LOS ANGELES (Mar. 1, 2024) – In celebration of Women’s History Month, which kicks off today, USC Games, North America’s leading collegiate game design program, will be hosting an in-person event reflecting on the deep history and evolving future of women in the video games industry.
Featuring a panel of games industry experts from Activision Blizzard, Google and Microsoft, USC Games Presents: Women in Games NOW will explore significant milestones and contributions to the industry from women and provide an outlook for their continued influence on the next generation of industry professionals.
“The games industry we know and love continues to become more diverse with each generation, and at USC Games, we want to further stimulate that change in any way we can,” says Dr. TreaAndrea Russworm, professor of cinematic arts and endowed Microsoft chair at the University of Southern California. “I’m truly honored to be moderating this exceptional panel of brilliant minds at Women in Games NOW, and am confident that both students and professionals alike will leave with a new sense of knowledge and empowerment to excel in their career path.”
Event Details
- Date: Friday, March 8
- Time: 4:00 – 6:00 pm PST
- Location: Ray Stark Family Theatre, USC Campus (3470 McClintock Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90089)
Women in Games NOW will feature a panel of industry veterans from some of the most recognizable brands in gaming, including:
TreaAndrea Russworm, Ph.D. - Moderator
Professor of Cinematic Arts and Endowed Microsoft Chair – University of Southern California
TreaAndrea M. Russworm earned her B.A. at Brown University and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. An interdisciplinary media scholar, Russworm’s areas of focus include video games and digital media, African American popular culture, film and media studies, psychoanalytic and postmodern theories, and post 1950s American popular fictions. She is a Series Editor of the book series Power Play: Games, Politics, Culture (Duke University Press) and she was an inaugural Associate Editor of Outreach and Equity for the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies. Professor Russworm is also the author or editor of three other published books: Blackness is Burning: Civil Rights, Popular Culture, and the Problem of Recognition (Wayne State University Press, 2016); From Madea to Media Mogul: Theorizing Tyler Perry (University of Mississippi Press, 2016); and Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games (Indiana University Press, 2017).
Moonlit Beshimov
Head of Gaming, Americas Partnerships and Global Industry Strategy – Google
Moonlit has been in the gaming industry for almost 15 years. She currently leads cross Google Gaming partnerships in Americas and global strategic initiatives, working across Google Play, Google Ads, Google Cloud and YouTube to provide the best products & services for game partners. Before this, Moonlit led strategic partnerships at Google Play, partnering with mobile game developers to grow their businesses. Prior to Google, she led monetization at Scopely and performance marketing at Zynga. Moonlit has a MBA from Harvard Business School and BA in Economics and Math from Harvard University.
Kara Bilkiss
Vice President, Mobile Commerce – Activision
Kara Bilkiss is a proven and results-driven gaming executive with a career spanning more than 20 years. Presently serving as Vice President of Mobile Commerce at Activision Blizzard, Bilkiss leads the mobile commercial strategy for such franchises as Call of Duty Mobile, Diable Immortal, Warcarft Rumble and Candy Crush Saga, and new initiatives with partners such as Apple, Google, Amazon and Meta. Previously, Bilkiss was VP, Business Development leading strategic and platform relations at Skydance Interactive, a VR-first publisher, best known for The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, and at Sony Pictures she led Worldwide Mobile Entertainment dedicated to building Sony Mobile as a premiere mobile games publisher through both licensing in AAA IP and utilizing the studio’s TV and Film library across properties such as: Wheel of Fortune, JEOPARDY!, Spider-Man and James Bond. Bilkiss holds an M.B.A. from Loyola Marymount, and a J.D. from Loyola Law School.
Jill Braff
Vice President, Head of Bethesda/ZeniMax & Casual Suite Studios - Microsoft
Jill Braff is the head of Bethesda and ZeniMax Studios, the creators of enduring franchises such as DOOM, The Elder Scrolls, Starfield and more as well as the teams behind upcoming titles Indiana Jones & The Great Circle and Marvel’s Blade. Jill also oversees Microsoft’s Casual Games division, which includes Solitaire. She has been at Microsoft since 2020, having first joined as General Manager of Integrations and Casual Games at Xbox Game Studios. A recognized leader in gaming, Jill pioneered the business at Glu Mobile and took the company public during her tenure as Senior Vice President, Global Publishing. She also led PC marketing at Sega, participated in the Dreamcast launch, and co-managed consumer research at Nintendo for its console business.
In addition to this exciting panel discussion, attendees will have the opportunity to network and engage with industry peers. To save your spot at Women in Games NOW and secure your opportunity to learn from and interact with experts in the field, students and professionals can RSVP here.
About USC Games
USC Games is a flagship collaboration offered jointly by the School of Cinematic Arts Division of Interactive Media & Games and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Department of Computer Science. This unified brand allows press, industry, students and faculty to discuss the overall efforts at USC in games and simultaneously clarify the important distinctions between the offerings of the various programs. The program has been ranked No. 1 for twelve years, as evaluated by the Princeton Review.
The program at the School Cinematic Arts focuses on both the design and production of interactive media and games. Students emerge as creative media leaders, fluent in many forms of visual expression and storytelling, with a sophistication to design and develop innovative interactive experiences that expand the state of interactive art and play across domains, such as entertainment, education, health care and social action.
The Computer Science Games program at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering provides students with a grounding in the fundamentals of computer science and a cross-disciplinary background in game development. Students emerge with an engineering-oriented game-programming skillset, with an understanding of key technologies and the ability to lead complex technical teams in the development of games.
In addition to the advanced games class, USC Games offers the USC Games Expo and an annual industry event held at the Game Developers Conference. USC Games brings more shared courses under this umbrella, including those from other schools at USCgames@usc.edu.
About the USC School of Cinematic Arts
The University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts is one of the leading film schools in the world. Founded in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1929 over 90 years ago, the USC School of Cinematic Arts has fueled and mirrored the growth of entertainment as an industry and an art form. The School offers comprehensive programs in directing, producing, writing, critical studies, animation and digital arts, production, interactive media and games, all backed by a broad liberal arts education and taught by leading practitioners in each field. Its more than 13,000 alumni are among the world’s most distinguished animators, scholars, teachers, writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, sound experts and industry executives. Since 1973 not a year has passed without an alumnus or alumna being nominated for an Academy Award. https://cinema.usc.edu/.
About the USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Founded in 1905, the USC Viterbi School of Engineering was named in 2003 as the Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering, honoring USC alumnus Andrew Viterbi, who developed an algorithm to connect the world. Located in Los Angeles, a global center for arts, technology, business and innovation in the heart of the Pacific Rim, USC Viterbi draws undergraduate and graduate students from all over the world. With more than 10,000 students, 300 faculty across all ranks and appointment levels, and more than 30 in-residence or affiliated members of the National Academies, USC Viterbi is consistently ranked in the nation’s top programs. Under the leadership of Dean Yannis C. Yortsos, the school helps reimagine the 21st century engineer, by pioneering the Grand Challenge Scholars Program, leading national efforts in enhancing diversity, and changing the conversation about engineering. With its vision of engineering a better world for all humanity, USC Viterbi embodies the power of engineering (Engineering+) to advance discovery and solutions across all disciplines, to serve California, the nation and the world. http://viterbi.usc.edu/.
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PRESS MATERIALS:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nBVlhlJ_cUIHA7RWLQdXVXW72fpXt-1H
MEDIA CONTACT:
Colette Vignocchi, on behalf of USC Games
colette@zebrapartners.net
+1 (773) 575-9512