mumbai and Washington DC and is passionate about building a world where everyone can live with dignity, freedom, and safety.

Dr. Suzanne Ensmann

Dr. Suzanne Ensmann teaches Instructional Design and Technology at the University of Tampa. Her research focuses on the use of game-based learning to evoke empathy from learners in order to transform them into advocates for improvement. She has developed a prototype of a game to teach players about the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child treaty in order to drive systemic change affording all children basic human rights.

Nina Freeman

Nina Freeman is a level designer at Fullbright in Portland, Oregon. She is working on their current game, Tacoma. In her personal work, she is most often making vignette games based on her own life stories. She worked as a designer on IGF nominee "how do you Do It?" and IGF Student Honorable Mention "Ladylike." She designed the recently released "Cibele," a game about an online relationship created by Star Maid Games. You can find her work at ninasays.so, and you can follow her on Twitter at @hentaiphd.

Andrew Greenberg

Andrew Greenberg, executive director of the Georgia Game Developers Association, has been making his living as a game developer since 1990. Andrew co-created the Fading Suns roleplaying and computer games and was the original developer of White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade. He has also worked on products with other roleplaying game companies, including Star Trek Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. His computer game credits include Noble Armada: Lost Worlds, Dracula Unleashed, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Emperor of the Fading Suns, Warhammer 40K: Final Liberation, Merchant Prince II, Mall Tycoon, Dungeon Crawlers, Dungeon Lords, The Virtual World of Kaneva, Railroad Tycoon Mobile, and the Global Agenda MMO. A fellow with the Mythic Imagination Institute, Andrew is also organizer of the Southeast Interactive Entertainment and Games Expo (SIEGE). He chairs the DeKalb Entertainment Commission. <

Tamlin Hall

Tamlin Hall is a Humanitas Prize winning writer and a Southeast Emmy® Award-winning producer. Tamlin’s work can be seen on PBS, Apple TV, Tubi TV, and Amazon. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America and can be seen every now and then teaching at the University of Georgia and Emory. Tamlin is the Founder of Hope Givers, a content creation nonprofit helping to transform health, equity, and wellbeing for all.

Dr. Jennifer Hazel

Jennifer is a fully qualified medical doctor who has practised in both the UK and Australia. She spent several years working in the Emergency Department before specialising in Psychiatry. Jennifer is a passionate advocate for the use of game technology in the therapeutic setting. To this end, she founded CheckPoint, a nonprofit organisation to connect mental health care with video game technology, where she contributes to clinical research and works with both games industry and clinical professionals to provide education, consultation and resources. She is also known as Prescription Pixel, which started off as a YouTube channel focusing on indies and has now grown to work together with CheckPoint.

Dr. Kimberly Hieftje

Dr. Kimberly Hieftje is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and co-director/co-founder of XRPeds at Yale and the new Yale Center for Immersive Technologies in Pediatrics. For the past 15 years, her research has focused on the development, evaluation, and implementation of health and clinical interventions for youth that utilize XR and game technology. Dr. Hieftje has led teams that have developed game interventions focused on topics including e-cigarette, marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco use prevention, HIV/STI prevention and testing, empowering teen girls on their sexual health, bystander intervention, LGBTQ bullying, mental health promotion, and grief/loss of a child. Dr. Hieftje is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Games for Health Journal, the premier journal in the field of serious games for health and clinical applications.

Boreum Hong, JD

Boreum is a law school graduate from Suffolk University and is the Assistant Program Director at Jennifer Ann's Group. In addition to her work to prevent teen dating violence, Boreum is the founder of a TNR organization for feral cats and talks about her love for cats at the Foul Mouthed Cat Lady blog.

Hope Givers

The "Original Teen Mental Wellness Show", Hope Givers, is an Emmy® Award-winning PBS series for teens, educators, and parents. Their youth mental health series is Health Education Standards aligned and included in the PBS Mental Health Educator toolkit as well as the Sesame Workshop database.

Dr. Ruud Jacobs

Ruud Jacobs is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication Science of the University of Twente. His research is mediapsychological, mostly focusing on the impacts of persuasive games and the ways in which they work to change attitudes. In 2017 he defended his dissertation, titled Playing to Win Over, as part of the Persuasive Gaming in Context joint research effort. Ruud lectures in technological aspects of communication science, and talks about games whenever he can.

Lucas J.W. Johnson

Lucas J.W. Johnson is an author, game designer, and entrepreneur. He's published several works of fiction including his 2022 debut novel The Clockwork Empire, and is the founder of Silverstring Media Inc., a narrative design and videogame studio. Lucas has experimented with interactive narratives, game design, and emergent storytelling for his whole life, writing stories and running tabletop roleplaying games since he was young. With Silverstring Media, he has written several critically-acclaimed and award-winning games including Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between, Flow Weaver, Extrasolar, and Timespinner.

Dr. Kristen N. Jozkowski

Dr. Kristen Jozkowski is an assistant professor of Public Health, affiliate faculty in Gender Studies and Director of the Sexual Health Research Lab at the University of Arkansas. She is also a Research Fellow with the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University. Dr. Jozkowski’s research interests include sexual consent negotiation, sexual violence prevention, sexual enhancement and sexual function. Dr. Jozkowski earned her PhD in Health Behavior from Indiana University with minors in Mixed Research Methodology and Human Sexuality in 2011 and is currently completing her MPH in Biostatistic from Indiana University.

David Langendoen

David Langendoen is president of Electric Funstuff (EFS), a NY-based design and development company founded in 1998 specializing in applying motivational principles from the computer game world to the realm of educational software. EFS has designed and developed games across a range of subjects including reading comprehension, math, history, and financial literacy. Its signature program is the Mission US series of American history games, currently used by over 50,000 middle school teachers and classes.

Natasha E. Latzman

Natasha E. Latzman, Ph.D. is a Behavioral Scientist in the Division of Violence Prevention at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her research focuses on the prevention of violence against children and youth and the promotion of healthy teen relationships. She is currently the Acting Lead of the Division’s comprehensive teen dating violence prevention initiative, Dating Matters®: Strategies to Promote Healthy Teen Relationships. Natasha received her B.S. in Human Development from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, with a specialization in law/psychology, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Angela Lee

Angela Lee is the formidable love is respect Director at The National Domestic Violence Hotline (The Hotline), where she orchestrates the strategic vision, execution, and day-to-day operations of Love is Respect. Her unwavering mission is to elevate Love is Respect into the nation's premier bastion for disrupting and preventing unhealthy relationships and intimate partner abuse. Angela's leadership empowers young people through education, support, and resources, fostering inclusivity and equity.

Jane Lee

Jane Lee (she/her) is the Senior Director of Operations and Mental Health at the History Co:Lab. With a background in psychology, Jane leads the development of games that foster emotional intelligence, resilience, and social-emotional learning in teens. She ensures that each project aligns with the organization's mission to use games for positive youth development. Jane actively collaborates with educators, researchers, and game developers to create impactful gaming experiences. She has spoken about the intersection of education, game design, and mental health for UNESCO and at the American Psychological Association convention. Jane has served as a judge for the Games for Change Awards and the GEE! Learning Games Award.

Kai Lewis

Kai Lewis (they/them) is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Southern California specializing in LGBTQIA mental health. Lewis works with youth, teens, adults, and relational units to explore identity intersectionality through collaborative and intentional therapeutic processes. They recognize the importance of video and tabletop games as a therapeutic tool for exploration of emotions, social connection, identity exploration and development, and roleplaying, and they regularly employ these techniques to facilitate therapy with patients of all ages. Lewis is also an active member at their local LGBTQIA nonprofit center as an advocate for accessible mental health care for underserved communities, as well as is a speaker, consultant, and author on LGBTQIA and gender diverse mental health and education. Additionally, Lewis is involved in research on how to further support LGBTQIA patient's medical and mental health care through affirming and innovative modalities.

Keen Seong Liew

Keen is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the Clinical Psychology PhD program. He has an interest in the role of stress and stress markers in the relationship between sleep disorders, traumatic brain injury, posttraumatic stress disorder, and physical health among military service members and veterans. He is active in volunteerism and has organized several efforts to raise awareness on gender and diversity issues in his community, including Walk A Mile in Her Shoes and Operation Beautiful.

Dr. Krista-Lee Meghan Malone

Dr. Krista-Lee M. Malone is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction’s Game Design Certificate at UW-Madison and Director of the UW Game Lab. Her past research includes studies on World of Warcraft guilds, language games in Taiwan (where she concurrently worked as a designer and consultant) and using game design, Twitch.tv, and Discord in education. Dr. Malone is currently in the field researching positive masculinity and the creation of third places. Outside of research, she is a board member of MKEsports, an alliance aimed at positively growing the culture and connectivity of regional esports groups, gamers, businesses, and community partners. If you want to geek out with her, she is known as GamerAnthro across Bluesky, X, and Twitch.

Kerry Manning

Kerry Manning is an experienced Chartered Psychologist, Chartered Scientist, and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. Kerry is the Director and Clinical Lead at Psychological Services UK and lectures on "Coercive Control in Adolescent Intimate Relationships." She is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Forensic Psychology on how coercive control is used in abusive adolescent relationships.

Dr. Jane McGonigal

Jane McGonigal, PhD is the New York Times bestselling author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World - and the inventor and co-founder of SuperBetter, a game that has helped more than 200,000 players tackle real-life health challenges such as depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and traumatic brain injury.

Dr. Brooke Morrill

Dr. Brooke Morrill serves as the Senior Director of Education at Schell Games. Morrill uses her expertise in behavioral science, psychology, and research to increase the impact of and engagement in the company's educational and transformational games. She identifies and secures extramural project funding in both the federal and private sectors in order to create and iteratively develop innovative, interactive experiences. In addition, she collaborates with universities and research institutions for product development and evaluation. She also maintains an active Board Certified Behavior Analyst-Doctoral credential from the Behavior Analyst Certification Board. Morrill serves on the Education Working Group for the Extended Reality Association (XRA), which promotes the responsible development and thoughtful advancement of virtual, augmented and mixed reality.

Dr. Amy Mueller

Amy Mueller is an assistant professor of learning technologies at the University of Oklahoma in the Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum program. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on educational and instructional technologies to pre-service and practicing educators. Prior to her arrival at the University of Oklahoma she taught 4K for Head Start and worked as a K-5 Technology Teacher at a dual language immersion program in a diverse, public, urban title-1 school. Her research interests include: culturally and linguistic responsive and sustaining education, Indigenous education, liberatory education, elementary education, games-based learning, maker education, STEM education, digital literacy, multiliteracies, design based research, and codesign & community action research. In her limited free time, she likes to play video games with her kids.

Vignesh Mukund

Vignesh is a transdisciplinary designer who leverages play as the primary tool to drive transformative educational change. He championed Games for Learning at UNESCO MGIEP, leading to the creation of the Digital Games for Peace Challenge - an innovative learning experience programme that enabled youth across geographies to collaborate and design games that combat violent extremism. Vignesh has designed and published studies on the efficacy of digital game-based learning and delivered numerous talks and experiential gaming interventions at events such as Games for Change and the FIFA World Cup 2022.

Kenji Ono

Kenji Ono is a veteran Japanese game journalist, educator, and community advocate. He began his career in 1994 as an editor for Game Critique magazine, becoming editor-in-chief in 1999. Since 2000, he has worked as a freelance journalist, covering major gaming events like Tokyo Game Show, GDC, and E3, and conducting interviews with industry leaders. Ono has been deeply involved with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Japan chapter, serving as its president from 2012 to 2017 and continuing as an honorary director. In addition to his journalism, he teaches game design, writing, and media studies at several institutions, including the International Professional University of Technology in Tokyo. His publications include What Game Creators Should Know 2 (O'Reilly Japan), and he contributes regularly to media outlets such as Mainichi Shimbun. Ono is committed to bridging cultures through games and promoting education and community development in the gaming industry.

Maria Burns Ortiz

Maria Burns Ortiz is co-founder and CEO of 7 Generation Games, which makes educational immersive video games and interactive apps. As a startup leader, she works on everything from business development to game design to fundraising. A NY Times bestselling author, Maria also leads the company's creative and narrative teams. She is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship and women in tech, co-host of the More Than Ordinary podcast and believer in the power of games to have a transformative societal impact.

Dr. Andy Phelps

Bio not available.

Sam Potasznik

Sam is the founder and principal at PlayGood Games - where he helps social change organizations engage their audience in ways that are playful, positive, and totally aligned with their mission. In short, he designs educational games and apps that people love.

Dr. Jon A. Preston

Dr. Jon Preston is the Interim Dean of the College of Computing and Software Engineering and the Co-Director for the Center of Applied Gaming and Media Arts at Kennesaw State University. He received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from Georgia Tech and his PhD in Computer Science from Georgia State University. He is particularly interested in collaborative editing systems, game simulation, and the use of these technologies to improve learning. He has participated in NSF-funded games-for-learning and community building grants to enhance STEM education and spoken at National Science Foundation workshops on gaming in engineering and computer science education.

Dr. Tomas Rawlings

Dr. Tomas Rawlings is a Vice President at Sumo Digital. He was co-founder of game studio Auroch Digital. He is an experienced, award winning game developer who has worked on both original titles, such as Mars Horizon, and well-loved IP such as Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun and the multiple award winning Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land. He co-founded Digital Tabletop Fest event with Steam. He is a noted speaker on games/gaming who has worked with major organisations such as the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society, UK Parliament & BBC. He created and ran Auroch Digital’s acclaimed news-gaming initiative GameTheNews.net which produced the global talking-point, Endgame:Syria (included in the V&A museum’s video games exhibition). He has a doctorate from University of the West of England in Software Studies & is working on a book about Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader. He also co-founded the non-profit Bristol Games Hub.

Dr. Elizabeth L. Richeson

Dr. Elizabeth L. Richeson is a Psychologist in El Paso, Texas, the head of the Advisory Board for Jennifer Ann's Group, and former president of the Texas Psychological Foundation. She was recognized as the 2018 Psychologist of the Year by the Texas Psychological Association; is an expert on teen dating violence; appears regularly on news and talk shows; and lectures nationwide on a variety of issues related to teenagers, young adults, and healthy relationships. She lived and worked in a variety of settings in Japan, Micronesia, South Korea, and Thailand and wrote her doctoral dissertation on Adaptation to Geographic Relocation at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Her clinical and administrative positions have included Program Director of Adult Psychiatric Units, Adjunct Professor at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center and University of Maryland International, and maintaining a full-time clinical practice for more than 30 years. She is considered the area authority on eating disorders for the Air Force and Army for outpatient and inpatient treatment.

Sandra Van Rijswijk

Sandra is the Founder & Treasurer of Games for Health Europe.

Ben Sawyer

Ben Sawyer is the co-founder of Digitalmill, a games consulting firm based in Portland, Maine. He is the co-founder of the Serious Games Initiative, a project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and also co-founder of the Games for Health project which connects health professionals, researchers, and game developers in order to advance the development of health games and game technologies. The Games for Health project receives major funding from the Pioneer Portfolio, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Dr. Kat Schrier

Karen "Kat" Schrier (she/they) is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Games & Emerging Media program at Marist College. She currently consults as a Game Designer for the World Health Organization (WHO). She is also Founder/CEO of PlatyPlay, LLC, which specializes in designing games for inclusion, ethics, and care. Previously, she was a media producer for Nickelodeon, Scholastic, and BrainPOP. Dr. Schrier is the author/editor of over 100 published works, including We the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics and Civics (Oxford University Press), the Learning, Education & Games series (ETC Press/Carnegie Mellon), and Knowledge Games (Johns Hopkins University Press). Find out more at karenschrier.com and platyplay.com.

Jo Sharpen

Jo Sharpen is a specialist in violence against women and girls, child development and the impacts of trauma. She has a special interest in how the online space can be used to support and empower survivors of abuse. Jo is now a freelance consultant after previously being the director of policy at AVA, a national UK charity.

Dr. Sarah Stang

Dr. Sarah Stang (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Game Studies in Brock University’s Centre for Digital Humanities. She is also the Secretary for the International Communication Association’s Game Studies Division, the former editor-in-chief of the game studies journal Press Start, and the former essays editor for First Person Scholar. She received her PhD from the Communication & Culture program at York University and her research primarily focuses on gender representation in both digital and analog games. Her published work has analysed topics such as female monstrosity, androgyny, parenthood, interactivity, and feminist media studies, and can be found in journals such as Games and Culture, Game Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Human Technology, and Loading, as well as several edited collections. You can reach out to her on Twitter.

Sweet Baby Inc.

Sweet Baby Inc. is a narrative development and consultation studio based in Montreal and working around the globe. We aim to make games more engaging, more meaningful, and more inclusive, for everyone.

Steven Totilo

Reporter, MTV News

Elliott Tranter

Elliott Tranter works in program and development management at Connected Content, a non-profit dedicated to producing content and experiences that help people navigate mental, physical, and social challenges, empowering them to live more meaningful lives. Elliott holds a master's degree in Economics (STEM) from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. His research in Sports Economics has been featured in conferences across the United States. Elliott's favorite video games include: Fallout New Vegas, Elden Ring, Skyrim and Stardew Valley.

Elin Stebbins Waldal

Elin Stebbins Waldal is a speaker; the award-winning author of Tornado Warning, A Memoir of Teen Dating Violence And Its Effect On A Woman's Life; and the founder of Girls kNOw More, an organization whose mission is to help build confidence in middle-school-age girls. She lives in Southern California with her husband, three children, and their family dog.

Joe Wasserman

Joe Wasserman is a public health researcher at RTI International, where he primarily evaluates the effectiveness of innovations in health care delivery, payment, and systems. In a past life as a media psychologist, his research on boardgaming focused on learning, skill acquisition, and systems thinking. You can find this work and reach Joe at joewasserman.com.

Peter Willington

Peter's work at Auroch Digital includes Games Workshop's Dark Future: Blood Red States and Modiphius's Agatha Christie - Death on the Cards, as well as numerous other original IP and porting projects. He has a variety of credits on many other indie titles, and runs the Staying In podcast.

Dr. Moses Wolfenstein

Moses Wolfenstein is a professor at El Camino College in Torrance, CA where he serves as Distance Education Faculty Coordinator and is leading the development of the new Games and Playable Media Department. Moses has been working in and around game design since 2006 as a designer, research, and teacher. His doctoral research with the Games+Learning+Society research group at UW-Madison focused on the intersection of games, learning, and leadership in MMO's.