ABOUT ME

Dr. Ashley ML Guajardo (née Brown) is an award-winning teacher, streamer, and scholar. She has dedicated her career to excellence in games scholarship since first serving as a student representative of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) in 2012. Since then, she has held positions of leadership as Vice President of the Global Game Jam (2020-1), an open seat and conference co-director of the IGDA’s Games User Research Special Interest Group (2021-2), president elect of DiGRA (2025-7), and most recently a fellow of the Higher Education Video Game Association.

In addition to these leadership roles, Dr. Guajardo’s career has been marked by a dedication to accessibility and inclusivity. Beyond her DEI work at institutions, she has pioneered the use of accessible technology in her classrooms (for which she won a distinguished teaching award at the University of Utah) and specializes in reaching out to first-generation/ non-traditional students. She has hosted a free, educational stream weekly since December 2016 on twitch.tv/professor_ashley where she integrates gameplay analysis with biometric feedback to discuss game design. She is the host and producer of The Research Left Behind, a bi-weekly live stream podcast which provides free educational content for learners outside of traditional academia.