Ellen Guon Beeman has fifteen years of experience in designing, writing, and producing games. She began her games career as a project manager at Sierra, then joined Origin to write and direct games in the Wing Commander series. She has also held salaried positions at Electronics Arts and Monolith Productions. As a freelancer, she worked for Disney, Sega, Leapfrog, Mary-Margaret.com, and other companies. Prior to her games career, Ellen was a children's television writer, and has published four novels and several short stories. Ellen has been a speaker at the Game Developer Conference, SXSW Interactive, and other game industry events.

With over 17 years experience, Brenley Brotman is in charge of the recruitment and staffing functions for all Lucasfilm Companies (LucasArts, Industrial Light + Magic, Lucasfilm Animation, Lucas Licensing, Skywalker Sound). In this role, she is responsible for designing and executing recruiting strategies to attract and retain key creative talent worldwide. Prior to Lucasfilm, Brenley held leadership roles in companies such as AT&T Wireless, Cisco Systems, Claris Corporation and Charles Schwab. She is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley.

Founded by Daglow in 1988, Stormfront's recent titles include action-adventures Demon Stone (PS2/Xbox, Atari), and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (PS2/Xbox, EA, based on the film by Peter Jackson). Prior to founding Stormfront, Don served as director of Intellivision game development for Mattel, as a producer at Electronic Arts, and as head of the Entertainment and Education division at Broderbund. He designed and programmed the first-ever computer baseball game in 1971 (now recorded in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown), the first mainframe computer role-playing game ("Dungeon", distributed for PDP-10 mainframes by DECUS, 1975), the first sim game (Intellivision Utopia, 1981), the first game to use multiple camera angles (Intellivision World Series Baseball, 1983) and the first original play-by-email game (Quantum Space for AOL, 1989). Don co-designed Computer Game Hall of Fame title Earl Weaver Baseball (1987) and the first massively multiplayer online graphic adventure, the original Neverwinter Nights for AOL (1991-97). In 2003 Don was elected to the Board of Directors of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. That same year he received the Classic Gaming Expo Achievement Award for "groundbreaking accomplishments that shaped the Video Game Industry." He also is a past winner of the National Endowment for the Humanities New Voices playwriting competition. Don holds a B.A. in Writing from Pomona College and an Ed.M. from Claremont Graduate University.

As executive producer for Microsoft Game Studios (MGS), Laura Fryer works to make Microsoft game titles the most sought after offerings on the market. Named one of The Hollywood Reporter's “Top 12 Most Influential Women in Gaming in 2004,” Fryer is recognized as one of the most promising young leaders in the entertainment industry. In 1995, Fryer became one of the first members of MGS. During her tenure, she shipped six games including the classic "Crimson Skies." As one of the founders of MSN's Zone.com, she conceived and produced the first Microsoft release of Zone.com, and produced "Fighter Ace 1.0," Microsoft's first massively multiplayer game. Fryer left MGS to become a founding member of the Xbox project in May 2000 as the Director of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group responsible for making Xbox the ultimate platform for game developers. During her four years with Xbox, she cultivated worldwide Xbox Developer Support, created the Xbox Advisory Board, and ran Xbox game developer events (a.k.a. Xfests) around the globe.

Over the past 15 years, Gano has designed and produced many best-selling entertainment software titles for Sierra On-Line, Electronic Arts, and Stunt Puppy Entertainment. As the President and Founding Partner at Stunt Puppy Entertainment, she created high-quality interactive entertainment titles that sold over two million units for clients such as Mattel Media, Atari, and Buena Vista Games. At AT&T's ImagiNation Network and HearMe/Mpath, Gano led the design of innovative consumer online entertainment experiences. Gano has a B.A. from Duke University with Phi Beta Kappa honors, an M.A. in Theatre and Drama from University of Wisconsin at Madison, and did doctoral work in Performance Studies at Northwestern University's School of Speech.

Sheri Hargus is currently the Chief Technology Officer at Her Interactive, a gaming company devoted to developing intelligent and challenging interactive adventure games. She has worked in the gaming industry for ten years. Prior to that she worked for many years designing and developing software for publishing and graphic design at Aldus and Adobe.

Robin Harper joined Linden Lab in 2002, bringing extensive experience in the entertainment software industry. She is currently responsible for Second Life community development, growth and support, after spending her first two years managing all marketing activities. Earlier in her career, she was the Vice President of Marketing at Maxis, a division of Electronic Arts (EA). At Maxis she played a prominent role in their emergence as the leader in PC simulation games and was a core member of the senior executive team that guided the company through their IPO and subsequent sale to Electronic Arts. Also while at Maxis, she established SimCity as one of the most recognized brand names in entertainment software, and was named one of the marketing 100 by Advertising Age/Newsweek. In addition to Maxis and Linden Lab, Harper has held senior marketing positions at Ninth House Network (corporate learning and online education) and at Mondo Media (online entertainment). She holds an MBA in marketing from the University of Chicago.

Kat Hunter is a video game industry insider turned professional gamer. She writes for several print and online publications such as GamePro, Amazon.com, 1up.com, Pocket Games and Yahoo! Games Domain. She is also an online host for two online broadcast news shows including Yahoo’s “Reset” and GameTrailer.com’s GTtv. Hunter, a member of Ubisoft’s all-girl gaming team, the Frag Dolls, started her ascent into the world of professional gaming with a Nintendo 64 console. The team has prospered exponentially from the addition of someone with so much knowledge about the inner workings of the video game industry.

In addition to her experience writing for video game publications, Hunter held the title of creative director for Interactive Online Agency for four years. During the next four years she returned to the video game industry as a Webmaster and was responsible for online product development for GameDaily and GameDaily.Biz.

From the mean streets of Utah to the serene calmitude of West Oakland, Ashley Jenkins remains a video game industry professional. She currently works as a community manager for Ubisoft, facilitating the desires of the gaming community, acting as liaison between the company and gamers and helps monitor forums and community activity. Jenkins, better known to the online and gamer community as “Jinx,” is also a member of Ubisoft’s Frag Dolls, the professional video game team. She has taken on the role of producer for the Frag Dolls video game Podcasts, which include interviews and editorials about the industry.

Jenkins began working as an in-game journalist for the Massively Multiplayer Online game, Shadowbane, where she wrote regular articles on events and the political state of the virtual world. She has been a long-time video game player and fan and loves action, adventure and RPG titles.

Kain is a well respected public relations professional with more than 10 years experience representing videogames, computer games and educational software. She is known throughout the games industry as one of the best, most straightforward providers of effective PR campaigns for top companies such as Electronic Arts, Paramount, Yahoo!, Namco, Logitech and JAMDAT.

Tina Kettell is a Staffing Consultant with Microsoft in the Entertainment, Devices Division. Tina has over 10 years of recruiting and business development experience in diverse industries including technology, financial services, bio tech and now gaming and marketing. Tina has been in Washington State since 1998 where she moved from Ohio.

Nicole is an award-winning interface designer and an authority on emotion and the player experience. A frequent speaker at industry events she writes extensively on games and why people play them. She has spent more than 15 years designing successful experiences for all levels of players and users, from novice to expert, in many game genres. She integrates her adventures living and traveling abroad into creating culture-crossing experiences. Her work on the emotional and cultural content of play has improved the player experiences for more than 40 million people and helped expand the game industry's emotional palette beyond the stereotypical range of anger, frustration, and fear. Nicole founded XEODesign in 1992 to bring her expertise in player-experience research and design to the mass-market entertainment and consumer-creativity industries. Her clients have included Sony, LeapFrog, Mattel, Sega, PlayFirst, Monolith, The Learning Company, Xfire, Broderbund, Roxio, Ubisoft and Maxis. Her ground breaking research on "Why People Play Games: 4 Keys to More Emotion Without Doing" has generated phenomenal interest. She has presented on Hard Fun, Easy Fun, Altered States, and the People Factor at GDC, MUDDev, CHI, BayCHI, The Future Salon, Nokia, HP, Veritas and Sun. Prior to her fascination with player experiences and games she worked in film and earned a degree in Psychology from Stanford University.

Peter was born and raised in Ohio by two socially conscious hippies and fits well into a larger family tradition of boisterous inventors & educators. He attended the University of Dayton and studied political science receiving advanced but mediocre instruction in Easter European and Soviet cold war history -- just in time to see the Berlin Wall fall. In an effort to avoid law school -- he took his budding high tech skills and rode them through stints at CompuServe (before AOL won), Winbook Computers (before Dell won) and Stanley Works (makers of all things Stanley).

Peter entered the game industry in 1997, joining Totally Games the Marin, California based developer and creators of two classic PC titles X-Wing & TIE Fighter. He moved from Manager of Communications and Technology to General Manager and contributed to the Win 9x updates to the X-Wing Series, Star Wars:X-Wing Alliance, Star Trek Bridge Commander and Secret Weapons over Normandy. In 2004, Peter took some time off from the game industry to take a biodiesel powered trip around the United States with his own father and two sons to talk to people about the impact of the election on our future (before Swift Boats won). In early 2005, he joined CMP Media's Game Group as Executive Producer for Online Products. Peter overseas Gamasutra.com and a growing list of web sites and ecommerce initiatives for the producers of the GDC and Game Developer magazine. He also remains active in the developer community as the list manager for the IGDA's LGBT diversity mailing list.

Elisabeth Marty manages human resources for Linden Lab, creator of the 3D online world Second Life. A graduate of CSU Fresno, Elisabeth is multi-lingual, an accomplished violinist and has worked her HR magic for both global companies and start-ups. With strengths in employee relations, recruitment and organizational development, Elisabeth finds Linden Lab’s fun, fast-paced environment and committed team an absolute fit.

Mitzi has been active in the game industry for nearly two decades. Her career started at the once well-known game company, Epyx. There, she embarked on the path into production by spending two years on the phone providing game hints and helping to teach customers how to configure their IBM PC JR or Apple IIGS to run games. Since then, she has held increasingly more senior production roles at most major publishers in the SF Bay Area, including Activision, Atari, Electronic Arts, Maxis and Tapwave. Over the life of her career, Mitzi has produced over one hundred games in varying genres including sports, RPG's, action/strategy and casual. Mitzi currently serves as the Secretary for the IGDA Board of Directors.

Since 1998, Robin has staffed entire production teams, as well all layers of product development, marketing, executive, and operations. Prior to joining Mary-Margaret.com, Robin was the Creative Services Liaison for Origin and Electronic Arts. Credited on over a dozen hit titles, from System Shock to Ultima Online, she was a member of the marketing creative team, providing graphic design and coordinating the creation of international marketing materials for all of EA’s titles worldwide. Keenly interested in the education of present and future game developers, Robin serves on the advisory boards of Austin Community College Videogame Development Continuing Education Program and The Game Initiative. She has authored many articles on employment-related subjects for Gamasutra, Game Developer and Animation World Magazine. Previous speaking engagements include Shawnee State University, Women in Games International, St. Edwards University, GameCamp!, SXSW Interactive and NPR's Marketplace. Robin has a BA in Drama from the University of Houston.

Heidi oversees product, channel, and brand marketing for the growing PlayFirst games portfolio, including consumer research and promotion of the company's titles. With nearly ten years of consumer technology experience, Heidi has specialized in the marketing and distribution of popular games on the Internet. Prior to her role at PlayFirst, she led marketing for Yahoo! Games, where she launched two subscription games services, as well as early downloadable titles. Heidi gravitated toward the casual games sector after two years at AtomShockwave, where she helped the early founders experiment and prove the commercial viability of premium games

content for the mass market. Heidi has also worked as a marketing consultant for Microsoft in the US and UK and began her career at interactive and technology agencies, USWeb / CKS and JWT Technology (formerly DWP/Bates). Heidi holds an MBA from Oxford University and a BBA from Emory University.

Sheri Graner Ray is and author of the book, “Gender Inclusive Game Design-Expanding the Market.” She has served as the co-chair for the Women in Game Development SIG of the IGDA for 4 years and has been a spokesperson for the female game player for many years. In 2004, she was the Chair of the Women’s Game Conference, the first game conference to specifically address the issues of women and games held in the U.S. Before working with Cartoon Network, she was Sr. Game Designer with Sony Online Entertainment and President of her own studio, Sirenia Software, and before that as Director of Product Development for Her Interactive, where she began her research into females and computer games. She has also worked for Origin Systems as a writer and designer on the Ultima PC series.

A 20-year computer game industry veteran, Nicky has been a major contributor to 23 games across a multitude of gaming platforms, going as far back as the Commodore 64. An escapee from the biochemistry labs of the University of California, she found animated creatures far more interesting than their real-life counterparts. Most
recently, she became a co-founder of the mobile publisher LimeLife, which creates mobile phone applications for women.

John has been involved in the game industry for more than 20 years as a creative director, lead programmer, lead designer and executive producer on more than 60 top game titles. From his early Apple IIe games to the legendary Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom II, Heretic, Hexen, and Quake titles, Romero has made an indelible mark on the computer gaming industry. John was most recently Creative Director of the Internal Studio at Midway Home Entertainment. Previously, John was a co-Founder of Inside Out Software, Ideas From The Deep, id Software, Ion Storm and Monkeystone Games. John’s latest enterprise is currently developing a unique PC MMOG title.

Morgan Romine works as a community manager at Ubisoft where she played an integral role on launching Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and is currently working on titles like And1 Street Ball and Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Romine interacts directly with Ubisoft’s core video game audience through the message boards, organizes online events such as contests and chats, and serves as a communication hub between the gaming communities and dev teams. Romine helped found and build Ubisoft’s all-girl gaming team, the Frag Dolls and as captain of the team, she serves as spokesperson, gamer, road manager, and liaison between the team and Ubisoft.

Examining gaming from an academic standpoint, Romine coordinated and led a class at Berkeley about the “anthropology of online gaming communities” during the 2002-2003 school year. The lesson plan was based on extensive research into psychological, sociological and demographic studies. She used her personal experience with MMORPGs like EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, Lineage, and Dark Age of Camelot to engage the class in discussions about this unique and growing social world.

A self-dubbed casual games junkie, Lisa is happiest in front of her pink VooDoo laptop, immersed in the latest online puzzle. Now as the marketing lead for Microsoft Casual Games, Lisa is perfectly suited for driving the marketing initiatives for Microsoft's casual gaming platforms, which include MSN Games, MSN Messenger, Microsoft Mobile Games and Xbox Live Arcade. Before joining the Casual Games group, she was the product manager for Windows Gaming where she managed marketing for Windows as a gaming platform. Previously, Lisa worked at ATI Technologies where she was the group manager of marketing communications and partner promotions. She earned a business administration degree from Durham College in Ontario, Canada.

Jessica Tams has been actively involved in casual game development, publishing and distribution as well as Retail PC and Xbox game development and publishing. At SkillJam, a Fun Technologies Company, Jessica is responsible for the product portfolio including game catalogue, website design and user experience of skill, community and casual download product offerings. Fun Technologies is a publicly traded company with a Market Cap in excess of $300 Million, TSX: FUN, LSE: FUN.

Most recently as Director of Partner Development for Trymedia Systems, Jessica focused on securing new business initiatives and strategic partnerships. Before joining Trymedia, Jessica was responsible for internally developed PC download and Web Games and externally published Xbox Live Arcade Games at Oberon Media's Seattle Studio. Jessica spent five years working as a Software Engineer in Retail PC and Xbox console development on Dungeon Siege and Gabriel Knight III.

Prior to joining the ranks of game development, she was in the UW Physics PhD program and spent several years in academia pursuing scientific research and teaching in Mathematical Biology and Physics.

Skunk Studios is a leading developer of award-winning games for the mass market. Founded in 2001, Skunk Studios' arsenal of titles includes Mah Jong Adventures, Gutterball 2, QBeez, Tennis Titans, and Varmintz. Additionally, Ms. Wallace serves on the Steering Committee for both the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Casual Games Special Interest Group and the Online Games Special Interest Group. She is also a regular contributor to the annual IGDA Casual Games White Paper and a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Ms. Wallace holds a B.S. and an M.A. in Communications from Boston University and the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, respectively. As a recipient of the Congress-Bundestag Scholarship, she attended World Learning in Brattleboro, VT and subsequently spent a year in Germany, studying German language and culture.