WEBBuilder Speakers

Kent Alstad
Chief Architect, Strangeloop Networks

Kent Alstad is the Chief Architect at Strangeloop Networks (www.strangeloop.net). With over 20 years of professional development experience Kent has a long track record as the architect and lead developer of successful production solutions for companies like: the Port of Vancouver, ADP, Lucent, Microsoft, NCS, and The Active Network. He is now focused on the scaling and acceleration of the ASP.NET framework. Based on the real world experience of deploying complex business solutions Kent understands the problems related to the performance and scaling ASP.NET applications from a whole product perspective. He has been speaking on Microsoft topics for over 10 years with a style that combines raw enthusiasm with practical insight.

Robert Boedigheimer
Schwan Food Company

Robert Boedigheimer works for The Schwan Food Company providing business solutions with web technologies. Robert has been designing and developing web sites for the past 10 years including the early days of ASP and ASP.NET. He was the lead architect, designer, and developer for the schwans.com rewrite with ASP.NET, and is currently implementing a large ASP.NET 2.0 project. He is a columnist for aspalliance.com, an "Early Achiever" MCSD for .NET with C#, and a 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Robert has spoken at several industry conferences including the Heartland Developers Conference, Microsoft's Visual DevCon 2005, and several VSLive! events.

DL Byron
Principal, Textura Design

Byron is the Principal of Textura Design, Inc. He first stole Zeldman's code in 1997, then lived dotcoms, dotcom crashes, Clip-n-Seal, and now he is evangelizing Standards-based design, writing a New Riders book about blogging, and speaking at conferences. With more than eleven years of experience, Byron is an expert blogger, web designer and developer. An entrepreneur and an inventor, he also consults with clients, co-founded the Blog Business Summit, and publishes a network of successful blogs, including one of the first business blogs.

Richard Campbell
Product Evangelist, Strangeloop Networks

Richard Campbell has been working with computers since 1977 and is the president of Campbell & Associates, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He is a consultant to a number of companies in North America, focusing on building high-performance, large-scaling web sites utilizing Microsoft technology. Richard is also the co-host of .NET Rocks!, the internet audio talk show for .NET developers. In addition to consulting and writing, Richard speaks at conferences around the world.

William Cava
Chief Technology Officer, Ektron Inc.

As chief technology officer, Bill Cava is responsible for guiding Ektron's technology direction, including product strategy, new product development and engineering practices. With more than a decade of experience, Cava brings his passion for Internet technology, software architecture, and user-centric interface design to Ektron. Prior to joining Ektron, Bill served as a team leader and software architect at Lycos, one of the Internet's first search engines. There he led numerous high-profile projects, including a large-scale distributed advertising content management system still used across well-known sites such as Lycos and Wired. As an undergraduate at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Bill pursued degrees in computer science, Italian literature, and fine art, and is currently finishing a Master of Science degree in computer science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Bryan Cole
Load Testing Subject Matter Expert, Compuware

Bryan Cole is a load testing subject matter expert with Compuware Corporation. Bryan has a degree in computer science from the University of Waterloo

Mike Culver
Web Services Evangelist, Amazon Web Services

Mike Culver has more than a year experience as Web Services Evangelist at Amazon. Before joining Amazon, Mike spent seven plus years in Technical Evangelism at Microsoft helped launch .NET.  Mike also founded Extencia.com, a startup in the early days of eCommerce that developed eCommerce sites for other companies.

Jnan Dash
Chief Strategy Officer, Curl, Inc.

He spent 10 years at Oracle Corporation and was the Group Vice President, Systems Architecture and Technology. Prior to joining Oracle in 1992, he spent 16 years at IBM in various positions including development of the DB2 family of products and in charge of IBM's database architecture and technology. Mr. Dash is a frequent speaker at industry forums around the world on the future of software technology. He serves on several boards and advisory boards. He is also the Chief Strategy Officer at Curl Inc., a Cambridge, MA company.

Scott Dietzen
President and Chief Technology Officer, Zimbra, Inc.

Scott Dietzen is widely credited with helping put together the J2EE standard, launching the Web application server category, and launching the Java Community Process (JCP). Prior to Zimbra, Scott was CTO of BEA Systems, where he was the principal architect of the technology strategy for the WebLogic product family.

James Farley
Technical Specialist, Compuware

James Farley is a technical specialist in quality technologies for Compuware Corporation. James has a B.S. in physics and an M.S. in computer science.

Jon Ferraiolo
Web Architect, IBM

Since May 2006, I have been working at IBM where I devote 100% of my time on OpenAjax Alliance. At OpenAjax Alliance, I manage operations and lead many committee activities. Before IBM, I worked at Adobe Systems, where I held many senior positions, including architect, product manager, and engineering director at Adobe Systems, spanning much of Adobe's product line.

Brian Fling
Director of Strategy, Blue Flavor

Brian has worked in the web for over 10 years. He began his web career producing the first animated series distributed through the Internet. Over the years he has worked in every facet of interactive design and development, managing both enterprise web projects as well as small web teams. It has been this experience and insight that has compelled Brian to focus on providing Blue Flavor clients with developing their interactive and web publishing strategies.

Brian has also been a leader in the field of mobile experience for over five years. He has worked with several Fortune 500 companies to help design and develop their mobile experiences. Brian is a frequent speaker and author on the issues of mobile design, the mobile web and mobile user experience.

He has recently authored the dotMobi Mobile Web Developers Guide, the first free publication to cover mobile web design and development from start to finish. Brian also runs mobiledesign.org one of the largest online communities focused on mobile design.

Evan Gerber
Consultant, Experience Design, Molecular

Since the late '90s, Evan Gerber has created innovated technology solutions for unique business problems. Currently, Evan is heading up the Experience Design department for the San Francisco office of Molecular. Since starting at Molecular in 2004, Evan has worked on a variety of interesting technologies and projects, including development of a mobile application for Sprite, redesign of a global company intranet for Gillette's portal platform, user centric e-commerce design for Adidas, and content management and globalization for Rentokil Initial, PLC. Evan is a frequent speaker and has published on topics including the usability of content management, best practices in internationalization and localization, and how to create a meaningful mobile experience. Before joining molecular, Evan earned his stripes in the trenches of a Content Management startup. Evan graduated with honors in Anthropology from Brandeis University, and also received a DEUG +1 from Universite Paul Valery in Montpellier, France. An avid traveler and award-winning chef, Evan is happiest when there is great food involved.

Roger Gilliam
Director of Development & Special Projects, Closed Loop Marketing

As Director of Development and Special Projects at Closed Loop Marketing, Roger specializes in web site design and coding, web applications development, and search engine optimization.

Roger's early interest in computers, math, and music led him to college courses in engineering, music, art and psychology, culminating in a Bachelor's degree in graphic design from Portland State University. Over the past nine years he has worked as a graphic designer and web developer in the Portland and Los Angeles areas, joining Closed Loop Marketing in 2007.

Roger currently resides in Portland, Oregon with his wife and son. When he's not in front of his battalion of computer monitors, he enjoys camping, the Portland city life, and teaching his son how to imitate exotic jungle animals.

Ted Goddard
Senior Software Architect, ICEsoft Technologies

PhD Mathematics, experienced teacher and lecturer (WebBuilder, Ajax Experience, JavaOne).

Amy Greer
Director of Search and New Media, Closed Loop Marketing

As Director of Search and New Media at Closed Loop Marketing, Amy helps clients like Hewlett-Packard increase their search engine visibility by applying her passion for online marketing and project management to traditional SEO strategies and new media tactics like blog and RSS optimization.

Originally headed for a professorship, Amy spent the early part of her career immersed in academic research, teaching and writing in the fields of anthropology, ethnography and communication. After receiving her Master's degree, however, she was introduced to the field of online marketing. The rest, as they say, is history.

Now, more than 4 years later, Amy continues to be fascinated with the application of traditional ethnographic and communication principles to the social aspects of the internet. She incorporates academic rigor into every project, producing high-performing results and clear, actionable client deliverables. 

Born in Virginia and raised in Michigan, Amy heeded the call of the West in 2006 and moved to Northern California where she spends her free time wine tasting, running, doing yoga and exploring her new home.

Kevin Hakman
Director, Developer Evangelism, TIBCO General Interface

Kevin Hakman is the director of developer evangelism for TIBCO General Interface, the award-winning Ajax and Rich Internet Application framework and toolkit. He co-founded General Interface in 2001, pioneering Ajax in the enterprise. TIBCO acquired General Interface in 2004 to extend its vision for service oriented applications to the end user. Kevin is a contributor to the Web Services Journal and the AJAX Developers Journal and has spoken at numerous industry events including AJAXWorld Conference & Expo, the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, SOA Enterprise Open Source Conference, the Ajax Experience and last year’s Web Builder 2.0.

Jeffrey Hammond
Senior Analyst, Forrester

Jeffrey primarily contributes to Forrester's offerings for the Application Development and Program Management professional. Jeffrey is a leading expert on software modeling techniques, integrated development environments and the emergence of new rich Internet application development practices and tools.

Jeffrey joined Forrester from IBM, where he was part of the Rational brand strategy and planning team and was responsible for launching the IBM Rational Software Development Platform. Prior to IBM's acquisition of Rational, Jeffrey led teams that created award-winning application development tools, including Rational Rose/J Edition, Rose/CORBA, and Rose/PowerBuilder. Jeffrey's extended tenure at Rational included a wide variety of software industry roles, including product management, product marketing, business development, strategy and planning, and project management. Jeffrey has worked in the IT industry since 1989 and has experience with a variety of application development technologies that include modeling, SCM, requirements management, 4GL, and 3GL tools and languages.

Billy Hollis
Author/Consultant, Next Version Systems

Billy Hollis is an author and software developer from Nashville, Tennessee. Billy is co-author of the first book ever published on Visual Basic .NET, VB .NET Programming on the Public Beta. He has written many articles, and is a frequent speaker at conferences. He is the Regional Director of Developer Relations in Nashville for Microsoft, and runs a consulting company focusing
on Microsoft .NET.

Randolph Kahle
Senior Architect, 1060 Research, Ltd.

Randolph Kahle, Senior Architect, 1060 Research, Ltd.
Randolph Kahle is a senior architect at 1060 Research Ltd. Randolph is a highly experienced software industry executive with years of experience at both Hewlett Packard and Microsoft Corporation. As a senior manager with Microsoft he was instrumental in the launch of Visual Basic, SQLServer, Microsoft Access, and Microsoft's developer-focused programs such as the Microsoft Developer Network. Randolph holds a BA in math science and electrical engineering from Rice University and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College.

Kayden Kelly
President & Managing Director, Blast Advanced Media

Kayden has led the development of a number of trademarked web-based software products that Blast licenses and leases, including DocDrive (document mgmt & file sharing for large organizations), SiteDrive (Content Management), EventDrive (Conference and Event Management Solution), AssociationDrive (Complete Association Management Solution), and CommerceDrive (Ecommerce Solution).  

Kayden is an expert in business process analysis, web authentication techniques, web session management, web communications protocols, information architecture, legacy integration, user experience, usability analysis, ColdFusion, ASP, Oracle, Dbase, MS SQL Server, MS Access, Macromedia Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects, Sorenson Squeeze, Swift 3D, Helix Universal, RealOne Server, Windows Media Server, Apple Darwin and QuickTime Streaming Server, Windows 2000/2003 Server/IIS, Tomcat, Apache, RealAudio, RealVideo, QuickTime QTVR, SoundForge, Macromedia Fireworks, Macromedia Dreamweaver, ActionScript, JavaScript, ASP, .NET, C#, PHP, Java, XML, RSS, DHTML, CSS, CGI/Perl, MySQL, HTML, SHTML and all Microsoft Office applications.

Adam Kinney
Technical Evangelist for Microsoft

Adam Kinney is a Technical Evangelist for Microsoft covering client user interface technologies such as Silverlight and WPF. He entered the industry in 1999 as web designer who found that better design could come from understanding and writing better code. Adam has since then spent his time designing and developing web and client applications using a variety of technologies. This time spent has lead him to now focusing on the developer and designer workflow enabled by new technologies including Expression Studio, WPF and Silverlight.

Alan K'Necht
President, K'nechtology Inc.

Alan K'necht is president of K'nechtology Inc., one of Toronto's Leading SEO, SEM and Web analytics consulting firms servicing organizations from Canada's Fortune 500 to small entrepreneurial businesses. K'necht is an internationally published columnist and has spoken at conferences throughout North America and Australia including past Fawcette conferences. He has been working in the Web development field for over 12 years.

Nate Koechley
Senior Engineer & Designer, Yahoo!

One of the first web developers at Yahoo!, Nate Koechley has been instrumental in creating and defining the practice of Web development and front-end engineering. Through evolving roles as developer, manager, and evangelist on both the development and user experience and design sides of the company, Nate has championed modern standards-based Web development, a commitment to accessibility, code and pattern library creation, and open-source and blogging initiatives. Through it all, Nate focuses on the intersection and coordination of design and development, helping teams understand "why" in addition to "how". Nate speaks worldwide about the intersections of Design and Technology, and blogs occasionally at http://nate.koechley.com/blog/.

Riccardo La Rosa
Director of Emerging Interactions, Molecular

Riccardo La Rosa is Director of Emerging Interactions at Molecular, and has over a decade of experience in architecting, designing and building innovative solutions on the web. His roots are in software engineering and when he is not involved in one of his social networks or digital worlds, he does real work for clients like Reebok, Adidas, Bank Of America, Fidelity, Staples, McGraw-Hill, and Adobe. Prior to leading the Emerging Interactions practice, Riccardo was a Principal Consultant, technical architect at Molecular where he focused his technology expertise on business analysis, requirements gathering, and solutions architecture. Over the years, Riccardo has developed a deep knowledge in the financial, retail and manufacturing industries.

Riccardo leads presentations and seminars on all aspects of Web 2.0 including User-Generated Content and Rich Internet Experiences at events including AJAXWorld Conference and Expo, Babson College Executive Education, eFusion 2006, and the Enterprise Architect Summit. Before joining Molecular, Riccardo worked as a consultant for companies including, Massachusetts General Hospital and Malden Mills. He holds a Master of Science Degree in Electronic Engineering from Università di Padova, Italy. During that time he wrote his thesis on "High Power Factor Electronic Ballasts" at Brown University.

Lance Loveday
Founder and CEO, Closed Loop Marketing

As founder and CEO of Closed Loop Marketing (CLM), Lance's primary goal is helping organizations rethink and revitalize their approach to online marketing. CLM provides results-focused consulting on the entire 'closed loop' of an effective online marketing campaign, from initial strategy development to execution to ROI analysis, and has earned high praise from Hewlett-Packard, Quicken Loans, SalesForce.com, and many others for engineering results for them.

Lance has never been one to take the typical path. In a search of the perfect career, he explored the fields of law, economics, politics and endurance sports before diving into the Internet space. Over the next half-decade, he held Internet marketing positions of increasing responsibility and risk, eventually joining a dotcom company. When said dotcom did the predictable thing and crashed, Lance then decided enough was enough—it was time to do the online marketing thing right. So he founded his own company.
With a knack (and a passion) for making online marketing exciting and engaging for novice and expert alike, Lance is a frequent speaker at industry and business conferences across the U.S.

Lance, his wife Courtney, and their three children reside in northern California. And while he considers himself a cyclist, and shares a first name with Lance Armstrong, he has only been mistaken for the cycling champion once. But it wasn't on a bike.

Mark Lucovsky
Technical Director Engineering, Google, Inc.

Mark Lucovsky is technical director of engineering at Mountain View, California-based Google Inc. Mark has held this position at Google since November 2004. Before joining Google, Mark was a distinguished engineer at Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corporation. While at Microsoft, Mark was a founding member and principal architect of the 32-bit Windows team, where he designed and coded major portions of the Windows operating system. Prior to Microsoft, Mark designed and coded operating system internals for a variety of UNIX and proprietary operating system-based minicomputers, minisupercomputers, mainframes, PCs and workstations.

Stephen Maryka
CTO, ICEsoft Technologies

Stephen Maryka, Chief Technical Officer at ICEsoft Technologies Inc., leads the development of all Ajax-based technologies at ICEsoft. He is responsible for ICEfaces product development, and all Ajax-related R&D. Prior to joining ICEsoft in 2004, Stephen was co-founder of AudeSi Technologies where he served as VP Technology and led Java product development for Internet appliances. After Wind River's acquisition of AudeSi, Stephen served as a Principal Technologist for Wind River, working on embedded Java, device management, and high availability technologies. Stephen has been involved with Java technologies since 1997 when he engaged with Nortel Networks as the chief software architect for the world's first commercial embedded Java telephone. Stephen earned his BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Victoria in 1984.

Joanne McLernon
Consultant, Molecular

Joanne is a ten-year veteran in usability and experience design whose clients have included Intuit, BrownCo (now eTrade), TripAdvisor and adidas.

Currently, she sets up usability testing programs, leads user research planning, and is moving into advanced product-experience testing. Her forte is improving experimental design in usability studies. She would like to erase the word "usability" from the language and make user-centered design synonymous with good business design.

Steve Mulder
Principal Consultant, User Experience, Molecular

Steve Mulder is author of The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web, and a regular speaker at web conferences. With over ten years of experience in user research, information architecture, interaction design, and usability, Steve practices what he preaches by delivering successful user experiences that drive business results. He has brought his expertise to a wide range of companies, including Morgan Stanley, PC Connection, 3M, CVS, Estee Lauder, Talbots, Wired, Terra Lycos, and ZDNet.

Garrett Murray
Senior Developer, Blue Flavor

Garrett has been designing and developing for the web for nine years. He has a broad client list that includes the United Nations Development Programme, Pfizer and Columbia University. Throughout his career, he has placed an emphasis on building efficient and elegant web applications with a focus on user experience.
A technology addict, Garrett started learning Perl at the tender age of 16. Shortly after, it was Javascript, PHP, then ASP, ColdFusion and everything in between.

Recently, Garrett has been focusing on developing with Ruby on Rails.
In 2003, Garrett wrote and released xPad, an OS X application praised for its ease of use. Recently, he released SimpleLog, a Ruby on Rails weblogging application, which helps users focus on writing through an efficiently designed interface that eliminates clutter.

Garrett studied film in college and, in addition to web development, he continues to write and direct short films. He also hosts a bi-weekly comedic podcast and occasionally performs improvisational comedy in NYC.

David Nelson
Senior Experience Designer, Adobe Systems

David is responsible for developing the user experience and interface for Flash. With nearly a decade of experience in the interactive field, David has an extensive list of fortune 500 clients which include Ford, Cadillac, Scion, General Motors, Leapfrog, Microsoft, Trek Bikes, XM Radio and Wrigley. His work has earned numerous honors from professional organizations and publications including AAF, Communication Arts, and Flash Forwards Flash Film Festival. David holds a BFA in Communication Design from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, with an emphasis in print and interactive media. He has since continued an academic presence by holding adjunct faculty positions at his alma mater as well as the California College of the Arts and has lectured at Chicago's School of the Art Institute.

Sandra Niehaus
VP, User Experience & Creative Director, Closed Loop Marketing

Sandra is highly sought after as a Web design consultant and usability analyst, and is also a conversion enhancement and search engine optimization professional. She has a singular ability to link and balance business goals with design and Internet technology requirements, and has contributed her expertise to projects for a wide range of companies, including Hewlett-Packard, WebEx, Salesforce.com, and Verisign.

Sandra's engineer and musician parents fostered her early fascination with technology and the arts. After discovering computer programming in high school, she balanced college courses in computer science and electronics with orchestra, music theory, and composition.

Sandra's music studies took her to France, Hungary, and the prestigious San Francisco Conservatory of Music, resulting in a Master's degree in music composition. She complemented these studies with graduate courses in business law, IT management, and, as the Internet emerged into public awareness, multiple web development languages.

She joined forces with Lance Loveday at Closed Loop Marketing in 2004 after nearly a decade as an independent web consultant. She resides in Northern California, where she surfs, writes, practices mixed martial arts, and thinks about stuff.

Michael Ninness
Senior Product Manager, InDesign, Adobe Systems

Michael Ninness has over ten years experience as a product manager and user interface designer of software products for creative professionals. Past positions include LiveMotion Group Product Manager and Senior User Interaction Designer for the Creative Suite at Adobe, and Program Manager for Expression Blend at Microsoft. Michael is a frequent and top-rated presenter at numerous industry events including Photoshop World, PhotoPlus Expo, PMA, Macworld, FlashForward, Flash on the Beach, Web Design World, the HOW Design Conference and Pacific New Media at the University of Hawaii. He is the author of the Photoshop CS2 Essential Training, Photoshop Power Shortcuts and Photoshop CS2 and Flash 8 Integration video training titles published by Lynda.com.

Jamie O'Donnell
Co-Founder, SEO-PR

Jamie O'Donnell is a co-founder of SEO-PR, a public relations and search-engine optimization firm with expertise in developing and implementing measurable PR that focuses on visibility in leading search engines. SEO holds a leadership position in helping clients increase brand awareness, drive traffic to websites, generate leads, and sell products directly online through optimized news releases, marketing blogs, RSS feeds, email newsletters, and other web content.

Before co-founding SEO-PR, Jamie was President and co-founder of IDM Partners, an online direct marketing agency. Prior to that, he was President and co-founder of the JONA Group, a San Francisco PR firm that worked with leading VC firms to launch over 50 Internet start-up companies. Before that, Jamie was the Vice President of the Enterprise Software practice at Hi-Tech Communications, a Shandwick agency. Prior to that, he was Corporate Communications Manager at Lotus Development Corp. Jamie has more than 20 years of public relations experience pitching mainstream media, trade press and online publications.

Joshua Porter
Director of Web Development, User Interface Engineering

Joshua Porter is currently the Director of Web Development at User Interface Engineering, a behavioral research company based in North Andover, Massachusetts. They conduct world-class research on how people actually use web sites and products.

Christine Perfetti
Managing Director, User Interface Engineering

Christine is responsible for managing User Interface Engineering's  business strategy initiatives. As one of the most requested instructors at User Interface Engineering, Christine  has worked with dozens of companies on their toughest web design problems. With her extensive knowledge of  human factors and usability testing practices, Christine has been a top-rated presenter at the User  Interface Conference, CHI 2001-2005, the Usability Professionals' Association Conference, and STC regional  events. She has also taught Human Factors at the Tufts University Gordon Institute for Engineering Management.

Christine previously worked at Fidelity Investments, where she was an influential member of their highly-talented instructional design team. She received her Master’s  degree in Social/Experimental Psychology from Brown University and her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester.

Avi Rappoport
Principal Consultant, Search Tools Consulting

Avi Rappoport is a leading authority on enterprise search engines for Web sites, intranets, and topical portals. She combines research in information retrieval with years in the software industry to bring a practical and straightforward approach to Web search and navigation issues. She evaluates search engines for features, functionality and usability, with an emphasis on find the best way to meet end-user needs.
Avi has been analyzing enterprise search engines and providing search consulting since 1998. She consults in every stage of search engine analysis, from problem-definition through product choice, implementation, usability testing, to long-term maintenance and log analysis. In addition to consulting, she is active in information architecture, usability and information retrieval organizations, and advises students from the Berkeley School of Information Management and Studies.

Paulo Rosado
CEO, OutSystems

Paulo Rosado is a founder of OutSystems and has been its CEO since 2001. Before OutSystems, Mr. Rosado was Executive VP of Global Marketing at Altitude Software, a CRM company present in 32 countries. Before joining Altitude, Mr. Rosado co-founded Intervento, an e-business software infrastructure company, acting as its CEO until the company was successfully sold in 1999. Previously Mr. Rosado worked in Silicon Valley for Oracle Corp, where he held multiple positions in R&D and Product Management.

Paulo Rosado has participated in multiple Executive Education programs, and holds a Master's in Computer Science from Stanford University and a Computer Engineering degree from Universidade Nova, Lisbon.

Bill Scott
Director of UI Engineering, Netflix

Bill Scott recently joined Netflix, the world's largest online movie rental service, as the Director of UI Engineering.

Previously, Bill led engineering for Yahoo! Teachers, a web 2.0 community allowing teachers to gather, organize & share web resources and lesson planning. In addition, as an Ajax Evangelist at Yahoo! he focused on spreading the goodness of "rich and sane" Ajax design & development. Bill is a frequent speaker at conferences and workshops discussing the nuances of good design and the challenges of great engineering. At Yahoo! Bill was also the Design Pattern curator where he launched the public Yahoo! Design Pattern Library.

Before Yahoo! Bill led User Experience at Sabre Airline Solutions and co-founded Rico (an open source Ajax framework, openrico.org.) For 20 years Bill has bounced back and forth between design and engineering projects, creating products in areas as diverse as video games, widget libraries, war gaming, IDE tools, airline management and Web consumer sites. His musings can be found at http://looksgoodworkswell.com.

Paul Sheriff
President, PDSA, Inc.

Paul D. Sheriff is the president of PDSA Inc., a Microsoft partner in Southern California. Paul acts as the Microsoft Regional Director for Southern California assisting the local Microsoft offices with Developer Days and several of their large events each year. Paul has authored five books on .NET and two on SharePoint in the form of eBooks that can be purchased at the PDSA Web site at www.pdsa.com/ebooks.

Jared Spool
Founding Partner, User Interface Engineering

If you've ever seen Jared speak about usability, you know that he's one of the most effective, knowledgeable communicators on the subject today. What you probably don't know is that he has guided the research agenda and built User Interface Engineering into the largest research organization of its kind in the world. He's been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term "usability" was ever associated with computers.
Jared spends his time working with the research teams at the company, helps clients understand how to solve their design problems, explains to reporters and industry analysts what the current state of design is all about, and is a top-rated speaker at more than 20 conferences every year. He is also the conference chair and keynote speaker at the annual User Interface Conference, is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute, and manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time.

Peter Varhol
Executive Editor, Redmond magazine

Peter Varhol is Executive Editor at Redmond magazine, and a frequent writer and speaker on developer topics. He has graduate degrees in computer science and applied mathematics, and has been a software developer, college professor, and software evangelist and product manager.

David Verba
Director of Technology, Adaptive Path

David Verba is Director of Technology for Adaptive Path, a leading user experience company. His many years of technical leadership and architecture experience cover a broad range of projects and strategies. David brings 15 years of development experience with both open source and more traditional technologies to Adaptive Path. In addition to the typical mix, including Sun, Java, and Oracle, he has many years of involvement with a variety of open source approaches including linux, perl, apache, mysql, postgres and now ruby and ruby on rails.

He launched the WholePeople.com initiative as part of Whole Foods Inc and was a core developer for CodeZoo.com, an O'Reilly and Associates web product. He also provided necessary technical leadership to the Measure Map product acquired by Google.

Coach Wei
Chairman and CTO, Nexaweb technologies

Coach Wei is Chairman and CTO of Nexaweb technologies, an Enterprise Web 2.0 software company. Before founding Nexaweb, Coach architected and designed software for managing storage networks at EMC Corporation. As a champion for open source and open standard, Coach is the author of open source word processor AjaxWord, a committer at Apache XAP project and a member of OpenAjax Alliance steering committee, etc. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and has many publications on various technical journals. Coach obtained his master's degree from MIT, holds six patents and maintains “Direct from Web 2.0” blog at http://www.coachwei.com.

Yuval Zukerman
Consultant, Technical Architect, Engineering, Molecular  

Yuval Zukerman brings to Molecular over eight years experience in developing innovative technology solutions. He has a broad knowledge base which not only includes Web engineering but also how to best use today's latest technologies and solutions to best achieve business and marketing goals. Yuval has utilized this unique skill set to provide solutions for world renowned clients including Coca Cola, PC Connection, media giant Belo and Rentokil Initial, which is one of the world's largest business services companies. Currently, Yuval is leveraging his Web 2.0 expertise to help client Sprite develop a next-generation web experience for its US site. While servicing client PC Connection, Yuval worked on incorporating dynamic interaction while accommodating the client's requirement to meet accessibility standards. Also, Yuval took a leading engineering role in helping to create a site redesign for client Belo. On this project he, developed XML/XSLT based system for menu and navigation management, as well as created XHTML and JavaScript templates for usage and repurposing across 22 company sites.

Prior to joining Molecular, Yuval worked at Digitas, working on projects for eBay and General Motors. Prior to Digitas, Yuval worked for a string of small boutique shops, giving him the ability to work on the entire application stack, a unique experience that helps him approach solution architecture in a cross-disciplinary approach. Yuval credits his first job with then budding consultancy Razorfish with the passion to create cool things from seemingly boring technology.

Yuval holds a BS in Computer Sciences from UCLA and is a graduate degree candidate from Harvard University's Extension School, in Information Technology. His technology skill set includes a mastery of Java, PHP, XML, Javascript, and Macromedia Flash, as well as several databases, packages and operating systems. In addition, Yuval has expertise in Web 2.0 technologies including social networks, widgets, and a focus on open source technologies, and applications for mobile devices.