Emma Westecott

Dr Emma Westecott is a feminist game studies scholar. Emma is Associate Professor in Game Design, and Co-Director of the game:play Lab (with Cindy Poremba). She has worked in the game industry for over 25 years - in development, research and the academy. She originally achieved international recognition for working closely with Douglas Adams as producer for the best-selling CD-ROM Adventure Game, Starship Titanic (1998, Simon & Schuster). Since then, Emma has built up a worldwide reputation for developing original as well as popular game initiatives, including running an applied game research lab in Sweden and a regional student game event in Toronto called Level Up Showcase (https://levelupshowcase.com/). Emma’s funded research connects the aesthetic, expressive, and political potential of digital game form to a longer tradition of critically informed research creation practice. She has been invited to present internationally and has been published in edited collections and journals such as DiGRA, Loading and Eludamos. Emma co-chaired the Game Design Track at DiGRA 2020 and sits on PhD committees for students at both The Norwegian Film School and the University of Toronto.