2026 Speakers

Quality Designer - LiveOps Lead The Sims 4

Alex Smith

he/him

EA – Maxis

With a degree in Video Game Design/Production from DePaul University, Alex entered the game industry with dreams of becoming the next big indie game designer. After failing at getting anything off the ground, he turned to QA contract work to pay the bills. Over time, he went from an indignant “failed designer” to a begrudgingly good tester to a professional QA. Now, over a decade later, he finds himself a proud assurer of quality with a passion for the “art” of QA.

Alex prides himself on being an advocate for advancing QA’s perception within the industry. He loves yapping about the importance of nurturing a quality QA team and learning from other people! He’s stoked to have the opportunity to yap to a crowd of likeminded individuals (instead of his normal audience of “Devs he trapped in a zoom call”.)

Senior Solutions Architect

Chelsi Hohnbaum

she/her

Xbox Game Studios

Chelsi Hohnbaum is a Senior Solutions Architect at Microsoft, working within Xbox Game Studios to support data‑driven quality, telemetry, and engineering practices across a diverse portfolio of game teams. Her work focuses on helping studios design telemetry that is reliable, maintainable, and genuinely useful throughout the development lifecycle.

Over the course of her career at Xbox, Chelsi has partnered closely with game teams, engineers, and data organizations to address common challenges in telemetry design, data quality, and governance. She has led and contributed to studio‑wide efforts to establish foundational telemetry best practices, improve cross‑team alignment, and reduce downstream data issues through better upfront instrumentation decisions.

Chelsi has extensive experience collaborating with both first‑party studios and development partners, including work on governance and guardrail models that help teams move quickly while maintaining trust, consistency, and privacy in their data. Her background spans quality engineering, data engineering, analytics, and solution architecture, allowing her to bridge gaps between disciplines and translate technical concepts into practical guidance.

She regularly presents and facilitates discussions on telemetry, data quality, and analytics readiness, with a focus on sharing actionable lessons learned from real production environments. Chelsi is passionate about enabling teams to move from “having data” to having data they can confidently rely on to support quality, engineering decisions, and player‑focused outcomes.

Co Owner and Principal QA Engineer

Chris Watkins

he/him

Punch Up Games

I’ve been in Games QA since 2002. I’ve worked in big and small companies/teams, been through successes and layoffs and studio closures. I learned Python 13 years ago and it changed everything. I’ve been able to build or design test tools that automate Photosensitivity testing, a system for determining the best tests to run based on recent check-ins, and an elegant tool to automate manual actions in literally any game using computer vision and simplified Python scripts.

Now I’ve co-founded Punch Up Games with 5 other member-owners. We are a game development Cooperative which means no executive decides for us what games we’ll make, what deals we will sign, or steal all the profits from success. We aim to make small, fun games and use profit to support people who want to learn the craft of game development and to seed more development cooperatives.

Release Manager

David Jenkins

he/him

Aonic Games/Megabit Publishing

David has over ten years experience in leadership and management roles within Game Quality, having worked at Xbox Certification, SEGA, Curve Games, Roll7, Megabit Publishing/Aonic and as a consultant. With particular expertise in 1st Party Certification and a passion for UX design and Accessibility, David has also been a mentor, ambassador, subject matter expert, course leader and vocal advocate for Game Quality as a profession. David uses his weekly podcast series, QAuDHD, to discuss a wide range of topics and events affecting our discipline and also covers his lived experiences with autism and ADHD. David’s other interests include singing, TTRPGs, Warhammer, comic books, anime and nerd culture in general. He’s a former professional Martial Arts Instructor and Kickboxing Coach, and is currently trying to teach his newborn how to crawl.

Director, QA

Derek Rakos

Riot Games

Drakos (Derek Rakos) is a QA Director at Riot Games, where he leads quality strategy for major initiatives shaping the future of League of Legends. He oversees Quality efforts across several core development groups, helping guide quality practices for the next evolution of the game. His work focuses on building scalable QA strategy, integrating testing into development pipelines, and enabling teams to manage risk effectively across both live service and R&D environments.

Over the course of his 19-year career in Games, Drakos has worked across multiple disciplines within game development, building expertise in test strategy, organizational quality leadership, vendor partnerships, and cross-team collaboration. He is particularly interested in how QA can evolve alongside modern development practices, including the integration of AI-assisted workflows, risk-based testing strategies, and data-informed decision making. Within Riot, he regularly collaborates with engineering, production, design, and insights teams to ensure quality is considered early and intentionally throughout development, positioning QA as a strategic partner rather than a reactive service.

Before entering the games industry, Drakos was a professional pianist and composer, performing and writing music at a high level. That background continues to influence his work today, shaping a systems-oriented mindset that values structure, pattern recognition, and creative problem solving.

Outside of his professional work, he is also an avid reef aquarist and coral propagation hobbyist, applying the same analytical approach to building and maintaining thriving marine ecosystems.

Accessibility Product Manager

Dusty Levenberg

she/her

Riot Games

Dusty Levenberg is an Accessibility Product Manager at Riot Games, specializing in embedding inclusive design across complex digital ecosystems. With a background in compliance spanning startups, enterprise organizations, and government, Dusty brings a systems-level perspective to accessibility that bridges regulatory requirements with player experience.

She advocates for accessibility as both a design discipline and a business imperative, drawing on cross-functional experience to influence product development at scale. Her work focuses on creating well-designed, inclusive spaces while empowering others across disciplines and creative roles to meaningfully integrate accessibility into their processes and outputs.

Senior Quality Designer

Eric Padilla

he/him/his

Respawn Entertainment (Electronic Arts)

Eric Padilla is a Senior Quality Designer supporting Respawn Entertainment within Electronic Arts. With over 20 years experience in the gaming industry, Eric has worked on 20+ titles in various QA roles – from Functional Tester, to Compliance Lead and now Quality Design (QD). Eric is part of the Senior Leadership team within Apex Legends Quality Verification, creating standards & leading goals that establish the tone and pace for a future-state team.

As a senior leader within the QD job family, he also recognizes the importance of knowledge sharing across projects and making meaningful connections with others you might not get to on a daily basis. Eric runs several initiatives that are inclusive of all QDs within Electronic Arts – encouraging sharing, learning & collaboration – all for the betterment of the QD community.

QA Engineer

Erika Lytle

she/her

Riot Games

Erika is a former professional Valorant in-game-leader who now works on the Game Analysis Team for Valorant at Riot. During her time in Esports, Erika played for three years on the team “Shopify Rebellion,” and most noticeably placed 2nd at the 2022 Game Changers World Championship. In her current role, Erika designs and strategizes playtests with her team for Esports level Valorant gameplay. She is truly passionate about competition, and strives to make the experience better for players.

Outside of games, Erika enjoys theatre and movies, travelling, and most importantly of all – penguins.

Senior Quality Lead

Hakim Ronaque

he/him

Xbox Game Studios

Hakim is a Senior Quality Lead in the Xbox Studios Quality Publishing organization at Microsoft, coming up to 18 years with the company. He is currently the Quality Lead for the Forza Horizon 6 PlayStation 5 port. Originally from Mumbai, India, Hakim now calls Seattle home, drawn by his love of the outdoors. Outside of work, he enjoys traveling, experiencing new cultures, and is a passionate Formula 1 fan.

Senior Test Automation Specialist

Jérémie Dakin-Perron

he/him

Behaviour Interactive

Jérémie Dakin-Perron is a Senior Test Automation Specialist on Dead by Daylight. He’s been on the project for more than three years and helped create the functional test branch of the project. His previous experiences as third party QA and LQA helped him see where automation could be leveraged to help lift production to the next level. Jérémie is passionate about video games in all their aspects, from art to programming and even sound design. He switched from the music industry to the video game in industry in 2020 and is now eager to see where this new endeavor will lead him. Automation is one of the many steps on his way and he’ll be happy to talk to you about any topic (as long as you have an hour or two).

WWQC Operations Director

Mathieu Turle

Ubisoft

Mathieu Turle is a seasoned operations and quality leader with a strong background in software engineering, program management, and large‑scale delivery within complex, international environments. Currently serving as Director of Operations – Worldwide Quality Control at Ubisoft, Mathieu leads global initiatives focused on improving efficiency, standardizing processes, and strengthening collaboration across distributed teams.

Over the years, Mathieu has held a variety of leadership roles spanning quality control, program management, and IT transformation. His experience includes overseeing multi‑year strategic programs, managing cross‑studio portfolios, and supporting teams through organizational and process change. With a solid foundation in both technical and managerial disciplines, he brings a pragmatic, results‑driven approach to large‑scale operations.

Mathieu’s career began in software engineering, which continues to shape his practical mindset and his ability to bridge the gap between technical teams and business stakeholders. He is particularly interested in governance, risk management, continuous improvement, and building frameworks that enable teams to deliver better outcomes at scale.

At Qualicon, Mathieu brings real‑world experience from leading global quality and operations initiatives, along with a collaborative and down‑to‑earth perspective on what it takes to make quality work in fast‑moving organizations.

Senior Quality Lead

Michael Leslie

Xbox Game Studios

Michael is an Industry Veteran with over 20 years’ experience in gaming, working in a vast variety of roles (18 years at Nintendo and 6+ at MS): Tester, Coordinator, Lead, Production, Management. His work has spanned multiple disciplines around Testing, Project Management, Performance, Demos, Legal, Guidelines, as well as Hardware Releases. In addition to gaming, he spent several years working at Boeing, managing their IT department for Mobile devices and then traditional PC services before realizing that he missed being in Games (so returned).

Senior QA Analyst

Michael S. Debus

QA/UX Copenhagen

From board games, over indie titles and browser games, to AAA, Mike has worked in QA roles of small and large scale. His portfolio includes titles such as Posthuman, Broken Lines, Ember Sword, and the upcoming Exoborne. Currently working as a Software Testing Freelancer, his diverse background spans from a PhD in Game Ontology, over games user research, to many years in video games QA.

QA Producer

Miruna Bercaru

Funcom Games Bucharest

I’m a QA Producer at Funcom with a background in team leadership, production, and solving the kind of messy problems that tend to land in someone else’s inbox first. I’m passionate about building strong teams, improving processes, and turning chaos into something at least vaguely organized. My experience spans everything from data-heavy operational work to people management, which has given me a practical approach to leadership, collaboration, and getting things done without setting too much on fire.

Senior Development QA

Nazim Zahaf

he/him

Behaviour Interactive

Nazim Zahaf is a senior development QA with over 7 years of experience in the industry, having worked with renowned clients such as Google, Take-Two, EA and CP Rail. His focus is on test-planning, risk management and feature implementations at all stage of the production. He is also capable of documenting new processes and hardware as well as train teams on their usage.

Their previous experiences exposed them to various roles in the profession, particularly with certification and compatibility testing for Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and Apple products and platforms.

Group Technical Director

Neilson Mackay

Electronic Arts

Senior Programming Technical Director

Rémi Veilleux

he/him

Behaviour Interactive

Rémi Veilleux is a Technical Director at Behaviour Interactive, playing a crucial role in enhancing efficiency and helping the Dead by Daylight project evolve over the years. With over two decades in game development, Remi started programming in BASIC on the Apple ][ and has worked on various games such as Syberia, Golden Eye: Rogue Agent and Medal of Honor. In his spare time, he codes old-school Amiga games and loves (almost) everything with a keyboard.

Director - Quality Control

Ritu Chowdhary

she/her

Ubisoft – Pune

Ritu Chowdhary is an engineering leader with over two decades of experience building and leading testing organizations in complex technology environments. She currently leads Quality and test automation at Ubisoft India, working with globally distributed teams to deliver high-quality player experiences.

Ritu is passionate about developing strong leaders and helping teams move beyond execution to influence product decisions. She is deeply curious about emerging technologies, including AI and agent-based systems, and how they can elevate the QA and QC workforce.

Quality Engineer

Ryan Johnson

Xbox Game Studios

Solutions Architect

Tim Marshall

Xbox Game Studios

Tim Marshall has spent over 14 years at Microsoft, Xbox Game Studios, Studios Quality shaping how quality teams think about data. Since joining in 2011, he has shipped credits on titles including Kinectimals, Kinect Disneyland Adventures, Nike+ Kinect Training, Project Spark, Forza Motorsport 6, and Forza Motorsport 7. He holds a Master of Science in Business Analytics from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Science in Game Design and Development from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Tim’s work sits at the intersection of quality engineering and data science. He has trained computer vision models to detect bugs in video games, built deep performance analytics dashboards, and worked across the ever-evolving modern data stack. His 2022 Qualicon talk, “Five Dimensions of Data Quality,” explored how to measure and improve the data that quality organizations depend on. Today he is obsessed with model-first development, agentic workflows, and evolving the way he works with data for the age of AI.

Outside work, Tim is a competitive triathlete training for the 2026 Lake Placid Ironman. He is the proud father of Roz, who just turned six—and if close friends are to be believed, there may be a ring-sized announcement in his near future.

Senior Software Engineer II - Quality

Will Burton

he/him

Blizzard Entertainment

Will Burton is a Quality Senior Software Engineer II at Blizzard. He is passionate about software architecture. With over 10 years of experience in the industry.