CHIFOO Past Speakers
2023 Speakers
Jena Nesbitt
After being let go from her first studio design job, Jena Nesbitt took a chance and attended an event that changed her life. She realized what she was missing in her life by getting out of her field and doing something new. Feeling the lack of community and support...
Sanda Erdelez
As an information scientist, Sanda Erdelez has spent more than 30 years researching information encountering (IE), also known as the serendipity of bumping into interesting and useful information. Website:...
Julie DeBari
Julia is currently the Head of Design Operations at Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. She has over two decades of experience in UX working in a wide range of roles and companies. Julia is known for her UX mentorship and career guidance. Her presentation...
Robin E. Way
Robin has over 35 years’ experience in the design, development, execution and improvement of applied analytics models for clients in the banking, insurance, payments, brokerage and energy industries. Mr. Way is on the Faculty of the International Institute of...
2022 Speakers
David Dylan Thomas
David Dylan Thomas, author of Design for Cognitive Bias, creator and host of The Cognitive Bias Podcast, and a twenty-year practitioner of content strategy and UX, has consulted major clients in entertainment, healthcare, publishing, finance, and retail. As the...
Leo Frishberg
Leo Frishberg currently serves as Director, User Experience, at athenahealth and is an active member of the User Experience community both locally and internationally. For over 20 years, he has served on the board of CHIFOO, helping transition the organization’s...
2021 Speakers
Cheryl Platz
Cheryl Platz is the author of Design Beyond Devices: Creating Multimodal, Cross-Device Experiences and a world-renowned designer whose work on emerging technologies has reached millions of customers across multiple industries. Cheryl's professional passions include...
Dylan Wilbanks
About the Speaker Dylan Wilbanks (he/him) is currently Product Design Manager at Syniti, an enterprise cloud company solving the complex data problems of business. His career has included stops at HP Enterprise, Apptio, and the University of Washington. As a leader...
Kate Pincott
About the Speaker Kate is a Remote Design Coach helping to unblock creatives through connecting to their inner wisdom and throwing in there some design operations strategy too! Kate has spent 11 years in the design and tech industry from small start ups to agencies...
Cyd Harrell
About the Speaker Cyd Harrell, Cyd is well known in industry and government for her creative approach to UX research and service design. She believes you can answer any question as long as you are fearless and creative about methods. She was the VP of Research for...
Kevin Hoffman
About the Speaker Kevin Hoffman, Twitter, Linked In Currently serving a four year term of service as part of the United States Digital Service, where he is the head of design operations for the VA.gov and the lead of the Veteran account experience for VA.gov, which...
Bill Buxton
About the Speaker A Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research, Bill has an over 40-year involvement in research, practice and commentary around design, innovation and human aspects of technology. Following a 20-year career as a professional musician, he morphed into...
John Porter & Bryce Johnson
About the Speakers John Porter, Microsoft John Porter is a Senior Designer at Microsoft, a PhD candidate at the University of Washington in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering, and an MIT Technology Review 35 Under 35 recipient....
Rachel Beth Egenhoefer
About the Speaker Rachel Beth Egenhoefer (she/her) is a design educator, sustainability researcher, systems leader, critical maker who uses design as a tool for social change. She is a Professor in Design at the University of San Francisco, where she teaches...
Wendy Johannson
About the Speaker Wendy is Global Vice President, Experience at Publicis Sapient where she forges Experience as the bridge between Strategy and Engineering for Publicis Sapient’s client services. She previously co-founded Wizeline, a global product development...
2020 Speakers
Bill Buxton
About the Speaker A Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research, Bill has an over 40-year involvement in research, practice and commentary around design, innovation and human aspects of technology. Following a 20-year career as a professional musician, he morphed into...
Stacy Taylor
About the Speaker Stacy Taylor is a product designer at Auth0, where she creates a better user experience for developers and security professionals to provide safe and secure products for their users. She began her career as a librarian doing work in information...
Travis Kriplean
About the Speaker Travis Kriplean has been designing and building communication systems to help people think better together, first in academia (HCI/CSCW) and more recently as an entrepreneur and independent researcher. His work expands on the design insight that...
Arthur Smid
About the Speaker Arthur Smid is a community organizer and communications specialist living in Portland, Oregon. His research into participatory political processes led to volunteering with the Code for America brigade network in Eugene and Portland. Active as a...
Amelia Abreu
About the Speaker Amelia Abreu is a writer, design researcher and the founder of UX Night School. Based in Portland, Oregon, she has worked with teams at eBay, Nike, Mozilla, Microsoft Research and Intel, as well as startups and cultural organizations. She holds...
Nathan Shedroff
About the Speaker Nathan is a serial entrepreneur, customer experience and business strategist, education innovator, author, and speaker. Currently, he is the executive director of Seed Vault Ltd, a Singapore-based, open, independent alternative to conversational...
Katie Swindler
About the Speaker Katie is a user experience strategist who writes and speaks on topics related to human-centered design. Originally educated as a theatre director, she brings a unique perspective to digital work. She believes that if brands wish to truly connect...
Dana Chisnell
About the Speaker Dana Chisnell relentlessly works across government pushing teams to sincerely care about the needs of the people they're serving through and by design. She does this by asking hard questions to help teams know whether they're working on solving...
Amber Case
Amber Case studies the interaction between humans and computers and how our relationship with information is changing the way cultures think, act, and understand their worlds. They are an internationally recognized design advocate and speaker, a researcher at the...
Tatiana Mac
About the Speaker Tatiana Mac (she/they) is an independent American engineer who works directly with organizations to build clear and coherent products and design systems. She believes the trifecta of accessibility, performance, and inclusion can work symbiotically...
2019 Speakers
Mounir Shita
About the Speaker Mounir Shita’s first encounter with artificial intelligence was in mid 1990s at University of South Eastern Norway. During his only corporate employment, he realized his ability to change the world were severally limited within the confines of a...
Skyler Reed
Skyler Reed’s is currently the Senior UX designer and UI developer for the networking R&D company SmartRG / ADTRAN. Skyler is an artist, writer, and musician living in Portland, OR, a current graduate student of the University of Washington Master of Library and...
Ali Colleen Neff, Ph.D
About the Speaker Since 2005, digital anthropologist and New Relic product researcher Ali Colleen Neff, Ph.D. has been studying the ways people all over the world use, make, and circulate digital things. In her work as a professor of digital cultures at Portland State...