Jermaine Anthony Richards is a practice-based critical theorist and PhD candidate (ABD) at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School, where he is a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow and a Public Voices Fellow at the OpEd Project.

Richards studies procedural media across historical periods, physical forms, philosophical formats, and theoretical genres, focusing on games. His dissertation exploring social impact games' capacity for redress is supported by  Robeson Taj Frazier, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson,  and Henry Guy Jenkins III.

Jermaine earned his BS in Communications Technology (Digital Systems Engineering) and Studio Art at York College, CUNY, where he studied digital systems architecture and engineering and the application of critical engineering thought to video game construction and deconstruction. He also holds degrees from the London School of Economics (MSc, Global Media) and the University of Southern California (MA, Global Communication and MA, Communication).

Richards began his career as a producer at Wieden+Kennedy, where he led the production of Momo Pixel's Hair Nah, a viral game critiquing racialized bodily invasion. The Tate Modern, V&A, and Smithsonian exhibited it; Vogue and The New York Times featured it; MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Goldsmiths, and Oxbridge regularly teach it for its contributions to cultural movements surrounding civil rights law enactment and policy implementation (i.e., the CROWN Act).

As a digital infrastructure policy analyst and advisor, Richards served as a New America Fellow. He researched digital transformation's impact on ethnic-gender minorities in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar/Burma, and Viet Nam, supported by Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

In his spare time, Richards works on developing his production studio, playing his drums and guitars, recording music, writing fiction, or publishing public thought pieces on digital entertainment.

Read more about Jermaine Anthony’s journey here. Resume, CV, and references are available upon request.