Amanda L. L. Cullen

Earlier this year I was invited to take part in a video about accessibility in Diablo IV, how it was baked in to development of the game from start to finish and the role that user research played in that process. Check out the video below.

I spent part of the Covid-19 pandemic editing a book on live streaming culture and it’s available now! You can find information about the volume and a list of places where you can order a copy on the MIT Press website: Real Life in Real Time Real Life in Real Time is also available as…

Diablo IV released on June 5, 2023. It’s the first time my name appears in a game that I worked on. This is something I never could have imagined achieving back when I first started playing Diablo in the early 2000s. It wasn’t something I could imagine for myself in college or even graduate school…

I am now Amanda Cullen, PhD! In June 2022 I had the honor and the privilege to be hooded by my advisors Dr. Bo Ruberg and Dr. Aaron Trammell at the 2022 UCI Commencement. And in July 2022 I successfully defended my dissertation to my committee: Dr. Bo Ruberg, Dr. Aaron Trammell, and Dr. Tom…

On February 24th, 2022 I was part of a panel at the University of Toronto Sex Salon discussing “the hydraulic technopolitics of sex, games, and Twitch.” From the event abstract: “From “streaming” to “the Internet as tubes,” aquatic metaphors are historically central to conceptualizations of digital technology. Hot Tub streams literalize the erotic work that…

Amazon Science has released a pre-print of the forthcoming publication I wrote with my Twitch mentor, Sanjay Kairam, about the research project I led during my Twitch internship. Part of this research on Twitch moderators has resulted in new tools on Twitch like Suspicious User Detection. Check out the abstract below and access the paper…

I am pleased, humbled, and grateful to have been selected as one of the inaugural summer fellows by the brand new UCI Steckler Center for Responsible, Ethical, and Accessible Technology (CREATE). This funding will allow me to purchase technology, software, and services to support and complete my dissertation. To learn more about CREATE, please visit…

Amazon Science recently wrote a piece profiling me and the research that I did as a Twitch intern during Summer 2020. In collaboration with Twitch data scientist Sanjay Kairam, we launched a project to survey and assess the needs and experiences of Twitch moderators. Below is an excerpt from the article, as well as a…

The IGDA Games User Research Summit is moving to the virtual world! I have stayed on as a Logistics Assistant from the cancelled 2020 summit. Please join me, the rest of the planning committee, and games user researchers from throughout the industry on May 20th and 21st to discuss games user research and user experience,…

I’ve been profiled by Million Stem. The mission of Million Stem is to celebrate the experiences of women in STEM by profiling one million women who do work or research in STEM fields to increase accessibility, celebrate diversity, and show girls in future generations that their aspirations are achievable. I spoke about my research of…