Meet the Team

MATTHEW CAO

mattzcao.com - mzc@berkeley.edu

Matthew is a fourth-year undergraduate at UC Berkeley studying Molecular and Cell Biology and Data Science. He focused on designing the narrative question along with shaping the methodology. He structured and designed the website layout and content as well as assembled much of the items into the site. Matthew is both passionate about gender representation in video games and data science, and found this was the perfect combination of those interests. Of the gender in gaming coin, he has previously done research on the side of female players and their experiences in the gaming community, and it was fulfilling to make a project for the other side of the coin—female characters. 

MIRA CHATRATHI

mira.chatrathi@berkeley.edu

Mira is a fourth-year undergraduate at UC Berkeley majoring in Data Science. She created the data visualizations for the project, creating timelines and graphs to show gender ratios within various genres of video games, along with detailed analyses of the visualizations. As someone interested in the use of data science for social good, Mira has enjoyed using her data science skills for a project about female characters in video games. Mira has experience working on a wide range of data science projects, and she has enjoyed using her skills to explore a new topic of female characters in video using digital humanities practices.

CLAIRE CHEN

Claire is a fourth-year undergraduate at UC Berkeley majoring in Data Science with a domain emphasis in Linguistics. They conducted the initial data set research and visualization planning and wrote the introduction, historical contextualization (with Bronzmer), and conclusion sections of the final narrative. As a casual gamer and avid indie game walkthrough-enjoyer, Claire enjoys analyzing the intentions behind game development and exploring new, untraditional games. Having exposure to both mainstream female character representation and the shifting representation within modern indie games, Claire is interested in what factors contribute to these shifts, as well as the power of games as a cultural influencer. 

BRONZMER LAI

Bronzmer is a third-year undergraduate at UC Berkeley planning to major in Data Science and Economics. He researched the topic and is responsible for writing the historical contextualization portion of the narrative and drawing cultural parallels of the trends with Claire. He also helped structure the website and added the content and elements to it. As someone who plays video games on a normal basis, he found this topic interesting because the objectification and sexist view of women is a widespread issue in the gaming community. As such, he wished to dive deeper into why that is and what could possibly be the driving point behind this issue.

CHLOE QIU

Chloe is a graduating undergraduate at UC Berkeley studying Japanese and Data Science. She sourced research for the narrative and visualizations, confirmed and compiled the Bibliography with annotations from the team, and authored the homepage introduction, Data Critique, and Project Foundations. As a casual female gamer, she enjoys life simulation, adventure, and RPGs—but has often felt frustrated by the limited roles and lack of narrative depth given to female characters in many titles. Having found this project both personally and culturally relevant, Chloe is happy to have been part of the team.

FREYA ZHAO

Freya is a fourth-year undergraduate at UC Berkeley majoring in Data Science. In this project, she focused on combining multimodal elements with the narrative to directly support key analyses like feminist waves, cultural critique, etc. She also searched for and selected images and materials for the timeline and comparisons, and collected key resources to strengthen the narrative. As an avid gamer, Freya has long noticed the varied ways female characters are portrayed, and this project deepened her understanding of the cultural intentions behind these representations.