Ashley ML Guajardo portrait
  • Institutional Review Board Member, Institutional Review Board Member
  • Associate Professor (Lecturer), Division Of Games
801-581-7110

Professional Service

  • International Game Developer's Association. Mentor for GRUX SIG. 01/01/2023 - present
  • Games Research and User Experience SIG of IGDA. Role: Mentor. Mentor https://grux.org/find-a-mentor-user-research-advanced-career/. 03/31/2022 - present
  • IGDA GRUX SIG. Role: Co-director. Co-Director of gamesUR Summit 2022. 05/20/2021 - 05/21/2022
  • Global Game Jam. Role: Vice President. Mar 2020-Mar 2021 Vice president, Global Game Jam Responsible for taking meeting minutes, attending weekly executive meetings, and coordinating with game jam conferences. 03/01/2020 - 03/01/2021
  • Global Game Jam. Role: Executive Board Member. Mar 2019-Mar 2021 Executive Board Member, Global Game Jam Responsible for coordinating with game jam conferences. 03/01/2019 - 03/01/2020
  • FDG. Content reviewer for the FDG conference. 01/17/2019 - 01/17/2022
  • #gamesUR Summit. Content reviewer. 10/09/2018 - present
  • Widerscreen Journal. Editor for Special Issue on Sexuality and Play. 09/01/2018 - 09/01/2019
  • IGDA GUR Summit Committee. Role: Fundraising Lead. #gamesUR Summit 2018. Role: Fundraising Lead. Solicit sponsorship for the 2018 conference of games user researchers. 08/06/2018 - 08/06/2019
  • IGDA Games User Research SIG Steering Committee. Steering Committee member. 05/07/2018 - 05/07/2020
  • #gamesUR Summit 2018. Role: Fundraising Lead. Solicit sponsorship for the 2018 conference of games user researchers. 09/01/2017 - 03/20/2018
  • Digital Games Research Association. Conference peer reviewer. 11/01/2015 - present
  • Games and Culture. Role: Board Member. Editorial Board. 12/01/2014 - present

Honors & Awards

  • Early Career Teaching Award. Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Utah, 02/10/2023
  • Spring 2021 University of Utah, Salt Lake City Letter of recognition from Dean of CoE for Games User Research course evals in top 15% of College. College of Engineering, 08/01/2022
  • Spring 2021 University of Utah, Salt Lake City Letter of recognition from Dean of CoE for Intro to Game Design course evals in top 15% of College. College of Engineering, 08/01/2022
  • Fall 2021 University of Utah, Salt Lake City Letter of recognition from Dean of CoE for Intro to Game Design course evals in top 15% of College. College of Engineering, 08/01/2022
  • Spring 2020 University of Utah, Salt Lake City Letter of recognition from Dean of CoE for Games User Research course evals in top 15% of College. College of Engineering, 08/02/2021
  • Spring 2019 University of Utah, Salt Lake City Letter of recognition from Dean of CoE for Games User Research course evals in top 10% of College. College of Engineering, 08/01/2020
  • Spring 2019 University of Utah, Salt Lake City Letter of recognition from Dean of CoE for Grad Games User Research course evals in top 15% of College. College of Engineering, 08/01/2020
  • Spring 2018 University of Utah, Salt Lake City Letter of recognition from Dean of CoE for Games User Research course evals in top 15% of College. College of Engineering, University of Utah, 08/01/2019
  • Letter of recognition from Dean Brown for outstanding teaching in Games User Research class in Spring 2018. College of Engineering, University of Utah, 06/07/2018
  • A gift of $15,000 to support the User Research lab. Activision, 04/27/2018

Internal Service

  • Walking to Mordor- WellU Credit group walking coordinator. 38 people signed up across the university. Coordinator, 01/01/2024 - 01/28/2025. University service.
  • Envision 2030: Innovating the Classroom Experience, University of Utah • In conjunction with Associate Dean Vahe Bandarian (College of Science) and Director Anne Cook (Martha Bradley Evans Center for Teaching Excellence). • Responsibilities include: Compiling documentation to support future classroom platforms and academic buildings. Member, 01/01/2024 - 01/01/2025. University service.
  • MDD Search Committee, College of Architecture and Planning, University of Utah. Member, 10/01/2023 - present. College service.
  • PhD Curriculum Committee, Division of Games, University of Utah. 09/01/2023 - present. Department service.
  • Teaching Awards Committee, University of Utah. Member, 08/01/2023 - present. University service.
  • Diversity Equity and Inclusion Chair • Responsibilities include: organizing and chairing bi-monthly meetings, reporting progress monthly to division chair, creating heritage month celebrations in collaboration with heritage clubs on campus (i.e. Black History month programming with the Black Cultural Center), creating DEI bookclub, completing annual audit of DEI initiatives and hiring strategies, creating measures of success for those initiatives, creating annual budgets. Chair, 08/02/2021 - present. Department service.
  • Gaymer Night (Online!). Lead Organiser/ Developer, 03/29/2021 - 04/01/2021. University service.
  • Global Game Jam. Site Lead, 01/24/2020 - 01/25/2020. Other service.
  • GAYMER NIGHT, LGBTQ RESOURCE CENTER AND EAE, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH Ran the kick off event for the University of Utah’s Pride Week 2019. I invited the keynote Lenore Gilbert, CEO of Rainbow Studios in Phoenix, AZ to speak as well as took care of budgeting, catering and logistics for the event. Over two hundred and fifty students, faculty, staff and members of Salt Lake City’s LGBTQ community attended. Lead Organiser, 10/01/2019 - 10/01/2019. University service.
  • MAKING A GAME IN VISUAL BASIC, Hi-GEAR, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH Taught a group of 20 highschool women how to program tic tac toe using Excel. Lead Organiser, 06/13/2019 - 06/13/2019. College service.
  • Global Game Jam Site . Site Lead, 01/26/2019 - 01/26/2019. Other service.
  • IRB TRAINING PRESENTATION ON RESEARCH ETHICS AND VR, INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH Gave an hour long presentation and workshop on the ethical issues involved in using virtual reality in research. This presentation is now used for Continuing Medical Education credit. Trainer, 11/15/2018 - 11/16/2018. University service.
  • EAE SERVICE NOV 2019 WHITE PAPER ON DEMOGRAPHICS OF EAE STUDENTS, EAE, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH Collected and analysed data about masters and undergraduate students. This eventually resulted in the Diversity page of the EAE website. Data Analysis, 11/01/2018 - 11/01/2019. Department service.
  • Learning Outcome Syllabus Review. Review Lead, 09/04/2018 - 01/01/2019. Other service.
  • Curriculum Committee Memeber. 09/03/2018 - 09/03/2019. Other service.
  • WHITE PAPER ON DEMOGRAPHICS OF EAE STUDENTS, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH. 01/08/2018 - 01/08/2018. Other service.
  • Collect data and publish white paper about EAE Day/ Play to better understand who attends our events. Lead Researcher, 12/25/2017 - 12/25/2019. Other service.
  • INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD MEMBER, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH A member of Panel 1 for the IRB. 11/06/2017 - 11/02/2020. University service.
  • IRB, University of Utah. Member of Panel 1, 11/01/2017 - present. University service.
  • Collect demographic and aspirational career data about Entertainment Arts and Engineering students. Report on this data in an easy to understand way so that we can better serve our student population. Lead Researcher, 10/01/2017 - 12/01/2017. Other service.
  • Global Game Jam. Site Co-lead, 01/29/2017 - 01/29/2019. Other service.

Community Partnership

  • Clark Planetarium- Supervisor of GUR volunteers. 06/11/2018 - 02/01/2020
  • IGDA Women's Group Salt Lake. 01/09/2017 - 03/01/2020

Outreach

  • EAE Launch Twitch Stream. 04/30/2021 - present
  • EAE Play Twitch Stream. 12/04/2020 - present
  • IRB TRAINING PRESENTATION ON RESEARCH ETHICS AND VR, INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH. 11/20/2018 - present
  • User Research Methods Twitch Stream- twitch.tv/professor_ashley. 11/15/2018 - present

In the Media