T.L. Taylor is Professor of Comparative Media Studies at MIT, Director of the MIT GameLab, and co-founder of AnyKey, an organization dedicated to diversity and inclusion in gaming. She is a qualitative sociologist who focuses on the interrelations between culture and technology in online environments.
Her book about game live streaming, Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming (Princeton University Press, 2018), is the first of its kind to chronicle the emerging media space of online game broadcasting and won the American Sociological Association’s CITAMS book award. She is also the author of Raising the Stakes: E-Sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming (MIT Press, 2012) which explores the rise of esports and Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture (MIT Press, 2006), an ethnography of the massively multiplayer online game EverQuest. In 2012 Princeton University published her co-authored book on conducting ethnographic research in online multi-user worlds, Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method.
Dr. Taylor is a highly sought after speaker. Both the White House and the International Olympics Committee have invited her to special summits focused on gaming. And journalists for the New York Times, PBS, the Los Angeles Times, BBC, CBC, and many others often reach out to Dr. Taylor for her expertise.
She also currently serves as a member of Twitch’s Safety Advisory Council, is an advisor for Juked.gg, and sits on the editorial boards of Social Media & Society, Games and Culture, American Journal of Play, and ROMChip.
For a more personal post, see “In through the back door.”
Contact:
Comparative Media Studies/Writing
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E15-327
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
617-324-4148 / tl@tltaylor.com