NYWIFT Summer Soirée: Leveling Up: Girls in Gaming and VR Development

Join NYWIFT at Penthouse45 for our Summer Soirée, highlighting game creators and experts! 

The conversation will present new ideas and give insight to what the present and future hold for creators at the intersection of art and technology, followed by a networking reception. Hear about storytelling across mediums, adapting to a fast-paced industry in a constantly shifting cultural landscape, building community online, collaborating with brands and what is next for women bringing their stories to new audiences.

Event Details:

Date: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Time: 6:30 -8:30 PM ET (doors open at 6 PM)
Location: Penthouse 45 (432 W 45th St, New York, NY 10036)
Tickets: $7 for NYWIFT Members*
                $15 for Non-Members
                *NYWIFT Platinum & Leadership Members attend for free!

Register

We are in conversation with:

Jessica Murrey, Co-Founder and CEO, Wicked Saints Studios

Alia Jones-Harvey, Associate Commissioner of Workforce Development and Educational Initiatives for the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment

Claire Lazo, Gaming and Mergers & Acquisitions, Deloitte

Naomi Clark, Independent Game Designer, Director and Chair of NYU Game Center

Maya Georgieva, Senior Director of the Innovation Center and XR, AI, and Quantum Labs at The New School, co-founder of Digital Bodies

Elizabeth Goins, Associate Professor from the Department of English at RIT

Mirelle Tinker, Content Strategy Specialist, Video Producer and Interactive Narrative Builder

Cynthia Lopez, NYWIFT CEO

Kim Jackson, NYWIFT Board President, Producer and Co-Founder of Evotion Media

 

Meet the Speakers:

Naomi Clark is an independent game designer based in Brooklyn. She teaches game design and creative research to graduate and undergraduate students at the NYU Game Center, where she also serves as director and chair of the program. In her 25 years of designing, producing and writing for games, Naomi has contributed to over three dozen projects ranging from early text-based virtual worlds to online games and digital brick-building systems for LEGO, educational games, puzzle games, and game development tools for kids. Her solo works include Consentacle, a card game about human-alien intimacy, and We’ll Meet Again Some Starry Day, a remote roleplaying duet. Naomi has reviewed and written about games for online publications and collections such as Videogames for Humans, Honey and Hot Wax, Well-Played and Queer Game Studies, in addition to co-authoring A Game Design Vocabulary, a foundational textbook. Beyond games, Naomi was also a founding member of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project collective, and a drummer for Brooklyn’s queer country music scene.

 

Maya Georgieva is a leading voice in the fields of immersive storytelling, design with frontier technologies, and the future of learning and creativity. As the Senior Director of the Innovation Center and XR, AI, and Quantum Labs at The New School, she leads initiatives and a team focused on driving innovation in spatial computing, Generative AI, Quantum Computing, future interfaces, narratives, and speculative design. In addition to teaching the Immersive Storytelling course and Mixed Realities at the Parsons School of Design, in 2023, Maya curated the first-ever Quantum Art Exhibition, ‘Creative Expressions of the Infamously Counterintuitive‘ sponsored by IBM Quantum at the Microscope Gallery in Chelsea, New York City. In 2021, Maya designed the first Quantum Computing Design Jam for creatives and has facilitated it for three consecutive years. She has served as a final judge at the MIT Reality Hackathon in 2023 and press at SXSW. For Sigraph 2023, Maya collaborated with Sony visiting Scholar Keijiroh Nagano on the interactive installation and paper incorporating Augmented Reality and Generative AI: The Talk: Speculative Conversation with Everyday Objects. In 2022, Maya was named one of the 30 Higher Education Influencers to follow in the USA.

Maya is a sought-after speaker and has spoken about topics such as Immersive Realities, AI, and Quantum Art and Design at prestigious events such as SXSW, UNESCO, The Milken Institute Global Agenda, and conferences across the world. Her work has been featured in notable publications like The Atlantic and The Economist. Among her trailblazing projects with emerging technologies, she was instrumental in launching “Speculative Cultures: A Virtual Reality Exhibition” in early 2019 at Parsons’ Sheila Johnson Design Center, one of the first gallery exhibitions to integrate virtual reality headsets. Maya was a partner with Tribeca Film Festival in 2015 – 2016 to bring cinematic and cutting-edge virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and participatory experiences to the festival.

Maya is the co-founder of Digital Bodies, a startup focused on XR and AI and their impact on media and society. She has worked to inspire innovation with major tech companies such as IBM, Google, HP, Microsoft, and Meta. Maya has spoken at United Nations, UNESCO, and European Commission

 

Elizabeth Goins, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and Chair of English at Rochester Institute of Technology, where she teaches immersive and spatial storytelling. Her creative practice operates at the intersection of ludic narrative, extended reality (XR), and performance, with a strong emphasis on spatial storytelling informed by humanities-driven inquiry and material culture.

Elizabeth explores how narrative can be enacted through spatial design, movement, and perception—what might be called environmental storytelling. Her technical approach treats maps and levels as narrative units, using montage-inspired spatial juxtaposition to create thematic resonance and dynamic meaning-making. Intertextuality and layered symbolism across disciplines and media play a central role in her storytelling practice, inviting audiences to discover meaning through embodied presence, interaction, and critical reflection.

Her recent VR project, Jet of Blood, reimagines Antonin Artaud’s 1925 Surrealist play as an experimental single-player game that uses VR’s immersive power to dissolve narrative clarity and activate the unconscious. Guided by Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, the work replaces spatial continuity with psychic rupture, confronting players with visceral, symbolic worlds that challenge identity, gender, and media representation.

Elizabeth also created Charlotte, an acclaimed narrative game adaptation of The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Her latest work, Witch Trial, investigates cross-cutting in VR to explore how spatial and temporal disjunctions can reshape interactive storytelling, pushing beyond realism into surreal and experimental narrative forms.

 

Alia Jones-Harvey is the Associate Commissioner of Workforce Development and Educational Initiatives for the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment (MOME). She joined the office in 2015 as director of education & workforce development. By successfully building partnerships with employers, unions, non-profit organizations, schools, and City agencies, Alia has launched educational and training programs that have served over 20,000 New Yorkers across film, tv, music, theater, publishing, and advertising.

Alia oversees Creative Sector Programs, a division of MOME that invests in educational and workforce programs including: “Made in NY” Production Assistant Training, “Made in NY” Post Production Training, “Made in NY” Animation Training, “Made in NY” Stagecraft Bootcamp, “Made in NY” Career Talks, MediaMKRS, Sound Thinking NYC, Dreaming Out Loud, NY Music Month, the NY Public School Film Festival, the NYC Video Game Festival, the Freelancers Hub and college degree programs. Creative Sector Programs produces or sponsors many festivals, industry and community events across the five boroughs including: JanArts, “Movies Under the Stars,” Film Green initiatives, Drama Bookshop programming, and disability access programs; and, publishes industry studies, and manages mayoral industry councils. In addition, Alia leads the campaign in digital games to develop an equity-centered talent pipeline, engage employers, establish strategic partnerships, and grow the industry in New York City.

Prior to her work with the City of New York, Alia and her producing partner were the only two African American lead producers on Broadway and London’s West End. Alia is credited with producing 10 plays and 10 musicals with a focus on diverse talent, company, management, and investment. She is an Olivier Award-winning and 5-time Tony Award-nominated Theatre Producer.

 

Claire Lazo is leading the intersection of Gaming and Mergers & Acquisitions at Deloitte where she combines her professional expertise with her personal passion for gaming. She has authored multiple articles on the intersection and oversees ~350 practitioners in Deloitte’s Gaming & Esports vertical. She specializes in integrations and carve-outs, both achieving legal Day 1 for and conducting detailed post-merger integration activities post-close, including back office integration, synergies achievement, and change management and culture. She and her spouse, Jonel, have two cats, Mallie and Fin, and regularly play games together.

 

 

Jess Murrey is an Emmy-Award-winning storyteller and international peacebuilder turned game designer. Jess spent years at Search for Common Ground, the world’s largest dedicated peacebuilding organization, where she trained young activists all over the world. Jess is now the CEO/Co-founder of Wicked Saints Studios, a Black/female-led game studio backed by Riot Games. WS is the developer behind the world’s first adventure activism game, World Reborn. She’s raised over $5.5M in venture capital, placing her among the top 20 black women in history. American Business Journals named Jess 34 Female Founders to watch in 2023 by American Business Journals. Jess is the winner of the 2024 BTA Awards (Black Tech Achievement) for the “Force of Good Award.”

 

 

Cynthia López (Moderator) is an award-winning media strategist, and former Commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, where she implemented strategies to support film and TV production throughout the five boroughs.
Cynthia is the recipient of many coveted industry awards including: 11 News and Documentary Emmy Awards, a Special Emmy Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking, three Peabody Awards, and two duPont-Columbia Awards. Prior to working as Commissioner, Cynthia was Executive Vice President and co-Executive Producer of the award-winning PBS documentary series American Documentary | POV, and was involved in the organization’s strategic growth and creative development for 14 years.

Cynthia served on the Board of Trustees for the Paley Center, NYC & Company, Museum of the Moving Image and the Tribeca Film Institute Latin America Fund Advisory Board. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Color Congress, Latino Public Broadcasting, Manhattan Neighborhood Network, The Peabody Awards Board of Jurors, and Women in Film & Television International (WIFTI).