Dr. Emma Leigh Waldron is a Researcher in Internet Culture and a Lecturer in the Department of Informatics at UC Irvine, where she teaches courses on games and emotion, games and performance, and storytelling for interactive media. She received her PhD in Performance Studies, with additional certifications in Feminist Research & Theory and in Critical Theory, from UC Davis. Waldron’s research explores the performative and affective aspects of media and pop culture, with a focus on gender and sexuality. Her doctoral dissertation--Mediated Intimacy: Performing Sex on HBO, YouTube, and in Analog Role-Playing Games—establishes her theoretical concept of mediated intimacy, which describes how performative practices give shape and meaning to the sensation of proximity. Waldron has been researching ASMR since 2015 and has published on the topic in First Monday and Sounding Out!. Waldron also holds a master's degree in Performance Research from the University of Bristol, where her master’s dissertation explored gender performativity and liveness in the stage and screen versions of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Waldron is also a co-founder and editor-at-large for the online journal Analog Game Studies, where she has written about applying performance-as-research methodology to LARP (live action role-playing).
