Sport Management Professor Lindsey Darvin a Finalist for National Esports Award

As a former athlete who played basketball and lacrosse in college, Lindsey Darvin became fully aware that too frequently, all is not equal when it comes to men’s and women’s organized sports. And when it came to esports and computer gaming, Darvin discovered the levels of equity were even worse.

So Darvin, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Sport Management in the Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, has dedicated her research and teaching career to creating greater equity in esports and gaming.

Darvin has emerged as a national leader in this area, and she was recently named a finalist for the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) Scholar of the Year Award. The winner will be announced at the NACE National Convention July 17-19 in Winter Park, Florida.

“It’s such an honor to be nominated for this award,” Darvin says. “I was thrilled to learn I was a finalist and excited to know that the work I have been doing to drive greater equity in the gaming and esports spaces has been recognized by scholars and practitioners across the industry.”

Nationally, Darvin is making an impact as associate editor of the Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports (JEGE); co-chair of the esports mini-track at the January 2025 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences Conference, where her goal is to advance esports scholarship and promote JEGE and publishing opportunities in the space; and a regular contributor to Forbes Magazine, where she writes columns such as this one about how an all-women’s Fortnite tournament is driving equity in esports.

On the Syracuse campus, Darvin has been awarded Falk College seed grants to examine the culture of gaming for gender minoritized participants, and to study the processes of building community in gaming spaces for minoritized participants.

She also received a Syracuse Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement (SOURCE) award to work with two undergraduate students on a multi-level review of the underrepresentation of women and girls in esports and gaming (the manuscript is currently being developed). Overall, Darvin has received more than $22,000 in grants and awards for esports and gaming research projects.

Starting this fall, the University is introducing an esports communications and management program, offered jointly by the Falk College and Newhouse School of Public Communications. The course that Darvin teaches, Race, Gender and Diversity in Sport Organizations, will be a required course in this new major.

Below, Darvin shares more about her motivation to create greater equity in the esports and gaming space.