Speakers
OUR WONDERFUL SPEAKERS
About
Owen Peterson is a sound designer, composer, and audio professional specializing in video game audio, film sound and storytelling. With graduate training in game production from the University of Utah and professional experience creating and implementing sound for games, he brings together creative sound design, music, technical implementation, and interactive systems thinking. His work on EA Mobile’s Minions Paradise included sound design, audio implementation, and music, and his broader background spans both game production and post-production sound.
Jonathan do
Sound Designer
Audio panel
About
About
Atahan has been making games since his high school years. He attends gamejams regularly, and is currently working on his debut title Factory Train: DreamLine as a solo dev. He also works as a software engineer at Zwift.
About
Keith Warnick is a technical artist, Unreal Engine generalist, and AI/ML expert with a PhD in physics from Vanderbilt University. His current passion is material shader programming and he loves applying his lifelong interest in math and programming to create interesting, useful, and beautiful things.
About
Admiral is senior systems engineer and architect at an augmented reality technology startup. His skills range from custom circuit board design to motion graphics programming to enterprise-scale monkey business. He helps run the Salt Lake City Blender User Group, and mentors two or more nights a week on the 801Labs hackerspace Discord server helping students learn about Linux, programming, networking, digital self empowerment, and cyber security. Admiral has always been a huge advocate for free and accessible education, computer literacy, and the use of free and open source tools to empower individuals.
Admiral Potato
Senior Systems Engineer – Architect
Presenting on Blender to Godot Pipeline
Jeff Meacham
Composer, Mixer
Audio Panel
About
Jeff has been lucky to have the wonderful experience of creating, recording, mixing and composing in both the film and video game industries for almost 20 years now. He graduated from Full Sail university with his recordings arts degree and was fortunate to get his start 6 months before graduation working as a dialogue editor for EA Sports. He got to help create and work on titles such as Superman Returns, Madden 08, NFL Street and Head Coach before becoming a sound designer for other fun titles like Sims 3, littlest Pet shop and Nerf N-Strike. Jeff has always been eager to learn more so when he was offered the opportunity to work at The Void helping pioneer new virtual reality experiences he jumped at the chance to be their Audio Director working on the very first Ghostbusters VR experience in partnership with Sony Pictures. he has since moved on and now works for Scopely as one of their lead sound designers for Marvel Strike Force. He still loves creating music on the side and you can find him on Spotify and soundcloud.
About
Digital Artist and Game Dev currently working on Dino Mayhem, a destructive retro pixel platformer where you play as legendary dinosaurs to devour enemies, demolish buildings, and wield high-tech weapons.
Josh Jones
Senior Developer,
Networking Panel
About
Josh Jones is a senior developer and has been a leader in the SLC area IGDA chapter for over 20 years. Titles such as Legendary: Game of Heroes, Animal Jam, and Justice League Heroes DS stand alongside several indie projects in his credited games list. He also enjoys livestreaming and tabletop games.
About
Rachel Robison is a composer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is also a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, and educator. Her studies include media music and music recording technology at Salt Lake Community College, graduating with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Music Recording Technology. By day, Robison is an IT Business Analyst, finding any time she can to work on music projects, perform with her band (Rainy Main), and remain actively involved in the music and game development industries. She is the organizer for Utah Game Audio, a local community for game audio professionals and video game music enthusiasts alike. As a member of the Game Audio Network Guild, she has served as an Advisory Board member and was previously Co-chair for the G.A.N.G. Scholar Alumni association. In addition to music performance and production, she gladly welcomes any opportunity to discuss important topics she is passionate about, spread awareness, and form meaningful connections with authenticity and kindness. She has been fortunate to be a guest speaker for various workshops and participate on panels at Salt Lake Gaming Con, GameSoundCon, and PAX East.
Rachel Robison
Composer, Singer, Songwriter
Networking Panel
Karina Pardus
Orchestrator, Creative Director, Industry advocate
Networking panel
About
Karina Pardus is an orchestrator, Creative Director, and industry advocate. She is the Associate Director of GameSoundCon, the Production Manager for the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) Awards, the Executive Director of Music Creators Academy, and works in music education as the Music Director of the Adaptive Needs Adults Program at Tanner Dance through the University of Utah. She is the founder of Coy Compositions, and has composed and orchestrated music for podcasts, video games, and has worked commercially with companies such as Ipsy. Karina has been a panelist at the Salt Lake Gaming Convention, GameSoundCon, PAX East, AirCon, and a contributor to the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit. As a mom of 3, she knows that managing a family and a business requires a lot of creativity to not only balance her dreams, but to thrive among them.
About
Emmaline Jackson is a classically trained composer and musician specializing in cinematic compositions and arrangements. She has worked with numerous organizations including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Ballet West, and Peekaboo Organics. Her most recent video game score for the story-driven RPG “Forsaken Realms: Vahrin’s Call” will be released later this year. Emmaline has been nominated for a student Emmy and won ‘Best Music’ for the short film “Emergence” at the One-Reeler film festival. Emma’s passion lies in creating immersive worlds through her music, especially when complementing the artistry of video games. She lives in Utah Valley with her husband and very energetic toddler.
Mckay Salisbury
Developer
Stop Getting Got by Git
About
McKay got his first software job at 14, and has been working with software ever since. He’s mostly been working in FinTech. While he hasn’t been working in the video game industry he does get involved with the indie game community in Utah, and has released a game for the XBox 360.
About
Lance Montgomery is Senior Composer at Mob Entertainment, and the composer of the score for Poppy Playtime Chapter 5. Across his career, Lance has produced music and audio for titles and brands including Transformers, Crayola, Hasbro, LEGO, and at one point, even composed and designed sounds for analog pinball machines. Known in the game development community for his advocacy of audio middleware, Lance was recruited by Meta to contribute to the documentation for Meta Haptics Studio, and to write and produce Meta’s official educational YouTube tutorials on creating haptics for interactive experiences. His broader interests include acoustic diffusion, binaural recording, blind-accessible game development, and, as a dad, writing children’s books and songs.
He holds a BM in Music Composition from BYU in 2010 and has received national honors, including the SEAMUS Commission Award for electroacoustic composition, and was the recipient of the 2011 College Television Award (The “Student Emmys”) for Music: Best Composition.
Michelle Fuzari
Audio Director
Audio Panel
About
About
Dana Ware
Founder and CEO of Hidden Realities
Networking Panel