Latinx Games Festival 2020

I’m a 3D Animator at Valve, born and raised in Mexico City, now living in Seattle. Back in Mexico City, I helped put the Kerbals in Kerbal Space Program while working with the team that shipped the game on Steam in 2015. I also worked as part of a production team on a few animated short films that have received recognition in international festivals including the Guadalajara International Film Festival and the Morelia International Film Festival. Teaching animation was also a big part of my life, handling a few classes for undergraduate and graduate students at the Universidad Panamericana and the University of the Incarnate Word. I have an MA in 3D Computer Animation from Bournemouth University, and enjoyed a lot of fish and chips and pints while living in the UK. In my spare time, I used to play the piano on theater-cabaret plays in Mexico, where we used to tackle social, economic and political issues in Mexico through clown and comedy.

Gracie Arenas Strittmatter is Technical Art Director and Deputy Director of Art and Animation at BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts (EA), in Austin, Texas. A 12-year veteran of the gaming industry and professional problem solver, she currently works on Star Wars: The Old Republic and holds credits on AAA titles including Anthem, Madden NFL, NBA Live, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. She is passionate about leadership development, problem solving, programming, art tools development in Python and C#, collaborating with artists, leading distributed teams, team building, effective communication, and career management. As the first female university graduate in her family, she advocates the power of education and the value of women and minorities in tech. Gracie serves as global co-chair for EA’s Hispanic/Latino Employee Resource Group, Somos EA, and has volunteered with ACM SIGGRAPH for nearly two decades. She volunteers in the community to introduce students to careers in games and serves on the industry board for the Texas A&M Department of Visualization. She is originally from San Antonio, Texas and holds a BS in Computer Science and a MS in Visualization Sciences from Texas A&M University.

Bryan Dimas is an animation production professional with experience in feature animation production, 2D and CG animation television development and production, and project management. He has contributed to various projects that include “Trolls World Tour”, “The Boss Baby 2″, “3Below: Tales of Arcadia”, “Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia”, and “Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh.” He has worked for animation studios that include DreamWorks Animation and Warner Bros. Animation. He grew up in Houston, Texas and attended the University of Notre Dame where he studied Electrical Engineering and Film, Television, and Theatre with a concentration in Film Production. He is particularly interested in the development and production of animation, and promoting diversity and inclusivity in Animation and STEM fields.

Panel: Game Design

Sandra is an immigrant, previously undocumented, Latinx woman. Currently, she is an Associate Game Designer at Dots, a mobile game studio located in NYC. She works on the casual puzzle game Two Dots. Before Dots, Sandra was a student at New York University where she graduated with a BFA in Game Design and Dramatic Writing.

Elaine is a Puerto Rican -Dominican passionate game designer and developer currently working at indie game studio E-Line Media. She is also co-founder of Latinx in Gaming, a non-profit organization creating a community and amplifying the voices for Latinx game industry professionals in the US and Latin America. She has a heart for young people and a deep desire to give back to the community by being the change she wants to see.

John is a 1st generation Dominican-American who graduated from Full Sail University in 2006 with a B.S. in Game Design & Development. He’s been a Game Designer for studios all around North America including Midway Games Austin, Rockstar San Diego, WB Games Montreal, Amazon, and now Electronic Arts in Seattle. As a designer on EA’s Frostbite engine, John is driven to design tools to empower developers to build the most engaging games imaginable. He promotes inclusivity and diversity while sharing his experiences to help other developers break in.

Juan Morales-Rocha graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Art & Design: Games + Playable Media, as well as a B.S. in Cognitive Science: Artificial Intelligence/Human-Computer Interaction.

Panel: Engineering

Denise Martinez is a software engineer at Riot Games on the Riot Client team. Denise graduated from California State University, Long Beach with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and was the first in her family to graduate from college. She also volunteers with Microsoft TEALS, teaching computer science at Brio College Prep in Los Angeles.

Oscar is a developer at Sony and has been working on PlayStation since 2016, crafting social and game experiences you might have enjoyed including PS+, Communities and some new upcoming features you’ll enjoy this holiday season. Born and raised in Miami (where his parents immigrated to), he was spoiled with an incredible amount of delicious latin american food and has been working on finding the best bay area restaurants to replicate that.

While his dad really did always want him to become a baseball legend, his parents were really supportive when he found his love for math, which he studied in college and led him to join the tech industry. From working on developer APIs, the music industry, and even a non-profit, he gained useful and thoughtful skills on how to build better things for all people.

Software Engineer at Niantic currently working on Ingress. I’ve been in the mobile game industry for more than 7 years and I’m familiar with Unity and C#. I can provide Software Engineering best practices for creating enjoyable game experiences.

Hailing from the beautiful island of Puerto Rico, Coraly’s adventure started over 12 years ago when she first took an interest in graphic design and teaching. Later, her innate interests naturally evolved into a love affair with UI/UX in games, working with companies like Beyond Games (Brink of War), Fingerprint Play (Samsung Kids), and continuing to teach others about user research and experience design in the games industry.

I am a self-taught programmer with a degree in universal literature from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.

Been in the game industry for a decade now, doing everything from localization QA to (currently) game engineering. I’ve worked on facebook games, mods, gamejams, AAA-multiplatform titles, apps and pretty much everything in between.

Panel: Audio

Alyssa Menes is a composer, sound designer and music educator from New Jersey. She’s created audio for games such as Blackwell Epiphany, Pixel Prison Blues, and Just Cause 4. In addition to teaching and composing, she also runs the Montclair Gamer Symphony Orchestra, a community orchestra in her home state of New Jersey dedicated to playing arrangements of video game music.

Estefanía is a Video Games Composer and Front-End Developer. She also Co-Organizes Women Game Jam Chile since 2019.

She’s worked in Game Audio professionally since 2018, and is a full time Front End Developer since 2019.

She also writes about video games in Pawa.cl.

Jazmín Giolito is an Argentinian audio professional dedicated to audio for the interactive media. A firm believer in the importance of communities, she is the Leader Organizer of Women Game Jam Argentina, board member of Rosario GameDevs, and newsletter writer for Women in Games Argentina. Co-founder of two indie studios, she has also worked as a sound designer, VO director, and composer for studios from Sweden, Latvia, Israel, and Poland.

María José Félix is a composer born and raised in Puebla, México. She holds a Bachelor in music from the University of the Americas Puebla (UDLAP) and a Master’s Degree in Film Composition from the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program lead by two time Emmy Award winning composer Hummie Mann. She moved to Seattle in 2015 and since then her music has appeared in television, short films, video games, apps, and other media. María José always treasures every opportunity she has to share her heritage through music and she hopes to keep inspiring people and sharing her music with the world.

Jonathan is a father, game developer, and sound designer from Watsonville California currently working on indie games and supporting a games & HCI research center at the University of California Santa Cruz.

Panel: Production

Caroline Guevara is a content producer for Firaxis Games where she oversees artists ranging from concept to character modeling and technical animation. Her day-to-day work includes cross discipline collaboration and setting milestone goals for her teams. Previous work includes Teen Titans GO! Figure and Powerpuff Girls: Flipped Out! which have both won multiple awards including Apple Game of the Day.

Guevara holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in computer game design from George Mason University and a master of science in digital media from Drexel University. In her graduate career, Guevara focused on how games evoke strong emotions and can encourage social change, which resulted in recognition of her research thesis. She enjoys hiking and baking in her spare time, and mentoring young game devs.

Dianna Lora is a Bronx, NYC Chica at heart (Yerr) currently residing in Malmo, Sweden. Before working in gaming, Dianna was a performer who played a slew of interesting characters, learned how to fall out of buildings, and partook in the occasional swashbuckling. She has more than 12 years of experience in the Gaming industry as a writer, host, producer, and now, as an Account Manager at Ubisoft.

Massive. She’s produced her own video game TV show, started a podcast “before it was cool,” and worked at companies like Sony, Deep Silver, ASTRO Gaming, and now, Ubisoft.

Dianna has always been driven by her deep and profound passion for helping others. She makes it her mission to reach back and bring people with her who are looking for that opportunity that she’s tirelessly pushing for. She fully believes in advocating for others, fighting for impactful change in gaming, and elevating new voices.

You can find her on Twitter: @GrlpantsGR, or taking endless pictures of her cat Luna and dog Vega, or desperately dreaming of a BEGORNSEPKHS. Dianna would like to thank her family and friends for their endless love and support. ¡Sin Ti Soy Nada!

Gaby Ponce is a producer at Turn 10 Studios working on internal tools for the artists, animators, and developers of the Forza Motorsport team. Before that she was a program manager at Xbox, building social experiences for gamers to make meaningful connections with other players. Originally from Southern California she graduated with a degree in Computer Science from UC San Diego and decided to pursue game development to combine her passions for culture, art, and technology. As a leader of the Team Xbox Latinx community, she hopes to help others navigate and succeed within the gaming industry.

Jasmine Aguilar (she/they) is a video game and event producer leading diverse teams to success since 2015. Being a genderqueer femme and a child of Latinx immigrants, Jasmine is also a proud advocate for marginalized communities in tech.

Panel: Marketing

Edaleen Cruz is the Community Lead at Singularity 6. She has over seven years of experience in the industry having worked as a community manager for the Overwatch and Diablo communities in Latin America. A fierce advocate for gamers and devs, she believes video games can be a force for good in the world. She is also the biggest blood elf fan you will ever meet.

Jorge Albor is a Sr. Content Marketing Producer at Ubisoft working on a variety of brands and genres. He earned his MA studying social impact games and celebrates gaming weekly as a host on the Experience Points Podcast.

Manny Pérez joined Bethesda Softworks as an Associate Community Manager two years ago. Growing up playing FPS games like DOOM and Wolfenstein, Manny loves being part of the wonderful teams working on RAGE 2, DOOM Eternal, and DEATHLOOP. Outside of work, you can find Manny cooking his mom’s recipes, re-reading the Lord of the Rings, and working on his salsa dancing.

Venisia Gonzalez is a video game industry contractor, published author, freelance entertainment journalist, public relations manager and copy editor. She’s passionate about building brands and vast communities to forge everlasting relationships.

Panel: Latinx in Gaming Retrospective

Cristina is an Event Manager at Team Liquid with a passion for building gaming communities and providing gamers with fun, engaging and unique experiences. She’s been in the industry for 5 years working at companies like Twitch, Discord and is a competitive Kirby main.

Juan is an Award-winning Narrative Designer at Netflix. He is an advocate for authentic representation and recognizes games can be a powerful tool for creating empathy through interactive storytelling.

Joe is the comms lead at System Era, developer of Astroneer. Before that, he worked as a journalist at various gaming outlets.

Judy is the head of NYC League of Legends, League of Libations, Overwatch Overpour, and has made it her passion to bring people together for the sake of gaming.

Elaine is a Game Designer at E-Line Media, independent Unity developer and games educator. She enjoys connecting with people and helping them find pathways towards their goals. Elaine teaches at Rutgers University and at E-Line Media’s youth game studio initiative, Make Room. She is an avid player of first person shooters and likes anything pink.

Fernando Reyes Medina is a Multiplayer Game Designer at 343 Industries, creating exciting new experiences for the upcoming Halo Infinite. Born and raised in Mexico City, he graduated with a Computer Science from Tecnologico de Monterrey. Before his time at Halo, Fernando was a Software Engineer in Xbox shipping different features for the Xbox Platform. In his free time, he loves to dance, paint, play music and make experimental games.

Jason Vega is a New York City born and raised entrepreneur currently residing in Long Beach, California. He is passionate around building strategies to cultivate healthy, reciprocal relationships focused on amplifying underrepresented diverse voices and fostering an inclusive environment in video games, entertainment, and STEM.

Alix is a PM with a focus on operations & logistics. She got her start in the world of Esports, first as a content collaborator for ESLA, and later as a logistics guru for Riot Games in the LATAM region.

Felipe is a self-taught programmer from Chile with 12 years of experience on mobile, web and console development. He’s currently working at Globant as part of a team that helps optimize AAA games for current and next-gen consoles.

Cuahtémo is a producer, game designer, and born-and-raised Angeleno. Their work aims to bring a queer, decolonized lens to interactive media and science fiction. Cuahtémo has worked on visual novels, RPGs, and even robots! Their favorite thing in the world is their lil black cat Romero.

Gabriel is an artist and STEAM curriculum specialist with the Long Beach Public Library. As coordinator for the Mobile Studio, Gabriel and the LBPL Studio team provide a wide variety of engaging and free STEAM activities to the Long Beach Community in subjects like video game development, graphic design, robotics, 3D design, and more.

Emily is a game designer and writer, as well as a cosplayer, illustrator, fiber artist and dungeon master. She’s put her passion for game development and game education to use as a Studio Guide for the Long Beach Public Library, leading the Game Design segment of LBPL’s Make Create Design: Games workshop series.

Four years working in public libraries serving children, teens, and adults. Experience with collection development, creating programming, and fostering community partnerships.

Elaine Gomez is a game designer at E-Line Media, independent Unity developer and games educator. Elaine earned an MFA in Interactive Media and Games from University of Southern California in 2016. She is co-founder and community director of Latinx in Gaming. Elaine is interested in using games to preserve culture and foster relationships and communities across boundaries.

Animation

Animation is one of the most important and sought out disciplines in all of entertainment. Latinx Games X Animation Festival will cover multiple entertainment industries and offer industry insider career advice on what recruiters are looking for in your Portfolio, Resume and Demo Reel! If you’ve ever wanted to work in Movies, Television or Video Games in the animation field then this event is for you! Learn from panelists that work in Warner Bros. Animation, DreamWorks Animation, Latinx in Animation, Valve and more as they break down the art of Storyboarding, VFX, Character Modeling, Environment Art, Tech Art and Animation!

PANELS

Intro to Animation

Speaker: Bryan Dimas

Speaker: Maria Azellea

Speaker: Michelle Rincon

Speaker: Jeannette Lara

Moderator: Venisia Gonzalez

Latinx in STEM Community Highlight

Speaker: Dan Rosas Paulsen

Speaker: Marcelo Viana Neto

Moderator: Juan Morales – Rocha

I am an animator at Valve, born and raised in Mexico City. Back in Mexico, I helped put the Kerbals in Kerbal Space Program while working with the team that shipped the game on Steam in 2015. I’ve also worked on animated short-films and taught animation for graduate and undergraduate students. I studied an MA in 3D Computer Animation at Bournemouth University in the UK, before moving to Seattle to work at Valve.

Marcelo Viana Neto is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator interested in how games can help explore socio-economic relations based on solidarity and mutual aid, reveal illegitimate forms of power, and enable creative expression. He was born in Sete Lagoas, Brazil and has been a resident of California since 2002. He holds a BFA in Graphic Design with high distinction from the California College of the Arts and is currently an MFA candidate in DANM at UC Santa Cruz. His current research focuses on applying non-hierarchical participatory modes of organization to game design pedagogy and practice.

Bryan Dimas is an animation production professional with experience in feature animation production, 2D and CG animation television development and production, and project management. He has contributed to various projects that include “Trolls World Tour”, “The Boss Baby 2″, “3Below: Tales of Arcadia”, “Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia”, and “Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh.” He has worked for animation studios that include DreamWorks Animation and Warner Bros. Animation. He grew up in Houston, Texas and attended the University of Notre Dame where he studied Electrical Engineering and Film, Television, and Theatre with a concentration in Film Production. He is particularly interested in the development and production of animation, and promoting diversity and inclusivity in Animation and STEM fields.

He is currently the Development Production Manager at Warner Bros. Animation.

Michelle Rincon is an LA-born storyboard artist based in Pasadena, CA. She’s currently storyboarding at Joe Murray Studio and Brown Bag Films for the PBS Kids show Let’s Go Luna! where she has done all sorts of jobs ranging from storyboard revisionist to assisting with the show’s pipeline as a production coordinator. She’s also a graduate from Cal State Fullerton. Her loves in life include folklórico, chips, boba, and lives for stories that involve magical girls.

Maria Azellea at a young age realized there was a need to help diverse, new, and outdated companies who strived to be part of the social media shift in the new multimedia marketing world. From that need she established Menacing Marketing in 2013 with the focus of empowering the voices of these businesses.

Her belief in empowering the Next Generation brought her to work with several Non Profits & Organizations. Together they build great platforms, media content and strong membership participation.

Meanwhile as an animator her philosophy is “To create new, innovative, and diverse media that empowers the next generation of creatives to tell their own stories.”. This passion and drive led to her short film ” La Concha Mágica ” to debut at San Diego Comic Con Children’s Film Festival. Which is a step in her continued journey to bring to life new stories everyday.

This former military brat with Latin sass began her career in production… that is if you count a 6-year-old staging plays with Barbie’s and action figures during the summers. In time, writing fan-fics and a love for dialogue led her to L.A. to pursue screenwriting where she made quarter finals for Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship in 2016 with Muse and as a finalist for the 2019 Screencraft Animation competition with her coming of age comedy pilot, Me, My Shadow and Iris. She is currently freelancing for an unannounced animated project.