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), and most recently she was elected president of DiGRA (2025-7).
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) and specializes in reaching out to first-generation/ non-traditional students. She has hosted a free, educational Twitch stream weekly since December 2016 where she integrates gameplay analysis with biometric feedback to discuss game design. Since 2025, she has been 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.