Games research in general:
The Digital Games Research Association.
Game Studies. (an online journal covering games research).
Ludology.org (Gonzalo Frasca's brilliant resource page).
The above pages should get you started.Researchers I have met or had some contact with (and can find pages for):
Frans Mäyrä Professor, Hypermedia Laboratory, University of Tampere and President of DiGRA.
Aki Järvinen Who's working for the Finnish National Lottery (I think) while he's doing his PhD (not sure where, I'll have to ask him again).
Jon Sykes. Lecturer, The School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences , Glasgow Caledonian University.
Christina Carini PhD Student, Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts, Middlesex University. Chrissy is in a complementary department to my own (The Lansdown and the IDC share some common interests), doing work with a similar aim. I don't get to talk to her as often as I'd like.