Jeri Ellsworth, a Valve employee involved in the company’s hardware R&D efforts has been fired today. The reason behind her termination is currently not clear – Ellsworth herself broke the news in a Twitter tweet.

While the particulars of her role at Valve are unknown for the most part, previous photos of her office space showed a prototype input device. Given her expertise as a self-taught computer chip designer, it’s not a stretch to say that she was likely working on innovative approaches to input for Valve’s Steambox.

Valve showed off prototype designs of the Steambox at CES earlier this year. Details are still very hush-hush however, as the company is in the process of pitching ideas to possible hardware partners. Last we heard, anyway.

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