Andrew Augustin is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Arts and Entertainment Technologies department at the University of Texas at Austin. Augustin is a 2D Illustrator and Game Designer with a rich history of conceptualizing and creating notable characters, notably for The Sims 3 Pets. As the founder of Notion Games LLC, he’s launched unique titles like Team Notion and the Super Ubie Island series. He was recognized on the Forbes30 Under 30 and Black Enterprise Modern Man lists and is a featured contributor in Innovate Gaming and Esports vol. 1. Currently, he’s helping to mold the next generation of talent.

Rakeda L. Ervin is the Director of Community Education at the Austin Film Society, where she oversees the organization’s educational initiatives, including AFS Creative Careers, a workforce development program for emerging creators. She has produced award-winning TV series airing on CNN, VH1, NBC Universal, and A&E networks during her twenty-year career as a writer for broadcast and digital content. From Los Angeles to Austin, Rakeda stepped into the educational space to inspire the next generation of creative professionals. Mentoring and coaching emerging creatives is one of her many passions, and she aims to ensure that diverse voices are heard.

Geoff Marslett, born in Texas, is an animator, director, writer, producer, and actor. He grew up as a cowboy with an interest in physics and worked both in construction and at the Naval Research Laboratory before becoming a filmmaker.

His films often revolve around the romance of connection and the way that exploring your universe changes you and the place you’re exploring. He has written software, alternatively-used other software and utilized numerous analog and digital techniques to produce unique and original animation and image processing.

Suzanne Scott is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the Radio-Television-Film department at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry (New York University Press, 2019), and co-editor of Sartorial Fandom: Fashion, Beauty Culture, and Identity (University of Michigan Press, 2023) and The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom (2018).

Samuel Baker is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a frequent participant in the British, Irish, and Empire Studies Program and an affiliate of the Center for European Studies, and often teaches Plan II Honors students. A Founding Member of the Executive Team for the Good Systems Ethical AI Texas Grand Challenge, Baker chaired that initiative in 2021-22. His research interests include British Romantic poetry; historical fiction, science fiction, and the gothic novel; media studies, informatics, causal inference, the environmental humanities, and the cultural analysis of the built environment now becoming known as infrastructure studies.