“Dr. Emma Vossen (PhD, University of Waterloo, 2018) is an Assistant Professor of Game Studies in the Department of Digital Humanities at Brock University. Her interdisciplinary research explores the intersections of politics, identity, and technology, with a particular focus on digital games.

Before joining Brock, Dr. Vossen held several academic and research positions, including Knowledge Mobilization and Research Impact Officer at the University of Waterloo’s Games Institute, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at both York University and the University of British Columbia, and Instructor at institutions such as Wilfrid Laurier University (Game Design and Development), OCAD University (Visual and Critical Studies), Sheridan College (Game Design and Development), Seneca Polytechnic (Liberal Studies), and the University of Waterloo (English Language and Literature).

An award-winning public speaker, Dr. Vossen is the co-author and co-editor of Feminism in Play (2018) and Historiographies of Game Studies: What It Has Been, What It Could Be (2025). She also served as Editor-in-Chief of First Person Scholar, a publication dedicated to accessible and critical scholarship in game studies.

Dr. Vossen has been a prominent voice in public discourse on online radicalization, digital violence, and contemporary fascism since 2013. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets, including ABC News, CBC News, NBC News, Wired, Maclean’s, The Washington Post, University Affairs Magazine, Toxic Avenger Magazine, and Electronic Gaming Monthly. In 2016, her dissertation research was the subject of a nationally broadcast CBC Ideas documentary titled The Dangerous Game: Gamergate and the ‘Alt-Right’. 

Her recent publications include “Playing as the Princess: Nintendo, Gender Roles, and Echoes of Wisdom,” co-authored with Dr. Sarah Stang and published in Just Tech (Social Science Research Council), and “Tom Nook, Capitalist or Comrade?”, which examines the Animal Crossing series as a potential anti-capitalist text in the context of the contemporary housing crisis.”