DiGRA Australia (DiGRAA) was founded in late 2013 as a local chapter of DiGRA. The board is comprised of a four-person executive (President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer) and, currently, six board members.
2024–2025 Executive Members
| President – Mahli-Ann Butt | |
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Dr Mahli-Ann Butt is a Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. She is a feminist ethnographer researching questions of diversity in the cultures and industries of videogames. She has served on the international DiGRA executive board since 2016 and is the current chapter officer. Mahli-Ann is an exhibition producer for Pride at Play and Femininity at Play, and the lead editor of the forthcoming edited book collection The Post-Gamer Turn. She is the chief investigator of “AI Ally: Co-Designing Anti-Harassment AI with Girls, Young Women, and Gender-Diverse Individuals,” funded by the Australian eSafety Commissioner. |
| Vice President – Erin Maclean | |
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Dr Erin Maclean is an early career researcher in the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University. With a background in journalism, she is interested in the intersections between popular media, journalism and social issues. Her recent work has focused on the tensions that arise in news as shooter videogames evolve in the way they represent gender. Erin is also a Technical Editor for the Journal of Games Criticism and was previously the Senior Vice Editor of Press Start, an international games studies journal for students and early career researchers. |
| Treasurer – Jacqueline Burgess | |
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Dr Jacqueline Burgess is an award-winning educator and researcher who is a Lecturer in International Business and the program coordinator of the Bachelor of Business at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. Her research investigates narrative brands, with a focus on video games, their marketing and how consumers and audiences become emotionally connected to the stories these brands tell. Her research often involves collaboration with industry practitioners and has been published in multiple peer-review journals including the European Journal of Marketing, the International Journal on Media Management, Game Studies, Games and Culture and the Creative Industries Journal, presented at various academic conferences and been covered by local and international news outlets. |
| Secretary – Stephanie Harkin | |
| Dr Stephanie Harkin is a Lecturer and early career researcher at RMIT University in the School of Design, Games Program. Her research is interested in girls’ digital cultures and feminine gaming histories. Her doctoral dissertation, completed in 2022 at Swinburne University of Technology, was titled “Girlhood Games: Gender, Identity, and Coming of Age in Videogames” and explored representations and invisible histories of girlhood in videogames. She is now expanding this project to explore overlooked feminine gaming cultures more broadly. She has previously published on gender and games in the journals Game Studies (2020), Girlhood Studies (2022), and Games and Culture (2020). | |
2024–2025 Board Members
| Seat 1 – Madeleine Antonellos | |
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Madeleine Antonellos is a late-stage PhD candidate in the School of Computing and Information Systems, at The University of Melbourne (Australia). Her thesis is on the future of digital careers, focusing on the professionalisation and digitisation of cosplay in Australia. She also works as a research assistant in her faculty. Madeleine is an Assistant Ombudsperson for the DiGRA Ombuds Team, and has also been an editorial board member of Press Start. |
| Seat 2 – Cass Barkman | |
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Dr. Cassandra Barkman is a senior tutor in Media & Communications at the University of Melbourne. Her recently finished PhD was interested in complex narrativity in videogames and explored the unique storytelling affordances of the medium capable of challenging player sense-making and eliciting fandoms dedicated to scrutinising games for narrative comprehension. Cassandra has also published on creepypastas, metalepsis and fandoms and is currently the co-vice editor of student journal Press Start and a copyeditor for the Journal of Games Criticism.
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| Seat 3 – Marcus Carter | |
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Dr Marcus Carter is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Associate Professor in Digital Cultures at The University of Sydney. He is also currently director of the Sydney Games and Play Lab. His research focuses on digital games and emerging mixed reality technologies, and he is the author of several books including Treacherous Play (2022) and Fantasies of Virtual Reality (2024). Marcus co-founded DiGRA Australia in 2014, and has served as Treasurer (2014-2015), President (2015-2018) and as a board member (2018-2021, 2023-Present). Marcus was an inaugural April Tyack Distinguished Scholar. |
| Seat 4 – Xavier Ho | |
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Dr Xavier Ho is an award-winning designer focusing on the queer independent games community. He is a Lecturer in Interaction Design at Monash University, Visiting Fellow in Sexuality Studies at the University of Sydney, and alumni of the ABC TOP 5 Arts. He initiated and led the curation of Pride at Play, a public queer exhibition that celebrates thoughtful LGBTQIA+ games in Oceania and the Asia Pacific. The exhibition won the Good Design Award in Social Impact in 2023. |
| Seat 5 – Larry May | |
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Dr Lawrence May is a Lecturer at Waipapa Taumata Rau, the University of Auckland, in Aotearoa New Zealand. His research explores meaning-making in player communities, the entanglement between videogames and the climate crisis, and the role of undead monstrosity within games. He is the author of Digital Zombies, Undead Stories: Narrative Emergence and Videogames (Bloomsbury, 2021). |
| Seat 6 – Kayson Whitehouse | |
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Kayson Whitehouse (they/he) is an early-stage PhD candidate in the School of Computing at Macquarie University’s Wallumattagal Campus. As neurodivergent & trans-masc, their research interests focus on how games can empower and affirm minority groups. Kayson’s PhD investigates how games can be intentionally welcoming for trans and gender diverse players. This builds off of their master’s research investigating how Trans and Gender Diverse Players as affirming spaces for exploring, experimenting, and experiencing gender identity. Additionally, Kayson works part-time as a software engineer in the serious games space and as a lecturer & tutor within the Game Design and Development Teaching team at Macquarie. Kayson co-organises the annual QTRG conference, is a Macquarie Graduate Research Union board member, and on the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee for Macquarie’s School of Computing. |
2023–2024 Board
President – Mahli-Ann Butt
Vice President – Erin Maclean
Treasurer – Madeleine Antonellos
Secretary – Stephanie Harkin
Board members – Brendan Keogh, Marcus Carter, Jacquline Burgess, Kyle Moore, Cameron Edmond, Kayson Whitehouse, Malcolm Ryan
2022–2023 Board
President – Brendan Keogh
Vice President – April Tyack (elected), Erin Maclean (interim)
Treasurer – Madeleine Antonellos
Secretary – Benjamin Nicoll
Board members – Malcolm Ryan, Jane Mavoa, Ben Egliston, Premeet Sidhu, Gawain Lucian Lax, Mahli-Ann Butt
2021–2022 Board
President – Brendan Keogh
Vice President – April Tyack
Treasurer – Jane Mavoa
Secretary – Benjamin Nicoll
Board members – Fraser Allison, Malcolm Ryan, Ben Egliston, Erin Maclean, Premeet Sidhu, Gawain Lucian Lax, Madeleine Antonellos
2018–2021 Board
President – Brendan Keogh
Vice President – April Tyack
Treasurer – Jane Mavoa
Secretary – Benjamin Nicoll
Board members – Jane Cocks, Laura M Crawford, Marcus Carter, Fraser Allison, Malcolm Ryan
2015–2018 Board
President – Marcus Carter
Vice President – Laura Crawford
Treasurer – Bjorn Nansen
Secretary – Melissa Rogers
Board members – Thomas Apperley, Martin Gibbs, Brendan Keogh
Student representatives – Mahli-Ann Butt, Benjamin Nicoll
2012–2015 Board
President – Martin Gibbs
Vice President – Thomas Apperley
Secretary – Laura Crawford
Treasurer – Marcus Carter
Board Members – Bjorn Nansen, Melanie Swalwell, Stewart Woods, Angela Ndalianis