Hi, I'm Marj! (pronouns: she/they).

I'm a UX Researcher and a Computational Media PhD student in the Alternative Learning Technologies & Games Lab at UC Santa Cruz.

Empathy should be at the heart of everything we do to understand users! I study games in grad school because they emphasize the engagement and enjoyment of the player experience. My PhD work is in game design research --
I'm interested in exploring how challenge design relates to player experience in games. Specifically, (1) How emotional challenge design relates to reflective and meaningful player experiences; (2) How sociality in games impacts challenge; and (3) How performative challenge design relates to various aspects of player experience.