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I administered and lead on Midwest Energy News' 40 Under 40 campaign. I wrote, edited, and published all the landing pages. In addition to that, I coordinated nomination and judging efforts from dozens of partner organizations across the midwest.

Hosting and Appearances

Hi! I'm a currently host at MinnMax

Refreshed

I'm the host of Refreshed, a show highlighting the wonderful people, work, and ideas on the internet. It's an internet culture talk show that branches from traditional games journalism to examine the online cultures that often run analogous to them.

Episodes:

"The Unlikely Online Fandom For Overlooked Animated Films (With Petrana Radulovic)"

"How Neopets Inspired A Generation Of Coders And Writers (With Shannon Liao)"

"How K-Pop Superfans Are Changing The World (With Palmer Haasch)"

The Deepest Dive

I talked about generation trauma and the non-linear narrative structure in the Deepest Dive for What Remains of Edith Finch.

The MinnMax Show

You can also see me cover more standard video games news as I appear on the show.

"Ana learns about Monster Rancher."

"Ana is weirdly good at recalling the most obscure Pokémon spin-offs."

"Minecraft Dungeons is funny?"

Also seen on...

OUTSIDE/IN

"Open Worlds" - I appeared on the OUTSIDE/IN podcast from NPHR and NPR to talk about Skyrim and player relationships to its built environment.

Projects

Creative Projects

Global Game Jam 2019

"Extrophile"

I made an interactive fiction game about making home in a cold place for the 2019 Global Game Jam.

Creative Writing & Story Telling

"Moving On"

A nonfiction piece written for my upper level speculative and autobiographical fiction course.

"Coffee with a Tall Man"

An audio piece written, recorded, and produced by me to raise money for a local charity event.

College Undergrad Writing and Presentations

Senior Honors Thesis

"Playing the Other: Interpreting Colonial Encounters in Earthbound"

This project looked at how one video game fit into Edward Said's theoretical framework of Orientalism. To translate that into nonacademic speak, I look at how an idea of "the East" is created through features unique to video games. This research was a wildly fun way to spend her senior year of college, and if you run into Ana, please talk to her about it.

Abstract: This paper draws attention to the potential for interdisciplinary enrichment between post-

colonial theory and videogames studies. Although some scholars have accounted for Orientalism in video games (Consalvo 2016; Tucker 2006), there has yet to be a thorough engagement between post-colonial theory and video games scholars. This paper starts by elaborating on the colonial nature of games and establishes video games as a fruitful site of post-colonial discourse. After applying post-colonial frameworks from Blaney and Inayatullah (2004) and Nandy (1983) to the video game Earthbound (Ape and HAL Laboratory, 1994). I find that the character Prince Poo and his region Dalaam, are spatially and temporally othered in its depiction and mechanically. For the second case, I find Mr. Saturn challenges these categories of difference.

The Mac Weekly

"PRESS A: A Link Between Worlds"

The Politics of Fear and Hope

"Jumping Through Human Rights: Video Game Development and Human Rights Advocacy in Senegal"

Macalester College Institute for Global Citizenship

"Empathy Craft: Video Game Design Possibilities"

I presented a part of my honors thesis research for the 2018 international Roundtable. I did a comparative analysis of Undertale and Earthbound to illustrate ways to promote empathy with video game characters.