Gamasutra has learned that Claire Smith, a game developer and programmer who served as a software security specialist at BioWare Austin, passed away on Monday at the age of 31.

Smith spent a number of years as a programmer at Austin-based Edge Of Reality working on games like The Sims 3, The Incredible Hulk and Dragon Age: Origins before joining BioWare Austin while Star Wars: The Old Republic was in development.

Once there she settled into a software security specialist role and contributed to the development of The Old Republic and other projects. In her free time she was an avid game enthusiast and operated a Twitch channel where she streamed speedruns, gameplay sessions and game development tutorials.

"I first met her when we needed to add encryption to SW:TOR as a deterrence against reverse engineering, and I remember how fascinated I was when she demonstrated sophisticated hacking techniques to me," friend and former coworker Robin Todd tells Gamasutra. "We became friends after that and supported each other through many life changes."

"She was an incredibly smart person; she was funny; and she was caring."