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

Sibyl Reymundo-Santiago, NYWIFT Board member/VP of Special Events, Executive Director and Head of Programming for SOHO International Film Festival

 

Meet the Speakers:

Welcome Address from NYWIFT Board President Kim Jackson

Kim Jackson is recognized for producing dozens of notable independent films. Her early creative expression began with dance and choreography, and that has remained the spark that ignites her creative passions. Majoring in environmental science, she has a natural curiosity for how things work. “Producers begin food chains which feed all life.”  Technology is of special of interest to Kim, as it relates to serving and advancing humanity. She’s the co-founder of the creative studio Evotion, and is active on several boards, including New York Women in Film & Television, ACE Programs for the Homeless and The Gwen Ifill College of Media, Arts and Humanities at Simmons University. Kim is a member of the p.g.a. and Producers Union.

 

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 futurist, immersive storyteller, and pioneering voice in emerging media and experience design. As Senior Director of the Innovation Center and the XR, AI, and Quantum Labs at The New School, she leads groundbreaking initiatives at the intersection of storytelling, design, space, performance, and frontier technologies. She teaches the largest Immersive Storytelling course in the U.S., guiding 100 students each semester in building speculative worlds and games through VR/AR and generative AI at The Parsons School of Design. Maya also serves as a judge for several awards recognizing innovation in art and technology.

Her work explores the evolution of narrative in spatial and interactive environments — including games, immersive worlds, and hybrid media — empowering creators to redefine the future of storytelling through immersive design. Deeply committed to mentoring emerging artists and technologists, Maya helps creatives navigate new platforms and bring their boldest ideas to life.

She consults with artists, brands, and global organizations to develop impactful experiences across digital platforms. Maya leads a team of emerging creatives in an ongoing collaboration with legendary artist Nona Hendryx and the Dream Machine team, supporting bold, multisensory virtual reality works for public spaces. In partnership with Hendryx and Lincoln Center, the program merges sound, performance, and immersive storytelling.

Pushing boundaries further, Maya curated Quantum Art: Creative Expressions of the Infamously Counter Intuitive, the first-ever quantum art exhibition sponsored by IBM in New York City. The exhibition showcased innovative works at the intersection of quantum theory, artistic experimentation, and speculative design. With sharp strategic foresight, Maya tracks emerging trends across technology, media and culture, positioning creatives to create immersive and sensory experiences that will define the future.

 

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.”

 

Mirelle Tinker is a Brooklyn-based content strategist and interactive narrative designer, with a background in television, education, and gaming. With over a decade of experience in media production and development across indie agencies and major networks alike, she prioritizes innovative storytelling in all her creative work.

After beginning her career as an NBCUniversal Page, Mirelle served as the Content Coordinator at Common Sense Networks’ children’s streaming service, Sensical, where she led a team of media specialists in curating and platforming over 80 programs and several creator partnerships. Her passion for children’s media continued through her work at Hats & Ladders, where she produced instructional video content and designed narrative-based career development games for high schoolers.

Mirelle is also the founder of Hollow Rose Studios, an indie game studio that creates otome visual novels centered on empathy, self-growth, and inclusion. Her most recent release, “An Everyday Love,” explores these themes through layered choice variation, character customization, and accessible narrative design. Fascinated by the intersections of race, gender, culture, and disability, Mirelle experiments with otome romance conventions to connect with players of all backgrounds.

She’s currently developing her next project, Tazenkwet: The Free Mermaid, a historical-fantasy mystery otome inspired by The Little Mermaid. 

 

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).

 

For over 30 years, Sibyl Reymundo-Santiago (Moderator) has been involved in film, television and stage production both in the US and Asia working with major studios such as MyxTV, Regal Films, Star Cinema, Metro Style and ABS-CBN Int’l. As President of Sitting Cat Productions, Sibyl has had several films released since 2015 including the Nicholas Brooks’ debut feature film SAM with Executive Producer Mel Brooks and casts that include Morgan Fairchild, Tom Pelphrey & Bryan Batt, ALONE TOGETHER with Philippines stars Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil, directed by Antoinette Jadaone, and most recently, the feature film FOLLOW HER starring Luke Cook & Dani Barker, directed by award winning director Sylvia Caminer. Having successfully tackled roles ranging from acting, producing and directing, Sibyl knows firsthand what it takes to bring a story from script to screen. She is a Member of the Board of NYWIFT and currently serves as VP of Events. She is an active member of the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA), the Producers Guild of America (PGA) and is a founding member and former Co-Lead of the AAPI Working Group as part of the One Guild Initiative. Sibyl is a recipient of The Outstanding Filipino Americans in New York, Arts & Culture Award at Carnegie Hall. Sibyl also remains an active member of both SAG-AFTRA and Actor’s Equity, and has appeared in several film, television, and stage productions in New York City. She is in post on a documentary where she received the p.g.a. mark, while developing her own series. Sibyl serves her 13th year as the Executive Director and Head of Programming for the SOHO International Film Festival.