IA Summit 2008 Speakers - full details

Michael J. Albers (poster)

Michael J. Albers is an Associate Fellow in STC. He currently is an associate professor at East Carolina University, in the professional writing program. He previously taught at the University of Memphis. In 1999, he completed his PhD in technical communication and rhetoric from Texas Tech University. His research interests include designing documentation focused on answering real-world questions and online presentation of complex information.

Jacob  Alonzo (poster)

Jacob Alonzo is anticipating receiving his master’s degree in Information Architecture, from Kent State University’s IAKM program May of 2008. Jacob is currently a graduate assistant with Kent State’s ScanPath Usability Lab. Jacob hold’s a BA in American Studies from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

Jacob is hoping to be employed, after graduation, as an Information Architect or Usability Experience Designer. So if you have an opportunity, then I am your man!

Stephen P. Anderson

A consultant, entrepreneur, and speaker, Stephen is passionate about elegant design and the technological innovations that make desirable experiences possible. He is currently the VP of Design at Viewzi, where he hopes to change how people view search results.

Prior to Viewzi, Stephen grew and led the user experience teams at both Sabre Travel Network and Bright Corner, a creative and technology services company he co-founded in 2001.

Stephen can be found online at poetpainter.com.

Jorge  Arango

Jorge co-founded BootStudio, one of the first web design and user experience consultancies in Central America. His focus is on helping clients understand, manage, and exploit contextual constraints in design projects, particularly those that span different cultures. Jorge and his team have designed and developed websites for diverse clients that include Microsoft, Nestlé, Cable & Wireless, Copa Airlines, and the United Nations Development Program.

Jorge is on the Board of Directors of the Information Architecture Institute, and is also managing editor of Boxes and Arrows, an online journal about information architecture and related disciplines.

Martin  Belam

Martin Belam is an independent internet consultant and author, with 8 years experience working with global brands including Sony, Vodafone and the BBC. Martin specialised in search analytics at the BBC, and has since worked in areas such as online news, personalised email broadcast solutions, and the user experience definition for online and mobile retail. Originally from London in the UK, he is now based on the Greek island of Crete. Martin blogs at http://www.currybet.net

Peter  Boersma

Peter is the senior interaction designer at Info.nl where he designs online environments, mostly for financial institutions.

Peter loves design processes and has published and spoken about the topic at local, national and international conferences. He has been involved in the organization of CHI conferences, IA Summits and all three Euro IA conferences. He is currently Director of the IA Institute and organizes local IA/UX Cocktail Hours.

For more information about Peter, please visit http://www.peterboersma.com/blog

Lynn  Boyden

Lynn Boyden trained as a librarian but has not worked in a library since she was seventeen. She teaches information architecture in the UCLA library school, and has practiced for agencies, institutions, and corporations. She is published widely, most recently on the subject of information architecture as a career choice. She is an OG Instigator for the IA slam, and has presented a slam at the IA Summit each year since 2004. She is a loving mother to Trixie and Mojo and lives with them, five fish, and her adored husband in Los Angeles.

Dan  Brown

Dan Brown co-founded EightShapes, LLC, a user experience consulting firm based in Washington, DC. He wrote Communicating Design (New Riders 2007), a book dedicated to creating design documentation. His current clients include Comcast, Hanley Wood, Marriott, and National Geographic.

Lorelei  Brown

Lorelei Brown serves as the Director of User Experience at Matrix Group International. She has provided interface design, information architecture, usability testing, branding, content, and project management advice for media companies, associations, corporations and non-profits. She is known for speaking about why projects fail, and how to avert train wrecks.

Lorelei is particularly interested in figuring out how to solve complicated problems with cheap tools and tiny budgets, and explaining complex solutions in simple stories. Her favorite information design priciple is Tufte's 'least possible difference.' You may have seen her at previous IA Institutes (2004, 2006) or UPA-DC (2007).

Leah  Buley

Leah Buley is an experience designer at Adaptive Path. She enjoys making products that are useful, intuitive, and delightful -- and has a related interest in the tools and methodologies that make that possible. She has worked with organizations in a variety of industries, including financial, legal, telecom, social networking, and non-profit. Before Adaptive Path, Leah was a user interface designer for Barclays Global Investors, where she was a proud user experience team of one.

Joseph  Busch

Mr. Busch is the founder of Taxonomy Strategies and one of the principal consultants. He guides global large companies, government agencies, international organizations and not-for-profits such as Oracle, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the International Monetary Fund and Harvard Business School Publications in developing metadata frameworks and taxonomy strategies. Before founding Taxonomy Strategies, Joseph Busch held strategic positions within Interwoven, Metacode Technologies, the Getty Information Institute and PriceWaterhouse. He is a past president of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, and an appointee to the Board of Directors of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative.

Dustin  Chambers

Dustin Chambers is a user experience designer at UserWorks Inc. His responsibilities include user research, user-centered design and information architecture. He has conducted both remote and in-person usability testing studies for a variety of government and private sector clients. Dustin’s background is in human factors, psychology and graphic design. He has a Masters degree in human factors and ergonomics from Loughborough University in the U.K. A special area of interest is user-centered design in the developing world.

Chris  Chandler

Chris Chandler has been advocating on behalf of the true "silent majority" (i.e., people who use software) since 1994, when he realized no one else on his team would do so. Chris is currently Director of Creative Services for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online, an internal agency where all projects must be useful, usable AND magical. While at WDPRO Chris has led projects to redesign the online booking process for Disneyland.com and Disneyworld.com, as well as the creation of several new websites such as Hongkongdisneyland.com. He has taught a hands-on class in Information Architecture with Lynn Boyden in the UCLA Department of Information Studies.

Prior to becomming a cast member at Disney, Chris worked as an Information Architect, Information Designer, Project Manager and Site Developer for several Los Angeles firms such as Genex, NextLeft, Escott Associates and Kore Digital. Chris has worked with national consumer product brands such as HealthyChoice.com, MightyDog.com, financial services portals such as Citibank's Bizzed.com as well as numerous other clients in the entertainment and online services industries. Chris is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, holding a BA in Anthropology and an MA in Urban Planning.

Kevin  Cheng

Kevin Cheng was one of those kids who missed the memo to stop drawing after the first grade. Nowadays, he splits his crayon time between GXL, a game industry startup and OK/ Cancel, an online comic on design he co-founded. He also co-founded Off Panel Productions, an online comic publishing network.

Kevin has previously exerted his sliver of influence at Yahoo!’s Brickhouse incubator where he designed Pipes and Bravonation and at Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! Local, Adaptive Path and Trilogy.

He holds a Masters degree from University College London in Human Computer Interaction and has presented at numerous conferences including VizThink, IASummit, User Interface 12, UXWeek and SxSW.

One day, Kevin hopes to be able to answer all questions related to design by simply referencing a comic.

Chris  Conley

Chris Conley is a founding partner of Gravity Tank and is a professor of design at the Institute of Design (ID) in Chicago. He has over fifteen years of experience teaching design and helping some of the world's most influential companies change the way they define and develop new offerings. Core to that change is a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach that makes extensive use of prototyping. At the Institute of Design, he educates a new kind of design professional - one that can work throughout the modern organization leading initiatives aimed at innovation and delivering results to the bottom line. At Gravity Tank, Chris has helped companies like Office Max, Unilever, Goodyear, and Samsung work differently to define and launch successful new products and services. Recently he became the first design advisor to the CEO of Samsung Telecommunications on how to broaden the impact of design expertise throughout their organization.

Chris holds a Master of Science of Design from ID and a mechanical engineering degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Chris is a regular contributor to design conferences and competitions worldwide and was the 2006 Chair of the IDEA BusinessWeek Awards. He lives in Chicago with his wife Cira, who is a partner in Gravity Tank, and two children who only work there on a part time basis.

Dave  Cooksey

Dave is a User Experience Lead at GSI interactive, a division of GSI Commerce, a turnkey e-commerce provider located in King of Prussia, PA. He is a strategy lead for user experience guiding user research, usability testing, and taxonomy. Dave's work is informed by masters degrees in information systems (Drexel University) and social science (University of Illinois).

Dave lives in Philadelphia with his husband, Gordon, and their three children: Netflix, TiVo, and Ketel One.

Andrew  Crow

Andrew Crow is a senior experience designer, trainer, and speaker at Adaptive Path. He has a passion for developing innovative design solutions for customers' needs.

Continually obsessed with the latest technologies in the mobile and gaming space, Andrew advises on the design of mobile applications, social networking, and collaboration software. He is an advocate of ubiquitous computing, and approaches projects with a desire to ensure that the experience of the device fits into the overall product strategy.

Andrew is a member of AIGA, IxDA and IAI.

Christian  Crumlish

Christian Crumlish has been designing and writing about shared information spaces since 1994. He is the curator of the Yahoo! pattern library and is director of technology for the Information Architecture Institute. He studied philosophy at Princeton and painting at the San Francisco School of Art He is the author of, most recently, The Power of Many: How the Living Web is Transforming Politics, Business, and Everday Life (Wiley, 2004), and he is working a book about online presence and identity, tentatively titled Presence of Mind. He lives in Oakland, California, with his wife, Briggs, and his cat, Fraidy.

Nathan  Curtis

Nathan Curtis is a founder and principal at EightShapes, LLC, a UX consulting firm based in Washington, DC. His interests include information architecture, interaction design, and documentation systems for design and deliverables. He has recently created systems and conducted workshops for clients including Comcast, Sun, Discovery, Sprint, Cisco, and Marriott. Nathan also enjoys discovering the potential of many IA software, including Visio, InDesign and Illustrator and blogs on design and documentation at www.nathancurtis.com.

Jorgen  Dalen

Jørgen Dalen works for the Norwegian company, Halogen, as an Information Architect. He specializes in the optimization of user experience in digital media. Dalen is a Product Designer and holds an MA in psychology.

Keith  DuFresne (poster)

Keith DuFresne is the Art Director at EightShapes, LLC, a user experience consulting firm based in Washington, DC. Keith has been designing online experiences since 1996 and is interested in interaction design and the emotional connection customers establish with brands.

Prior to EightShapes, Keith led the visual design efforts for Sprint Nextel and Revolution Health. He has also helped Via Spiga, Timberland, Cole Haan, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Liz Claiborne translate their retail stores into compelling online destinations.

Sanda  Erdelez

Sanda Erdelez conducts research, teaching and consulting in information user behavior and usability evaluation. She is an associate professor and director of the Information Experience Laboratory at University of Missouri.

Christopher  Fahey

Christopher Fahey is a founding partner and the information architecture practice lead at Behavior, an award-winning New York web design consultancy focused on compelling, efficient, and elegant user experiences in digital media. Before co-founding Behavior in 2001, Chris led information architecture teams at Rare Medium and was a computer game designer at Music Pen and Wanderlust Interactive.

At Behavior, Chris has led the user experience design strategy for diverse clients in many industries, including HBO, BusinessWeek, The Smithsonian Institution, McGraw- Hill, JPMorgan Chase, XM Satellite Radio, The National Geographic Channel, AARP, the AIGA, and The Onion. Chris also blogs about design, technology, and culture at his personal site graphpaper.com.

John  Ferrara

John has worked in information architecture for 9 years, designing interfaces for websites, desktop applications, and web-based video games. He currently serves as the lead user behavior specialist in his role as a senior IA with Vanguard.

Before entering the professional world, John earned a BA and an MA in communications. His graduate degree was paid in part through a fellowship coaching speech & debate, so he'll welcome contrary arguments from anyone attending his presentation.

John’s professional loves include search engines and quantitative log file analysis, but his heart belongs to his wife Amanda. He lives in the Philadelphia suburbs and blogs at worldwideintertubes.com.

Matthew  Fetchko

Matthew Fetchko is currently Vice President of Interactive Marketing for the Retail Division of AllianceBernstein, an asset management firm. His team is responsible for the international and domestic retail Web properties and online applications. Looking back, he has worked with a number of interesting and crazy clients, covering areas from financial services to online communities. Matthew earned his undergraduate degree in visual communications from the George Washington University and a MPS in interactive telecommunications from New York University. He currently lives in New York City.

Henning  Fischer

Henning Fischer is a design strategist for Adaptive Path. His principal focus is on design research and strategy development. He holds a Master of Design from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology. Henning's portfolio of skills include digital product strategy development, business concept illustration, and user-centered research and analysis techniques. Past clients include Ameriprise, Eli Lilly, Guggenheim Museum, Hallmark, Hunter Douglas, Japan Society, LeapFrog, Magellan, Novartis, Trek Bicycle Corporation, uGenie, Vanguard Financial. He speaks German fluently and is diligently working on his Mandarin to impress his in-laws.

Jackson  Fox

Jackson Fox leads a double life, working as a UX Designer for Lulu.com in Raleigh, NC by day, and pursuing his PhD in Information Science at UNC Chapel Hill by night.

Bryce  Glass

Bryce Glass is a Senior Interaction Designer at Yahoo! He works on Community Platforms and is professionally interested in: social media and user participation in online communities; models for representing user reputation; and concept modeling as part of the product development process.

Bryce has an MS in Information Design & Technology from Georgia Tech and has worked as an in-house UI designer at Netscape, America Online, Sun Microsystems and Yahoo!

He telecommutes from his home in Columbus, Ohio where he and his wife are embracing the challenges of being new parents. Bryce keeps a blog at soldierant.net

Austin  Govella

As a Senior Information Architect with Comcast Interactive Media, Austin Govella works towards creating better products, better teams, and better experiences.

Are  Halland

Are Halland is a senior Information Architect with NetLife Research in Oslo, Norway. Over the last 11 years he has designed search and navigation interfaces and consulted to a number of high profiled clients. Are is a local ambassador for UXnet in Norway.

Margaret  Hanley

Margaret Hanley is the Head of Consultancy at Web Technology Group in the UK. She has worked as a User Experience lead and manager over the last eight years in companies ranging from Yellow Pages in Australia and Argus Associates in the US; to Information Architecture Team Leader and Executive Producer at the BBC in the UK and Head of User Experience of DNA, a division of Avenue A| Razorfish. Throughout her time as a manager she has managed teams as large as 50 and as small as three. Her credo is to learn from as many situations as possible especially from your mistakes.

Larry  Hannigan

Larry Hannigan is a User Experience Research Usability Lab Manager at eBay. Larry is responsible for coordinating user research lab studies, recruiting and video capture.

Jeanine  Harriman

As a lead designer at Liquidnet, Jeanine Harriman specializes in envisioning and designing world-class user experiences. Jeanine previously worked as a designer at Netscape and Cooper, and held senior-level positions at Avenue a | Razorfish and Symantec. Jeanine also teaches a popular User Experience design class for the Design and Communication Arts program of the UCLA Extension.

Atsushi  Hasegawa (poster)

Dr. Hasegawa is the President and Information Architect of Concent, Inc., an independent design agency in Japan. He received Ph.D. in cognitive science from the University of Tokyo and M.Sc. in Elementary Particle Physics from Tohoku University.

He started as an IA in 2000, and founded Concent, Inc. in 2002.

He is a founder of Information Architecture Association Japan(iaaj.org), member of IA Institute and councilor of Japan Human Centered Design Organization.

Andrew  Hinton

Andrew Hinton has designed digital experiences since 1990. Now a Lead Information Architect at Vanguard, he previously worked as a consultant for clients including American Express, Wachovia and Kimberly-Clark. Andrew is a co-founder of the Information Architecture Institute and keeps a home on the web at inkblurt.com

Jason  Hobbs

Jason Hobbs lives in Johannesburg and runs jh-01, a user experience design company. The company divides its time between arts and culture, non-profit and commercial projects. He has been researching Internet Cafés and their role in people’s lives in developing contexts for the past three years.

Jason advises to the board of the IA Institute, is a local ambassador for UXnet and runs the SA UX Forum.

Matthew  Hodgson

Matthew Hodgson is a senior consultant with SMS Management & Technology in Canberra, Australia, and is their Regional-lead for Web and Information Management. Matthew has over 10 years experience in e-business, information architecture, information and knowledge management, and has recently added social-computing strategy to his portfolio. This expertise is underpinned by a comprehensive applied-knowledge of web and information standards, degrees in organisational psychology and knowledge management, and a passion for technology and social change.

Jason  Holmes

Jason Holmes is an Assistant Professor in SLIS at Kent State University. His research interests include website usability testing.

Dick  Horst

Dick Horst is an experimental psychologist and user experience specialist with over 30 years’ experience in applied behavioral research, systems development, and usability engineering. He is the founder and President of UserWorks, Inc., a usability engineering consulting firm in the Washington, DC area. Dick has conducted or overseen over a hundred usability testing projects for organizations in government, the private sector, non-profits, and academia. Over the last five years, a number of these studies have involved remote testing methods. Dick has a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Carnegie-Mellon University and is a board certified professional ergonomist.

Lee  Iverson (poster)

Lee Iverson is an assistant professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia. His main areas of research cover socio-technical systems, privacy and social information management, digital libraries and museums.

Jared  Spool

A software developer and programmer, Jared founded User Interface Engineering in 1988. He has more than 15 years of experience conducting usability evaluations on a variety of products, and is an expert in low-fidelity prototyping techniques.

Jared is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute and teaches seminars on product usability. He is a member of SIGCHI, the Usability Professionals Association, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the IEEE. Jared is a recognized authority on user interface design and human factors in computing. He is a regular tutorial speaker at the annual CHI conference and Society for Technical Communications conferences around the country.

Kristen  Johansen

Kristen Johansen has been a user experience and design practitioner for over ten years, holding positions as a user experience designer, usability specialist, and UX manager. She is currently the Senior Manager of User Experience at Citrix Online, and currently leads the user experience team responsible for the award-winning GoToMyPC, GoToAssist and GoToMeeting products. Previously, Kristen was the Manager of Interaction Design & Usability at Move, Inc., where she built a UX team from scratch.

David  Karemaker

David Karemaker has been working as an interaction designer, project manager and information architect since 1998. He currently works at User Intelligence, a user experience design and evaluation collective based in Amsterdam. David holds a BA and MSC in Information Science from the University of Amsterdam (2006) and a BA in Video Design from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (1997). Current research interests: Action Research methodologies, Personality, Quantitative validation of personas.

Alex  Kirtland

Alex Kirtland is a user experience design and usability professional who works with his clients to help them evaluate, envision and develop their web sites and applications. He has over 11 years experience designing usable interfaces for a variety of clients in a variety of industries, including Morgan Stanley, InTrade, Peak6, Western Union, CIGNA, Philip Morris USA, Rodale, Avaya, Kodak, XM Satellite Radio, Moto-Research, and Ford Motor Company.

Janna  Korzenko

Janna Korzenko is a doctoral student in Public Policy, and Program Coordinator for IAKM.

Sam  Ladner, PhD

Sam has ten years' experience designing interactive experiences for major media Web sites including The Globe and Mail Online, Sympatico.ca and Yahoo.ca. More recently she has provided research and thought leadership to financial institutions including the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, and CitiBank.

Sam’s design sense is informed by her practice as a social and technological researcher. She is a specialist in qualitative and quantitative research, including web analytics, ethnographic observation and usability testing. She is currently the Director of Consumer Insights at Blast Radius Inc. She holds a doctorate in sociology from York University.

Joe  Lamantia

Joe Lamantia is a veteran consultant, architect, and thought leader in the international user experience community. An author and frequent speaker on design, information architecture, business, and enterprise technology, Joe is also the creator of the leading freely available tool for card sort analysis.

Joe is currently based in New York, working as a user experience and strategy consultant for the enterprise architecture group of a global IT firm. He blogs regularly at www.joelamantia.com

Karen  Loasby

Karen Loasby is the Information Architecture Team Leader at the BBC in London. She has been at the BBC for six years and previously worked for the Guardian newspaper. In her role at the BBC she has championed entry-level roles, set up a work experience scheme, and managed 16 junior IAs. Ex-juniors now form the majority of the BBC IA team.

Michael  Magoolaghan

Michael Magoolaghan is an Information Architect with the Vanguard Group. Before coming to Vanguard Michael served as the Business Information & Innovation Architect for the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, where he co-designed the company’s intranet site and managed its digital library and search engines. Michael presented “A ‘Spirit of Simplicity’: What Information Architects Can Learn from the Arts & Crafts Movement” at the 2003 IA Summit.

Erin  Malone

Erin Malone came to Yahoo! 4 years ago to build the internal Pattern Library. During her tenure, her role has expanded to include launching the public Pattern Library and managing the Platform UED team, which is responsible for designing system-wide components and best practices in the areas of Social, Personalization, Membership and Vertical Search. She was the founding editor-in-chief of Boxes and Arrows, and a founding member and recent advisory council member of the IA Institute. Her professional credits include running the west coast UI team at AOL and being creative director and chief IA at Altavista and Zip2. She holds a BFA and MFA in design.

Aaron  Martlage

Aaron Martlage is the managing designer of Electronic Ink’s Design team. The team is responsible for creating user interface concepts for web and desktop applications including information architecture, wireframes, aesthetics and icons. The team also designs portals and dashboards for client intranets and extranets.

Aaron’s recent successes at Electronic Ink include the design of information architecture for a hospital information system, the design of a dashboard and framework for a major software vendor, the rearchitecture of multiple Content Management Systems, and the design of information architecture as well as aesthetic direction for a data playback system comprised of audio, video, radar and network data.

Prior to Electronic Ink, Aaron led teams of designers and human factors specialists for Siemens Corporate Research designing enterprise product user interfaces for the NYCT Subway PA/CIS System, Building Management Systems, and Medical Imaging Software Frameworks in the US, Germany and Hungary. He has coordinated user experience testing in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and the US. He also designed solutions at Siemens Medical Solutions for their next generation hospital information system focusing on Cardiology, Radiology, and the product Portal and Workflow.

Aaron is a Certified Scrum Master bringing agile project management techniques to design to help lead the front in iterative design of user experience. He has several patents pending. Aaron is a graduate of Boston University where he majored in Advertising.

Melissa (Goldstein) Matross

Melissa currently manages the user experience discipline for Hotwire, an Expedia-owned discount travel website. With 10 years of industry experience, Melissa has led information architecture, interaction design and product strategy efforts to deliver successful user experiences that drive business results.

Her most recent clients include: Royal Caribbean, American Legacy Foundation (Truth), Children’s Hospital Boston, Fidelity Investments, Timberland, Lycos, and SAP, among others.

Melissa studied Human Computer Interaction and Psychology at Stanford University.

Donna  Maurer

Donna Maurer is a freelance information architect, mentor, writer & trainer. She has 8 years experience working in-house and as a consultant doing strategic and tactical design. She has designed large intranets & websites, ecommerce & search systems, business applications, design patterns and a CMS.

Donna is an experienced speaker who has taught workshops and presented sessions at local and international conferences, on information architecture, interaction design and whatever else crosses her mind.

She spends her (little) remaining time on the board of IAI and writing a book on card sorting. Occasionally she even gets time to weave and sew.

Harry  Max

Harry is a principal at Rubicon Consulting. His working knowledge spans web strategy, IA, user experience, customer engagement models, systems design and strategic problem solving, and includes organizational behavior work in leadership and development coaching for Google, SAP, Silicon Image, and others.

Harry has worked with Apple Computer, DreamWorks Animation, HP, O’Reilly, and SGI. A co-founder of Virtual Vineyards (wine.com), Max designed the user interaction concepts behind the first secure Web shopping cart and business systems. He was also the founder and CEO of Public Mind, an enterprise software company focused on customer feedback solutions. He is co-author of Skype: The Definitive Guide and Artdirected Technology: Anatomy of a Shrek 2 Sequence.

Karen  McGrane

Karen is a Senior Partner in Bond Art and Science, a digital services firm focused on simplifying interactions between people and the devices they use to share information, store media, and communicate with each other. She designs user experiences for information-intensive industries such as media and publishing, travel, and financial services. Previously, Karen was a leader in the user experience practice at Razorfish.

Karen’s clients have included several in the financial services industry, such as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Bank One, J.P. Morgan, and Citibank, as well as travel industry clients like Travelocity and Cendant. Her media and publishing experience includes work for The Week, Inc., Fast Company, Condé Nast, Nielsen Media Research, The New York Public Library, and The Disney Internet Group. Her redesign of The New York Times website has won several awards, including a Webby.

Jess  McMullin

Jess has been working in design and user experience since 1997. He specializes in helping clients work with multiple stakeholders to bridge competing viewpoints, align project vision, and create a clear understanding of the problems at hand. His value-centered approach grounds strategy at the intersection of business goals and customer needs – the sweet spot that produces sustainable value and real innovation.

Jess regularly writes and speaks at conferences about user experience, design thinking, and innovation. His work with the design and user experience community is focused on helping practitioners increase their influence in the organizations they work with.

Matthew  Milan

As Director of Insight and Planning with Critical Mass in Toronto, Canada, Matthew leads a team of information architects, design researchers, web analytics specialists and experience planners who collectively mold business strategy and design thinking into all types of interactive experiences.

Matthew has a Masters degree in Information Architecture and when he's not trying to reframe information architects as strategy wonks, he moonlights as a course director at York University in Toronto.

Matthew is a member of the Information Architecture Institute and co-founder of the infamous UX Irregulars, a Toronto area user experience group.

Vanesa  Mirzaee (poster)

Vanesa Mirzaee is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests include semantic web and ontologies, personal information management, personal and social tagging.

Michael  Morgan

Michael Morgan has worked in the industry since May 2000 and manages a User Experience Research group for eBay that focuses on Search and eBay Motors.

Peter  Morville

Peter Morville is widely known as a founding father of information architecture. He co-authored the best-selling “polar bear book” and has consulted with such organizations as AT&T, Harvard, IBM, Microsoft, the National Cancer Institute, and Yahoo!. Peter is president of Semantic Studios, author of Ambient Findability, and a founder and past president of the Information Architecture Institute. He has served as a faculty member at the University of Michigan, and his work has been featured in many publications and programs including Business Week, The Economist, Fortune, MSNBC, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He blogs at findability.org.

Maryam  Najafian Razavi (poster)

Maryam Najafian Razavi is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia. Her current research focus is creating usable privacy management support for sharing personal information in a social context.

Greg  Nudelman

Greg Nudelman is a Senior User Experience Engineer at eBay. Greg holds MS CIS and has been researching, designing and developing software since 1997.

Brian  Oberkirch

Brian Oberkirch runs a social Web consultancy called Small Good Thing, daydreams, and jots notes about baseball, writing and Web futurismo at brianoberkirch.com

Kyungsun  Park

Kyungsun Park is a doctoral student majoring in Educational Technology, Department of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. Her current research is about e-learning usability.

Anindita  Paul

Anindita Paul is a doctoral student of Information Science and a senior coordinator at the Information Experience Laboratory at University of Missouri. Her research interest involves examining the various tools and methods to understand the information behavior of users.

Lucas  Pettinati

Lucas Pettinati is a Senior Interaction Designer at Yahoo! and leads design efforts for the Yahoo! User Interface Library. Since joining Yahoo! in 2004 he has designed several YUI widgets, was responsible for Yahoo's all new user registration process and the redesigned Yahoo! Personals site. Before learning to yodel, Lucas designed products for American Express, Sabre Holdings, and BMC Software. He holds a BA in Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley and sits on the industry advisory board for the Georgia Institute of Technology’s HCI Master’s program.

Joshua  Porter

Joshua Porter is a writer, web designer, and passionate user advocate. He is the founder of Bokardo Design, providing web design and strategy services for social web applications. Prior to founding Bokardo Design, Josh was the Director of Web Development at User Interface Engineering. Josh writes the popular blog Bokardo.com. He is also currently writing a book, Designing Social Web Applications, to be published by New Riders in Spring 2008. He lives in Newburyport, MA, USA with his beautiful wife and daughter.

Dorelle  Rabinowitz

Dorelle Rabinowitz leads a user experience design team at Google, creating standards, patterns & resources. Previously, she managed a UX team at Yahoo!, was an experience lead at SBI.Razorfish and produced Oxygen.com’s "Our Stories" site. She is on the advisory board of the IAI, and is a former editor of Boxes and Arrows. A graduate of NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, Dorelle also holds a BFA in graphic design from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Anders  Ramsay

Anders Ramsay has over ten years experience designing large-scale web sites working with clients including AOL, CBS, CNN, Deutsche Bank, Fidelity, FOX News, JP Morgan Chase, and Viacom. A Senior Interaction Designer at Funny Garbage, a design agency in New York City, Anders is also highly active in the New York City User Experience community, organizing events and conferences, including the monthly NYC Information Architecture Meetup, the "New Challenges in Information Architecture" IA retreat, and a recent BarCamp 'unconference' held at the Microsoft offices in New York City.

Anders is also a contributor to the Boxes & Arrows online magazine and blogs about all things UX at andersramsay.com

Eric  Reiss

As a former director at the Danish Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Eric Reiss knows something about presentation. As a former copywriter at a leading European ad agency, he understands persuasion. Because he is willing to make a fool of himself, the IA Slam features good laughs and an entertaining business case. Having helped create the programs that led to two consecutive “Airline of the Year” awards, he is passionate about customer service.

Eric is author of Practical Information Architecture and Web Dogma ‘06, President of the Information Architecture Institute, Associate Professor of Usability and Design at the Instituto de Empresa Business School in Madrid, and Chair of the EuroIA Summit. His partners at FatDUX in Copenhagen, have managed to contain many of his eccentricities, including the wearing of Hawaiian shirts and tailored business suits simultaneously.

Vera  Rhoads

Vera Rhoads has been working on optimizing web solutions for large-scale Fortune 500 companies and non-profits (Fannie Mae, AARP, IMF) for 15 years.

Vera’s specialties include web strategy and operations, next-generation web site evolution, usability, branding, multi-lingual globalization, web content management and search implementations. She is PMP certified and works on enhancing process methodologies into the web development lifecycle.

Vera is an also adjunct faculty member at the Graduate School of the University of Maryland.

Megan  Richardson (poster)

Megan Richardson brings a background in philosophy, linguistics, and mathematics to the field of information architecture. Her experience includes programming, heuristic evaluation, and usability testing; her research focuses on creating useful and meaningful forms of evaluation.

James  Robertson

James Robertson heads Step Two Designs, a vendor-neutral consultancy based in Sydney, Australia. James became known as the ‘intranet guy’ at the IA Summit in Vancouver, and is a globally-recognised expert on intranet strategy, content management and enterprise IA.

James has keynoted or presented conferences and workshops throughout Australia, as well as in New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada, the UK and the US.

David B. Robins

David B. Robins is an Assistant Professor in the Interdisciplinary Program in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management at Kent State University. He is conducting research on aesthetics and credibility in websites.

Miles  Rochford

Miles Rochford is a Design Specialist at Nokia Design, based in London, England.

He has been an information architect and user experience specialist for more than six years, working on a range of projects for government, non-profit, corporate and startup clients based in the United States, Europe and Australia.

He has experience in a range of different areas, including interaction design, spatial data, health informatics, social networking, media sharing, mobile devices, and service delivery.

Aaron  Rosenberg (poster)

Aaron Rosenberg is the business manager of ScanPath Labs at Kent State University. He is also a graduate student in the IAKM Program at Kent State.

Josh  Rubin

Josh has been a designer and strategist for over ten years, creating mobile device interfaces, web applications, embedded software, kiosks, installations and products. He is a founding partner of Bond Art and Science. Prior to starting Bond, Josh ran his own consulting firm, where he created Flux, MTV’s mobile content service, and designed the interface for delicious.com. He also created and publishes CoolHunting.com, a widely read site about the intersection of design, art and technology.

Before starting his own company, Josh held high-level positions at Upoc Networks and Motorola. He was also the Director of Mobile Solutions at Razorfish, and helped create the firm’s mobile practice. Josh oversaw the user experience for projects delivered to Vodafone, Citibank and Adobe among others.

Karl Johan Saeth

Karl Johan Saeth is a senior Information Architect with Logica´s UX unit in Oslo, Norway. Even though he loves fishing Karl Johan has spent most of the last 12 years developing IA and interactive concepts.

Brandon  Schauer

Brandon Schauer is an experience design director for Adaptive Path, where he guides the practice of design strategy. Brandon teaches and practices design as a means to create value for both people and business. He applies his mixed-up designer/MBA brain to create valued new experiences for clients like Flickr and Ameriprise Financial. Brandon’s the co-author of Adaptive Path’s book, Subject To Change, and he has a love of Excel that is unnatural for a designer.

Dennis  Schleicher

The workshop will be presented by Dennis Schleicher, Director of Usability & Senior Information Architect at e.magination. Dennis has taught classes and workshops to over 1600 participants over the last 18 years teaching many similar concepts. He has organized and conducted slams for non-profit clients, for-profit clients, for fun, and for internal corporate development. He worked in marketing on the JWT Ford account, CTC in the education and collaboration arena, and Argus Associates. www.dennisschleicher.com

Garrick  Schmitt

Garrick Schmitt is Vice President of User Experience at Avenue A | Razorfish. Over the past eight years, he has helped clients and industry leaders envision and deliver breakthrough customer experiences across multiple platforms. He also leads an in-house innovation team that is focused on next-generation consumer applications and technologies; and writes and edits Avenue A | Razorfish's Digital Design Blog at www.digitaldesignblog.com

Josh  Seiden

Joshua Seiden manages the design group at Liquidnet (USA), an electronic brokerage firm serving institutional equity traders. Previously, he was the founder and President of 36 Partners, a NYC interaction design and user experience consulting firm. In the 1990’s, Josh served on the leadership team at Cooper Interaction Design. He has designed digital products in a broad range of industries and for a wide variety of audiences. In doing so, he has had the opportunity to mentor, work with, and learn from many talented interaction designers. Josh sits on the Board of Directors of the Interaction Design Association, a professional organization that promotes the field of interaction design.

Yvonne  Shek

Yvonne has been a UX consultant for 10 years. Some of the User Experience Champions that Yvonne has raised come from the Fortune 500 clients and government agencies that she has worked with. Before that, Yvonne was a human factors researcher at Defence Research and Development Canada, where she specialized in human performance within extreme environments. Yvonne earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, and her Masters in Ergonomics from University College London.

Shibani  Kapoor

Shibani Kapoor is a Human Factors Engineer at Intel Corporation in the Information Technology department. She partners with cross-functional teams across Intel and uses various data gathering methods to evaluate and improve the user experience of business processes and software applications used by internal Intel employees as well as Intel’s customers and suppliers. She also develops user interface specifications, user and context assessments, scenarios, business flow diagrams, and prototypes. She prioritizes and tracks usability issues throughout the planning, design, development, and deployment phases of the project lifecycle. She provides strategic direction, consultation, advocacy, and education on effective user-centered design methods and usability issues across the organization.

She is interested in understanding the usability variances in different cultures and designing evaluation methodologies that take them into account.

Shibani has a Bachelors degree in Math-Computer Science with a minor in Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego. She completed her M.S. in Information specializing in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Gene  Smith

Gene Smith is an information architect and social media aficionado. He’s the author of Tagging: People-Powered Metadata for the Social Web (2008, New Riders), which covers the design and development of tagging systems. At nForm User Experience he advises a variety of clients on their IA, design and social media strategies.

Joe  Sokohl

Joe has more than 17 years of experience in user experience-related fields. He has concentrated on crafting excellent user experiences, using information architecture, interaction design, writing, and user research. At Keane, Joe acts as an advocate for user experience consulting: Information architecture, user research, interaction design, and usability evaluation along with visual design and Web design. He leads a team of information architects, visual designers, and interactive developers, mentoring them in competency skills along with general business consulting practices. In addiion, he evangelizes best practices in UX among both internal and external clients. Previously he held UX-oriented positions in Hamburg, Germany; Richmond, VA; Chicago, IL; and Durham, NC. He's also been a soldier, a cook, a radio DJ, a road manager, a teacher, and a reporter once upon a time.

Peter  Stahl

Peter Stahl is Lead User Experience Designer at eBay, where he focuses on design patterns, interaction design, and holistic site experience. Earlier employers include Business Signatures, AOL, Netscape, and PlaceWare.

Claude  Steinberg

Claude’s work on message effects of sound patterns includes songwriting, a presentation on vocal characteristics of villainous cartoon characters at Pixar Animation Studios, and publications on vocal characteristics of trustworthy American male heroes and convincing voiceover appeals.

As a UserWorks usability specialist, Claude has evaluated ecommerce sites and social marketing campaigns. Voice interface projects include web portal to phone conversion, comparison of voice and text messaging, and testing of audio equivalents of print publications.

Anne  Stevens

Anne is the User Experience Manager at Channel 4 New Media in the UK. She has worked as an Information Architect for over 7 years and has a broad range of experience across many different clients and platforms. In her previous role at LBi Anne was responsible for setting up the company’s first graduate recruitment and training programme for Experience Architects. She is currently responsible for setting up and managing the User Experience discipline within New Media at Channel 4 Television.

Tone  Terum

Tone Terum works for the Norwegian company, Halogen, as an Information Architect. She specializes in the optimization of user experience in digital media. Terum is one of three authors who published the very first WAP guidelines (2000) and holds an MA in psychology.

Thom  Haller

Thom Haller, teacher, speaker, writer, and user advocate—teaches principles of performance-based information architecture and usability. Since 1998, Thom has taught classes on architecting usable Web/Intranet sites. As a teacher, Thom enables students to structure information so people can find it, use it, and appreciate the experience. A noted speaker and facilitator, Thom is funny, passionate, and inclusive. He creates change in organizations, infusing his optimism and showing how we can make the complex clear.

Tingting  Jiang

Tingting Jiang is a third-year Ph.D. student at the School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh. She began to study information architecture as an undergraduate student and continued to pursue her academic interests during her master’s degree which resulted in a thesis entitled Evaluating the Information Architecture of University Websites. Her current professional experience includes working as a public reference service assistant for the University of Pittsburgh Library System where her responsibilities are offering direction in online search and digital library use, among others. These combine with her doctoral research that focuses on exploratory search and information architecture. She has a teaching background with experience in the graduate-level course Information Architecture, taught by Dr. Sherry Koshman, her dissertation advisor.

Ingrid  Tofte

Ingrid Tofte is a senior Interaction Designer with Logica´s UX unit in Oslo, Norway. Apart from freezing a lot, Ingrid has spent the last 12 years of her life designing interactive solutions for some of Norway´s most renowned brands.

Anthony  Turko (poster)

Tony Turko is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in IA/Usability in the IAKM program at Kent State University while working in the program’s usability lab, Scanpath. He has a Bachelor’s of Science Journalism degree from Ohio University with a specialization in Visual Communication.

Peter  Van Dijck

Peter Van Dijck is an experienced information architect who has lived in Colombia, Belgium, Congo, New York City and London (not necessarily in that order). His interests in linguistics, ethnography and anthropology (Peter’s wife is an anthropologist) have meshed with his information architecture practice and he has been researching and speaking about global information architecture for a few years now. He is author of the book "Information Architecture for Designers”, and gives regular talks at conferences and workshops for various clients. His clients include Fortune 500 companies and internet startups. More at http://petervandijck.com

Brian  Verhoeven (poster)

Brian currently works at The Washington Post as an interaction designer. He has worked with numerous government agencies, non-profit organizations, and private companies. He holds a Master of Arts in Professional Communication from Clemson University and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Virginia Tech.

Zach  Wahl

Mr. Wahl leads the Knowledge Management Practice at PPC, which focuses on helping public and private organizations successfully implement enterprise content management systems, portals, and other knowledge management tools. He specializes in the development of business taxonomies and ontologies and the deployment of Enterprise Information Portals for a variety of organizations including Pratt & Whitney, Columbia University, the U.S. Department of Defense, the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Department of Energy. Mr. Wahl has developed his own taxonomy design methodology, has authored a series of courses on portal knowledge management and development, and is a frequent speaker and trainer on the subjects of eGovernance, portals, and taxonomy design.

Todd Zaki Warfel

Todd Zaki Warfel is President and founder of Messagefirst, a Philadelphia-based design research consulting firm, where he blends research and design to evolve products in innovate and beautiful ways. Todd is a dynamic speaker and storyteller by nature. He’s rarely short on details. He is an active member in a number of industry communities and organizations, including the Information Architecture Institute, IxDA, and UPA.

Todd’s clients have included Albertsons, AT&T Wireless, Bankrate, Bank of America, CitiGroup, Comcast, Cornell University, IntraLinks, Hartford, Motorla, Palm, Sallie Mae, and SBC. Todd currently lives in Philadelphia, blogs at toddwarfel.com, and is currently working on a book on prototyping with Rosenfeld Media "A Practitioner's Guide to Prototyping" available in 2008.

Michelle  Watson

Michelle Watson is a Lead Information Architect at Digitas based in the UK. She has worked as an Information Architect in London over the last 6 years. At Wheel she specialised in e-commerce and online retail, working for clients ranging from Marks and Spencer to H Samuel and Laura Ashley. At Victoria Real she was able to look at usability beyond web build and was able to apply her analytical skills to a number of other digital mediums such as mobile pilots, online games and video streaming. At DNA Michelle became a team leader and became increasingly more involved in the technical side of information architecture. At Digitas Michelle has spent the last year flexing all of her IA muscles as she works on the substantial global redesign of a blue chip company.

Hallie  Wilfert

Hallie Wilfert works as an Information Architect at SRA International, a technology and strategic consulting firm in Arlington, VA. Previously, Hallie worked as the Director of New Media at the Institute of Medicine. Hallie received her B.A. in American Studies, studying at University of California, Berkeley and University of Maryland, College Park. She likes data and likes to use data to make web sites easier to use. Hallie presented at the 2007 IA Summit on “My Grandmother the Information Architect.”

Josh Damon Williams

Josh Damon Williams is a user experience designer at Hot Studio, Inc., where he has worked on a diverse range of projects with clients such as eBay and Architecture for Humanity.

Dan  Willis

Dan Willis has been launching robust Web sites for more than a decade. Currently a consultant for Sapient, Willis was washingtonpost.com’s first User Experience Director and had the same title at PBS.org. He has designed and coded major Web sites, run usability testing, and managed designers, information architecture and Web analytics. He is the creator of UX Crank (www.uxcrank.com), a highly opinionated resource for UX professionals. He has also presented at previous IA Summits.

Christina  Wodtke

Christina Wodtke is founder and publisher of Boxes and Arrows. A relentless instigator, she also cofounded Cucina Media, the creator of the software Boxes and Arrows runs on. Previously, she cofounded MIG, a management consulting firm, cofounded the Information Architecture Institute; authored the bestselling book Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web; and has spoken on the topic of the human experience in information spaces at conferences worldwide.

Jed  Wood

Jed is an interaction designer and entrepreneur. He bridges the gap between design and programming through a deep respect and talent for both. Using tools like Adobe Flash, he creates rapid prototypes and functional applications that combine data sources with interactive interfaces. Jed holds a Master's degree from the Institute of Design, where he now serves as adjunct faculty member.

Olly  Wright

Olly Wright is Experience Architecture Director at Media Catalyst Amsterdam, where he is responsible for a wide range of web and mobile projects, including sonyericsson.com. Previously he obtained a degree in philosophy in London, where he was told that Darwin has nothing to do with ethics. He disagrees. He blogs at ollywright.org

Luke  Wroblewski

Luke Wroblewski is an internationally recognized Web thought leader who has designed or contributed to software used every day by more than 750 million people. He is currently Senior Principal of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc. and Founder of LukeW Interface Designs, a product strategy and design consultancy.

Luke also publishes "Functioning Form," a leading online publication for interaction designers. He has authored two books on Web interface design principles “Web Form Design Best Practices” and "Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability". Luke is consistently a top-rated speaker at various conferences and companies around the world.

Liya  Zheng

As an Experience Designer, Liya currently leads the design of Liquidnet’s trading products. Previously, Liya worked at Respironics, a leader in the respiratory medial space, and helped them establish an internal Experience Design capability. Liya started her career at Rockstar Games where her interest in storytelling with interactive media was rooted. She also conducts design workshops in the U.S. and China.

Alla  Zollers

Alla Zollers is a PhD student in Information Studies at UCLA. Her research interests include social tagging, social network sites, and human-computer interaction.