Hello✨

I’m Rainforest Scully-Blaker (he/him).

I’m a critical game and technology scholar with a background in media studies and informatics whose research explores how interactive media technologies (especially games) inform and are informed by the culture. My work is deeply invested in understanding how games both reify and undercut oppressive norms and values.

I earned my PhD in Informatics at UC Irvine in 2022. My dissertation was supported by both SSHRC and FRQSC doctoral fellowships and investigated the intersectional politics of leisure and exhaustion in video games and contemporary culture at large. I argued that, far from offering a leisurely break from the daily grind, games are exhausting and that this exhaustion is a systemic feature of neoliberal capitalism that hampers the potential for systemic change.

At the moment, I’m a Research Associate at the University of Michigan’s School of Information, where I’m affiliated with the Intersectional Tech Lab.

I have previously worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Tampere University in Finland, where I continue to be affiliated with the Game Research Lab and the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies. I also worked as a Lecturer in Game Design at Uppsala University, an Instructor in Informatics at UC Irvine, and a Lab Manager and Research Assistant at Concordia University in Montreal (where I also wrote an MA thesis about speedrunning as community and practice).

Outside of research and teaching, I am also the Communications Officer for the Canadian Game Studies Association, a scholarly organization whose annual conference I have helped organize for five years. I also helped organize the 20th edition of Tampere University Game Research Lab’s annual Spring Seminar. I have also sat on the Jury Committee of the Indiecade festival for three years.

Thanks for stopping by!