By day, Kyra Wills-Umdenstock (any pronouns) is the Center of Excellence Administrator and Industry Liaison for NYU Game Center at Tisch School of the Arts – and by night, they run the EGD Collective as board chair and CEO. They are a games industry nomad, having been involved in games education, events, QA, sound design, esports, and marketing for 10 years. They worked with Games for Change, the Paley Center for Media, BrookLAN, Super League Gaming, Game Builders Academy, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and many more – but their favorite gig was being a professional Jackbox Party Pack player for NYXL, and their most notable achievement was getting to pet SonicFox’s dog while working East Coast Throwdown: The Pit.
They were honored in 2021 by the Game Awards as a part of Future Class, are also a recipient of the JBL Quantum Grant, AnyKey Changemakers Grant, and Girl Scout Gold Award. Kyra currently serves on Mayor Adams’s NYC Game Development Industry Council, created to advise the city’s policies and programs in the games development sector, as well as many other advisory boards for games-related projects. They are also the Chair of the International Game Developers Association Student SIG. Kyra’s most recent publication is Just Esports, a handbook on diversity, equity, and inclusion in collegiate gaming for university administrators, student leaders, and esports directors that they co-authored.