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Becky Allen has been in the Interactive audio industry for over 30 years. She is currently Audio Director at Halo Studios and recently shipped Halo: Campaign Evolved. This past year, she received the Liftetime Achievement Award from the Game Audio Network Guild at GDC. Previously Becky has been a business leader, composer, project Audio producer, manager and leader within the industry. She was one of the co-founders of AMP (Audio Mentorship Project) and believes strongly in giving back to the community.

Edward Bauman is the Audio Design Lead at The Coalition, where he has spent more than twelve years shaping the sound of the Gears of War franchise, including Gears of War: E-Day, Gears of War 4, Gears 5, and the Gears 5: Hivebusters expansion. With nearly 20 years of professional audio experience, Ed's background spans across AAA and independent games, television, film, animation, interactive installations, advertising, commercial productions, consultant experiences, and instructor/mentorship work training the next generation of game audio professional

Anthony Breslin is a Senior Sound Designer at Insomniac Games, specializing in combat, character, weapon, and creature audio. His work focuses on creating impactful sonic experiences that make gameplay feel powerful, clear, and alive. He is particularly interested in how close collaboration between sound effects and dialogue can create richer experiences than either discipline can achieve alone.

I began making games when I was a sophomore in High School. I wrote several games in Hypercard on an Apple IIe. At Texas A&M University, College Station, I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science (Engineering) and a Music minor. I began working as an audio intern at Midway Austin in 2008. After a couple years I moved to Seattle where I worked at Monolith/WB Games, Gas Powered Games/Wargaming, and 343 Industries. After 15 years I moved back to Austin and worked at Certain Affinity for a couple years, then Archetype-Entertainment to found the Audio Dept over 5 years ago. My chief professional interests are: audio, technology, and human psychology.

Todd Castillo is a senior sound designer and composer with over a decade of experience in the game industry. He began his career in 2015 as an in-house composer and sound designer at Hex Entertainment and Six Foot. He went on to contribute to multiple titles at MobilityWare before founding his own audio company in 2020, working with studios including Mythical Games. In 2023, he joined Blizzard Entertainment full-time as a senior sound designer on Diablo Immortal, where he leads audio for the game. His work on Diablo Immortal contributed to the title receiving a 2024 G.A.N.G. Award for Best Audio in a Casual or Social Game. He previously presented "The Universal Language of Monsters" at GDC 2026.

David Fairfield is a G.A.N.G Award-nominated music composer & sound designer, GDC, GSC, AirCon, Berklee, & Campus Party Speaker, audio engineer, consultant and entrepreneur. He has composed music, designed sound, and provided voice-over for many of the world's most beloved brands, including the Harry Potter franchise, Superman, Minecraft, Club Penguin, the Olympics, Disney, Star Wars, National Geographic, New York Fashion Week, Niantic, Hyper Hippo, and more. David has been a foley artist for Club Penguin's TV special Halloween Panic, recorded and produced bands, toured in the USA, Australia, and Canada as a drummer and keyboardist, and composed music for live stage productions that have delighted tens of thousands of attendees.

I am a Content Creator and Developer Evangelist in Arm's Performance Education team, where I help to show developers how to make more efficient mobile games using profiling and analysis tools. I started my career in the games industry as a composer and asset publisher, before moving into content creation after writing articles about my work on audio systems in Unity. Before joining Arm in 2025, I spent 5 years teaching game development basics on YouTube, where I specialized in making C# scripting easier for new developers. Passionate about challenging best practice with real research, I've brought my deep-dive approach to content creation to my work at Arm in an effort to make performance optimization easier, and more accessible, to developers of all skill levels.

Jason Graves is a two-time BAFTA-winning composer known for creating thematic, textural and concept-driven scores for video games, film and television. His work spans more than 125 games and includes the Dead Space franchise, the rebooted Tomb Raider trilogy, Far Cry Primal, Until Dawn, The Order: 1886, Moss, The Dark Pictures Anthology and Still Wakes the Deep. He has also contributed to film and television productions including Prey, Swamp Thing, and Gran Turismo. Graves is recognized for developing a distinct musical language for each project, often combining live orchestra, experimental sound design, unusual performers and custom-built instruments. His scores have incorporated natural objects, ancient instruments, found percussion, synthesizers and original sound sculptures—including "The Rig," a metal instrument created specifically for Still Wakes the Deep. His landmark experimental orchestral score for Dead Space received BAFTA Awards for Original Score and Use of Audio. A classically trained composer and world percussionist, Graves frequently performs on his own recordings as a drummer, keyboardist, guitarist and percussionist. He graduated from the University of Southern California's film-scoring program, where he studied under Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein and Christopher Young. He has conducted and recorded orchestral scores at major facilities including Abbey Road Studios, AIR Studios, Skywalker Sound, Capitol Records and Paramount Pictures.

Nathan Grigg has been fully immersed in music composition, design, and direction for interactive media for three decades. His work for games is fueled by a passion for carrying a creative vision through complex systems. He lives to reward an active, problem-solving gaming audience with aesthetic, emotional experiences, impactful themes, a sense of mystery and potential, and the underlying message: "You're smart." After launching his career in 1993 scoring 16-bit console games, Nathan worked as an Audio Lead with Microsoft's Sports Games group, a Music Supervisor for MSN during its launch phase, and a Music Director for MS Studios, serving as a front door for custom music needs company-wide. With the intention of keeping games center stage, he joined Monolith in 2001, kicking off a 23-year run of critically acclaimed game scores including No One Lives Forever 2, TRON 2.0, F.E.A.R., the BAFTA-nominated score for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and Middle-earth: Shadow or War. Nathan supported WB Games projects abroad as a Music Designer/Director for Day 1 Studios' F.3.A.R., and a composer of stage music for NetherRealm's Mortal Kombat 11 and Mortal Kombat 1. He currently lives and works in Seattle as a freelance composer and audio designer, contributing to games such as Valve's DOTA 2 and Archetype's Exodus. Awards: Nominee: D.I.C.E. Awards - Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition - Mortal Kombat 11 - 2019 Nominee: G.A.N.G. Awards - Best Original Song  - "Fires of War" - Middle-earth: Shadow of War - 2018 Nominee: BAFTA Game Awards - Music - Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - 2015 Nominee: G.A.N.G. Awards - Music of the Year  - Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - 2015 Nominee: G.A.N.G. Awards - Audio of the Year  - Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - 2015 Nominee: G.A.N.G. Awards - Best Original Instrumental - "Fort Morn" - Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - 2015 Nominee: G.A.N.G. Awards - Best Interactive Score - TRON 2.0 - 2004 Winner: GameSpy - Best Music - No One Lives Forever 2 - 2002 Winner: Computer Games Magazine - Best Music - No One Lives Forever 2 - 2002

Margarita Grubina leads business development at Respeecher — an Emmy-winning AI voice company behind some of the most demanding audio work in games, like Cyberpunk 2077, and Oscar-recognized movies like The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez. She works at the intersection of production reality and voice technology: what studios actually need, what the tech can deliver, and where ethics and quality aren't optional. She's had the conversations about ethical compliance, franchise character continuity, de-aging child actors mid-production, and what happens when you can't get a voice actor back for the sequel. She knows how these decisions get made and what goes wrong when they don't

Em is the Creative Director and an Audio Director at A Shell In the Pit, where she has worked on 30 games in the span of 10 years, such as Big Walk, Untitled Goose Game, Pacific Drive, Night in the Woods, and Chicory. She is interested in the way in which sound can evoke emotion so easily, and in capturing this from the world around her through recording.

Evan Hodick is a Senior Dialogue Coordinator at Insomniac Games with a focus on non-verbal (effort) actions/reactions for all characters, ranging from Heroes to NPCs. His work, along with the creative collaboration of the rest of the dialogue and audio team, helps to emphasize the impact and atmosphere efforts can create, further engrossing the player in the moment to moment gameplay.

Ryan is a two-time BAFTA-nominated composer and sound designer, currently living in Seattle, Washington. He's written for award winning games like West of Loathing, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, and Wizard With a Gun. When not making audio, Ryan is likely preparing talks and online content on how to navigate the game industry. At events like PAX West, Indiecade, and GDC, he's given talks designed to help people start or further their work in games, with an emphasis on emotional and mental health.

Florian Jensen started his career in 2006 at Crytek. In the following 14 years he shaped the audio of 5 unique IPs with more than 10 award winning releases plus the CryEngine Audio Technology Pipeline. Since November 2020, Florian has been contributing to multiple Ubisoft titles from Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora to The Settlers: New Allies, recently shipping the critically acclaimed Anno 117: Pax Romana. Besides his role as Audio Director, he is a passionate Gamer and Audio enthusiast, who loves teaching and giving talks at various universities about Game Audio.

Graduate of the University of Edinburgh in Acoustics and Music Technology, with 4 years of deep expertise in Morefun Audio Team, Tencent Games. Yiting specialized in audio tool development and pipeline optimization, Yiting bridges sound design and technology to make audio production, integration, and testing as seamless as possible.

With twenty years of sound and interactive media expertise, Nick LaMartina is a seasoned audio professional with experience across numerous genres and platforms. He has worked as a sound designer, composer, and audio engineer on projects spanning the farthest reaches of the audio discipline, from high-powered MMOs, to critically acclaimed mobile titles of beloved IPs, to the furthest edges of the artform with virtual and mixed reality gaming and research. Above all, he is committed to sharing his passion and expertise, and is deeply committed to the advancement of the sonic and gaming arts.

Emmanuel Lagumbay is an audio designer based in Ontario, California. He has crafted sounds in-house for projects like Guild Wars 2, League of Legends, Legends of Runeterra, Teamfight Tactics, and worked freelance for projects like Torchlight III, Draw and Guess, and Puzzles and Dragons, and Sol Mates. When he's not working in game audio, he enjoys playing with his cats, Dorian Sixth & Octavia, his dog, Coda, practicing historical fencing, and speaking in the third person.

Roc Lee (he/him) is based in Washington DC where he works as a Senior Sound Designer at Clean Cuts Interactive. Roc specializes in building audio systems that support gameplay and story, drawing on a background that spans live theater, indie and AAA games, and a first-generation Chinese-Taiwanese perspective. His credits include Asgard's Wrath 2, Saber Punks, and Sword Reverie. Roc has spoken at GDoC, GSC, and AES AVAR and helps to organize the DMV Game Audio meetup.

Haoran Ma is the Lead Sound Designer and Audio Lead for Arena Breakout: Infinite at Tencent MoreFun Studios. As the project's primary audio point of contact, he is responsible for the overall audio direction and design, while coordinating the team's sound design, implementation, mixing, and production work.

Jesse Marciniak is a sound designer, dialogue editor, voice actor, and game-audio community organizer based in Los Angeles. He works with HamsterBall Studios supporting voice-over production, recording, dialogue editing, and actor-focused educational programming. Jesse also serves as a Communications Coordinator for the Game Audio Network Guild and is the creator and host of You Know This Sound, a series exploring the stories behind iconic sounds in games. He is also the creator and moderator of the GameSoundCon panel You're a VO Director Now, So What? His work focuses on the intersection of performance, sound, and interactive storytelling.

Mickey Marian is a Senior Audio Software Engineer at The Coalition, where he has spent more than five years building audio systems and driving audio performance for Gears of War: E-Day. Before joining The Coalition, he built a background in music production, mixing, songwriting, and indie game development.

Sound designer and Foley artist who specializes in Game Audio. I have been a musician practically my whole life and have developed a strong passion for music, sound, and all things audio over the course of my life. Video games, along with music, have played a huge role in my development as a person. It only made sense for me to take my passion for audio and games and focus it into something I can build my life around. There are few things as satisfying to me as breathing life into a game through sound design. Taking a game from concept to release through the lens of sound is such an amazing and important experience for me both personally and professionally. A mentor of mine once said that great sound design shouldn't always be noticed. The best sound design is the kind that draws the listener in, and for a moment, they can believe they are somewhere they are not. My goal is to make the listener believe they are in that world or moment.

For about 20 years Tomas worked on multiple AAA titles and game engines with extensive audio production needs like Crysis, World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3 Reforged, Overwatch, and an "Unannounced Survival Game". Since he joined CD Projekt Red he contributes to the shared audio tech to multiple exciting projects across The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 franchises. Tomas is driven to fully unlock the creative potential of the audio professionals he has the privilege to work with. As an engineer exclusively working on audio tech, Tomas has worked across different code disciplines from game client and server, game and audio tools, and asset management systems to deliver importance-based audio mixing, server authenticated voice system, or other complex audio features.

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. She has been in leadership and board positions in advocacy nonprofits including the Female Composer Safety League and Mamas in Music. She has been a speaker 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.

Star Victoria Power (aka, Slide20XX) is a composer who writes colorful music for colorful games that is heavily researched and always on time. Their work includes contribution to Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night's DLC, Dominique's Curse; the soundtrack for Calico (a game about magical girls running a cat cafe); the anti-racist PSAs put out by Steven Universe; and electro-swing & jazz-hop for the visual novel, Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain. They're also founder of The Rising Star Patronage Project, an organization supporting marginalized video game music composers, founder of Black in Game Audio, and they had the honor of presenting the award for Best Audio at the 2026 Game Developer's Choice Awards.

Bernard Rodrigue is the Director of Wwise Experience at Audiokinetic. He received his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science in 1999. In 2005, he joined Audiokinetic. He actively participated in developing the foundations of Wwise and helped lead the design and implementation of several key projects, including the Interactive Music, MIDI, Profiler and HDR systems, as well as the Wwise Authoring API.

Mathew Savage is a Senior Audio Artist and Speech Lead at Electronic Arts. Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, he spent most of his time outside, but thanks to an abundance of rainy days, his passion for video games grew and eventually led to a full-time career. He broke into the game industry in 2019, joining Electronic Arts to work on the NHL franchise, and has never looked back. Mathew is fascinated by the search for ways to bridge the gap between live sports broadcasts and video game commentary. He believes AI-assisted tools can help close that gap by supporting talent during recording sessions, reducing bottlenecks, and improving workflows. When it rains these days, Mathew tries to find time between family life, friends, and work to continue a seemingly endless game of Factorio because, well… The Factory Must Grow.

Based in Seattle, Kareem Shuman has been a game audio professional for over 13 years, with a specific focus on dialogue over the last 9 years. He's worked on: indie titles, Guild Wars 2, Halo 5, many Destiny 2 seasons and expansions, and most recently as the Dialogue Lead at Insomniac Games working on the upcoming title Marvel's Wolverine.

Amanda Rose Smith is an audio engineer, composer and sound designer based in NYC, with twenty years of experience working in games, film, tv, animation, audiobooks, and podcasting. She specializes in capturing and creating high quality dialogue and spoken word audio across multiple genres with credits including GANG best dialogue winner Telltale's The Walking Dead, Just Cause 4, Orange Is The New Black, The New Adventures of Peter Pan, Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, and many more. She holds a BA in Music Composition from Smith College and a MA in Music Technology from New York University. She's passionate about the convergence of art and technology and using new tech to bring an artist's vision to life, whether that art be her own or someone else's. The rest of her time is spent walking with her adorable dog and watching old episodes of Star Trek TNG.

Guy has been developing audio engines for various platforms since 2002. He has worked on everything from slot machines to AAA titles to indies, and written audio engines for them all, from a low-level mixer up through next-gen multi-threaded magic. He has also worked as a gameplay engineer on multiple titles, implementing various combat and gameplay systems, and now works as an audio programmer at Blizzard Entertainment. Guy is editor/author of five books on Game Audio Programming entitled "Game Audio Programming: Principles and Practices" volumes 1 through 5.

In a career that started with music, branched into film, and ultimately found its home in video games, Matt passionately blends his creativity in audio with his deep commitment to personal growth. Now thriving on the dialogue team at Insomniac Games, he's driven to push the boundaries of what interactive storytelling can achieve—while also empowering others to unlock their highest potential in creative spaces. When Matt isn't crafting dialogue and narrative experiences with his colleagues, you can usually find him rollerblading in large groups such as the LA Skate Hunnies and The Night Skate LA. His mission is to inspire others and create experiences that have a positive impact on people's lives.

Hillel Teplitzki is a Los Angeles-based composer, PlayStation Game Music Award winner, and two-time Game Audio Network Guild Award and Hollywood Music in Media Awards recipient. Renowned for his work on more than 15 AAA titles, including Diablo 4, League of Legends, and Starfield, Hillel creates music that bridges worlds and genres. His sound effortlessly moves from grand orchestral emotion to futuristic synth-driven energy, reflecting his foundation as a classically trained pianist and his past as a progressive metal musician.

Akash Thakkar is an award-winning sound designer based in Seattle. His portfolio includes contributions to critically lauded titles such as "Hyper Light Drifter," "Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye," "Concrete Genie," and "High on Life," among others. Beyond his creative work, Akash is dedicated to educating and empowering the next generation of audio professionals. He frequently shares his expertise through international speaking engagements and educational content for aspiring sound designers. Akash is also a vocal advocate for fair compensation in the gaming industry, actively working to ensure audio professionals receive appropriate recognition for their contributions.

Josué Vera is a Puerto Rican audio director, multimedia composer, and technical sound designer based in NYC. His work has been heard on different platforms, such as Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Nat Geo. Josué works with multiple indie studios to help ideate and develop their audio pipeline and design. He's currently an adjunct instructor at NYU where he teaches compositional and implementation techniques for video game music. He's a firm believer in community. He co-founded Game Sound Summit, the only game audio conference in Puerto Rico. He also co-organizes NYCGameAudio, and has been a Conference Associate at GameSoundCon and [GDC] Festival of Gaming. Josué holds a Master's degree in Screen Scoring from NYU Steinhardt and a BM in Music Composition from the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico. Outside of music, Josué is an avid fan of the tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons, hiking, and hot chocolate.

Yoshihiko Wada is a veteran sound designer with over 30 years of experience defining the sonic landscapes of Capcom's iconic global franchises. After serving as Audio Lead on Viewtiful Joe, he established Capcom's high-end international co-production pipelines as Audio Director for Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5. As Lead Sound Designer for Devil May Cry 5, he revitalized the series' signature audio identity, contributing to its ongoing global success and media adaptations. On Resident Evil 9: Requiem, Yoshi operated as the senior creative anchor, engineering a borderless fellowship between Toho Studios in Tokyo and Hollywood's top talent to capture the organic acoustic truth of horror.

Xiangyi Wang is a game audio designer at Tencent. His work spans sound design, Wwise implementation, dialogue production, audio QA, and production workflows. He focuses on clear, readable combat audio and on reducing repetitive production work so audio teams can spend more time listening, iterating, and designing sound. He has presented at Wwise Tour 2022, GDC 2023, and CGDC 2025.

Ryo Watanabe is an Audio Director and Manager at Bandai Namco Studios, where he has worked since joining Namco in 2005. His work spans composition, sound design, implementation, interactive mixing, spatial audio, haptics, and large-scale audio direction. He is best known for his work on the ACE COMBAT series, including serving as Audio Director on ACE COMBAT 7: SKIES UNKNOWN and ACE COMBAT 8. Across these projects, he has led the design of immersive aerial-combat audio, real-time mixing systems, radio presentation, music integration, spatial audio, and controller haptics, while coordinating multidisciplinary teams across multiple companies. Watanabe has also contributed to a wide range of Bandai Namco titles and franchises, including THE IDOLM@STER, TEKKEN, RIDGE RACER, SOULCALIBUR, PAC-MAN, Taiko no Tatsujin, Katamari Damacy, and Denonbu. His experience covers both hands-on creation and production leadership, from composing music and designing sound effects to establishing workflows, review methods, and shared creative principles for large teams. A central theme of his work is translating abstract creative intent into practical production decisions. He has developed approaches for aligning music, sound effects, dialogue, cinematics, spatial audio, and haptics around a unified player experience, and for balancing realism, clarity, emotional impact, and gameplay feedback in complex interactive scenes. He has presented at CEDEC and IGDA Japan SIG-Audio on topics including interactive mixing, audio direction, spatial audio, Wwise, and AAA game production. His speaking history includes CEDEC 2014, 2016, 2019, and 2024, as well as GDC audio report sessions in 2018, 2019, 2024, and 2025. At CEDEC, he served for many years as a lead organizer of the sound program, contributing to its programming and overall operation. He has also participated in the Game Developers Choice Awards nomination process. Watanabe was also featured on a television program produced by NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, where he introduced the creative and technical process behind game audio production. He continues to explore how game audio can create stronger emotional and physical connections between players and interactive worlds, and how creative judgment can be made shareable and actionable across large development teams.