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Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

@drlauralevy.bsky.social

440 followers 1.1K following 170 posts

🔬 Games User Researcher, Amazon Games 🎓 PhD human factors psych 🐝 Previous Georgia Tech Research Scientist 👾 #GUR #HCI 🤷🏻‍♀️ John McCain put my first game on his "naughty list" 💬 my own thoughts/opinions 🇺🇸🇨🇱🇸🇪

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Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · Mar 24

Hey, y'all!

I'm a human factors psych specializing in the messiest experimental research human-computer interactions has to offer!

From aerospace to zoology, my work spans industries in academia-industry research translation with a focus on applied games research.

Now at Amazon Games as a #GUR 👾

Meme from the talk show, Maury. Maury sits in a tan chair, glasses on, and holding a piece of paper that he appears to be reading from. Big white text at the top of the meme reads, "The participants said they enjoyed the game experience". Bottom white meme text reads, "the data determined that was a lie".

Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

Trevor Smith @trevzorftw.bsky.social · Aug 27

Announcing a game is a huge milestone for folks in the gaming industry and I am hyped that we've announced March of Giants today!

See our announcement here:
www.amazongames.com/en-us/news/a...

Sign up for our upcoming Alpha here:
playmog.games/requestMOGac...

March of Giants, a New Free-to-Play War MOBA From Amazon Games Montreal, Begins Closed Alpha Testing

Players in North America can request access now to provide feedback on a brand-new competitive MOBA for PC from the team behind Rainbow Six Siege.

www.amazongames.com

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Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

Jody Houser ✒️🗯️🎲 @jodyhouser.bsky.social · Aug 27

Learn more and request access for the upcoming Closed Alpha at MarchOfGiants.com

March of Giants

A Free-To-Play 4v4 War MOBA

MarchOfGiants.com

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Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

Jody Houser ✒️🗯️🎲 @jodyhouser.bsky.social · Aug 27

What have I been working on for the past couple years, besides comics?

Alongside @jacksonlanzing.bsky.social and @collinkelly.bsky.social, I've been a writer on a brand new free-to-play AAA game from the team that brought you Rainbow Six: Siege.

Get ready for MARCH OF GIANTS!

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Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

Oh, The Freemanity! @freemanity.blacksky.app · Aug 8

The f*&%ing library.

nai THEE corpse bride 🦋 @astoldbynai.blacksky.app · Aug 8

2. What is something “low effort, high reward” you wish more people knew about?

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Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

autogynephagia @cas.bsky.social · Jul 29

my boss: hey nice job!

my brain: you cannot compliment me in a way that matters

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Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · Jul 28

I'll never forget watching Lauryn Hill smack her bassist in the chest for some reason in the middle of a song and him scoot his chair back just a little more to get out of her arm range

(but yah that looks dope af)

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Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · Jul 10

hol ‘up, I’m queuing for ranked now 🍌

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Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · Jun 9

"Wow, I'm so stressed out today. I wonder why. My job is neat."

: realizes I've been listening to non-stop enemy aggro music in my headset for 5 hours in this playtest :

"oh"

Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

Henrik Warpefelt @warpefelt.com · May 21

This is the THIRD paper I've seen in the last year that uses people's data in a way that is deeply ethically problematic. If games scholars keep doing this it is going to seriously harm everyone's ability to do research with online gaming communities as they start closing off to scientists.

Discord Unveiled: A Comprehensive Dataset of Public Communication (2015-2024)

Discord has evolved from a gaming-focused communication tool into a versatile platform supporting diverse online communities. Despite its large user base and active public servers, academic research o...

arxiv.org

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Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · May 21

Another week, another research ethics controversy.

TL;DR Researchers released a public dataset of 2B+ messages from 4M+ users on 3k+ "public" Discord servers. Usernames/IDs are anonymized.

But let's unpack this one... 🧵

www.404media.co/researchers-...

Researchers Scrape 2 Billion Discord Messages and Publish Them Online

A Brazilian team used Discord’s API to scrape 10% of its open servers.

www.404media.co

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Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · May 14

more like WRY FEAST amirite???

cause...Nordic humor...sorry

Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · May 13

Humanities are important yap yap go read about phenomenology or not yap

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeworld

Lifeworld - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · May 13

"Hey babe, get a load of this [I DON'T REALIZE WHAT I'M ABOUT TO SAY IS SO STUPID] stupid humanities thing"

(enter computer scientist that you wouldn't expect to know a lot about humanities things)

👨‍🏫: that's a post-modern theory of yap yap important to yap theory Kuhn yap Popper yap

me: ...oh

a close up of a woman 's face with the words `` fine '' written next to her .

Alt: A close up of the artist, Rhianna, pouting on camera with text below that reads "fine"

media.tenor.com

Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

NPR @npr.org · May 12

You count on the NPR Network. THANK YOU to our supporters who are showing we can count on you too.

If you haven’t given yet, it’s time to join the movement to defend public media.

Donate now: n.pr/3EYClNR

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Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

Bob Flynn @bobjinx.bsky.social · May 12

Was watching Bill Nye with my son yesterday—the kind of science education creativity and spirit that's currently being extinguished. Credits hit hard when the NSF logo came up.

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Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

The Godless Critter @thegodlesscritter.bsky.social · May 12

____________________
| |
| SIN ISN’T REAL. |
| |
| YOU ARE GOOD. |
| |
|___________________|
| |
(\__/) | |
(•ㅅ•) | |
/ > | |

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Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

Aaron Schmit @aaronschmit.bsky.social · May 7

So my girlfriend is an amazing stop motion animator, and she recently did a medieval cat themed bumper for Adult Swim!

Sharing it here because she only has Instagram and I think everyone needs to see her animations. She's so freaking talented, y'alls. PLEASE go follow her!

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Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

Carolyn Petit @carolynmichelle.bsky.social · May 6

Tom Sizemore as Cerrito in Heat saying "Well ya know, for me, the action is the juice," crudely Photoshopped to instead read "Well ya know, for me, the gameplay IS the vibes."

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Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · May 7

It’s so cool how fast this technology has improved and continues to improve our lives every day 🥰 @kcrw.com

A screen shot with dark blue borders and a faint ghostly blue in the middle. The top text shows the voice prompt to Siri, "Siri who is this". Siri's reply is, "This is KCRW. This track is called 'Music'."

Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · May 6

all academics hit a point where you must make the difficult decision to title your paper either

- TOWARDS ... [an understanding of yap yap]

OR

- BEYOND ... [whatever you're doing and not what I'm doing]

when, inevitably, you've committed both sins you become a Dean or a husk, who's to say really

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Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · May 1

It took a lifetime of academia to instill and only 1.5 years out to finally stop thinking of the year in semesters.

I’ve never felt more truly at peace. The year is mine to fritter away without boundaries!

Corporate America saved one soul today. 🥳

Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

Dr. Solomon David @solomonrdavid.bsky.social · May 1

My pet gar that I donated to Shedd Aquarium would recognize me and swim over to say hi when I visited her exhibit ❤️🐠

A rare hybrid gar, I raised her since she was 2 inches long, and had to re-home her when I moved to Chicago. I was happy I could visit her in her new home!

TO BE CONTINUED…

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Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · Apr 30

The thing about yapping unknowingly on a hot mic in front of leadership is, if this had happened earlier in my career I’d be devastated — but it didn't, so now everyone knows how I feel about Bayesian vs frequentist statistics uncertainty and if that isn't career goals, I don't know what is! 😌

Reposted by Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨

Tomás Grau de Pablos @tomgaar.bsky.social · Apr 23

Empezando por fin este clásico.

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Laura Levy, PhDemocracy 👾🔬✨ @drlauralevy.bsky.social · Apr 29

Pasteur's Quadrant drives US research

Traditional academia = Bohr
Industry = Edison
National labs/applied academia = Pasteur

Real societal impact is Pasteur's quad

Basic research (how disease works) inspired by need (prevent death) = innovation (vaccine)

We're losing a better future for all

A figure. The horizontal axis states "Relevance for immediate applications". The vertical axis states, "Relevance for generatlized knowledge". The top left quadrant is Bohr's pure basic research, the top right quadrant is Pasteur's use-inspired basic research, the bottom left is simply called Tinkering, and the bottom right is Edison's pure applied research.