Featured: Graduate Student Research on Identity and Fandom

On February 18, 2026, MA candidate Adrian Lugo was interviewed by Esports.gg about his Master's thesis research on identity and fandom in the live multiplayer video game Overwatch.

"Overwatch is a game that does a really good job of representation and showing off different aspects of identity," Lugo said. "Every one of the characters in the game is a really fully fleshed out character. And they do a lot of research on ethnicity, and nationality, sexuality, gender, and all these other specific identity markers that people see themselves in." 

Read more about Lugo's research and significance of character skins in Overwatch