Our Staff

Dr. Chris “Doc” Haskell founded the Esports Program along with Dr. Brett Shelton in 2017 and is the program’s head coach. Dr. Haskell was an Educational Technology professor for Boise State before founding the program. Doc has won multiple awards for his work with Boise State Esports including being named NACE 2020 Program Director of the Year and 2021’s Esports Collegiate Ambassador of the year.

After 10 years working in the League of Legends esports industry, Kelsey Moser directed her interests in building the developmental ecosystem to the collegiate level as a coach. She has experience scouting, building, and coaching professional esports teams on 100 Thieves and Evil Geniuses in the LCS, growing professional broadcasts, and designing programming to help future athletes excel. As a coach at Boise, she will support the program’s competitors as they continue to strive for titles and success in their future careers.

Veronica Roper (she/her/ella) is Project Director for the Esports team and in the College of Innovation and Design, where she has been part of the Dean’s Office team since 2018. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from California State Polytechnic University, and a Graduate Certificate in Conflict Management and a Masters in Public Administration from Boise State University.

He was born and raised in the Treasure Valley, and is a Boise State Alumni. He have a Masters of Business Administration from Missouri State University, where he previously worked as the Director of Esports. He have multiple years working in athletics and esports, and above all else, he and his wife love this great institution. You can find them at football and soccer games this fall, or maybe at an ice cream parlor!

Rae Barnes is one of the longest serving members of the Boise State Esports team and handles many tasks related to media production for the program. These tasks can range from running the control room for the program’s live broadcasts, editing together replay clips to post on social media, to producing graphics and advertisements for Boise State. Any bit of content that is released by Boise State Esports has most likely been created, edited, or overseen by them.

While most athletic programs have a sports information director (SID), Jacob Palmer serves as Boise State’s (and perhaps the nation’s) first ESID. He handles most matters relating to PR for the program. He writes news articles, puts out press releases, and maintains contact with various members of the local media for Boise State Esports. When he isn’t serving as the programs ESID, he can often be found on stage as a host and caster for live esports broadcasts.

Dr. Brett E. Shelton has been studying video games all the way back to 2004(ish). He taught classes at the university level in games and simulations for over 15 years. He has received national grants for building technology-based games that transform the way people learn about complex concepts. He was also an early researcher of AR and VR for education, and has published more than 50 peer reviewed articles.

Payton “Wayton” Wilkin is a highly successful Rocket League content creator and a former Boise State varsity Rocket League player. He regularly posts videos about Rocket League and competitive gaming on his YouTube channel which has over half a million subscribers and regularly pulls in millions of views.

He currently serves as the strategic coach for Boise State’s varsity Rocket League team.