Jess Tompkins

Jessica E. Tompkins (nickname: Jess, pronouns: she/her) is an academic scholar and games user experience researcher. Based in Orlando, FL, she is currently the UX Research Director for a new game studio, Skeleton Key. Prior to joining the games industry nearly five years ago, Jess studied for a PhD in the social sciences, researching and publishing on the intersections of digital games, representation, identity, and gender. She was awarded her PhD in 2021 while simultaneously working fulltime in the industry. In her industry roles, Jess leverages research and insights to evangelize the player experience to empower dev teams to make informed decisions during development and improve the product. She advocates, and generates solutions for, inclusive and diverse recruitment and sampling approaches for playtesting, and has consulted for designing inclusive character customization systems. In the games user research community, Jess has served as as Co-Director of the flagship #gamesUR Summit and frequently mentors aspiring user researchers and former academics seeking to enter the field. She hopes the future of gaming is not only data informed, but mindful of where data comes from when making decisions. Afterall, our data is only as diverse as our participants themselves are.

In her time in the industry, Jess has served as a leader for a women's employee resource group at a large, international video game publisher, planning and executing initiatives to build a community of support for women in game development. She also mentors aspiring user researchers in her free time. For her contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion in her work and research, Jess was inducted into The Game Awards 2022 Future Class, a group of 50 individuals representing the bright and inclusive future of video games.