Andrew Hinton is an information architect at The Understanding Group, and the author of Understanding Context. Since the early 90s he's worked with companies to make habitable, delightful environments out of information. Andrew lives in a weird little neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Online, he tweets at @inkblurt and keeps a bunch of links about Andrew-things at andrewhinton.com. 

Dan is co-founder and leads structural design practice at The Understanding Group (TUG), and teaches information architecture at the University of Michigan School of Information.

Jim Kalbach is a noted author, speaker, and instructor in user experience design, information architecture, and strategy. He is currently Head of Consulting and Education at Mural.ly, an online virtual whiteboard solution. Jim has worked with large companies, such as eBay, Audi, SONY, Elsevier Science, Lexis Nexis, and Citrix. Before returning to the US in 2013 after living for fifteen years in Germany, Jim was the co-founder of the European Information Architecture conferences. He also co-founded the IA Konferenz series in Germany. Jim plays jazz bass in jam sessions and combos in Jersey City, where his currently lives. In 2007 Jim published his first full-length book, Designing Web Navigation (O’Reilly, 2007). His second book, Mapping Experiences (O’Reilly, 2015) is due to hit the bookshelves this Fall. He blogs at experiencinginformation.com and tweets under @jimkalbach. 

Andrew Hinton is an information architect at The Understanding Group, and the author of Understanding Context. Since the early 90s he's worked with companies to make habitable, delightful environments out of information. Andrew lives in a weird little neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Online, he tweets at @inkblurt and keeps a bunch of links about Andrew-things at andrewhinton.com. 

Charles is a UX Researcher and Designer at Intel Corporation. He is the coauthor, with Leo Frishberg, of Presumptive Design: Design Provocations for Innovation, which will be out this September from Morgan Kaufmann.

For over 40 years, Leo has been working with computing technologies, starting by assembling his first computer in 1967 and continuing as an Algol 80 and Basic programmer before the onset of microprocessors.

Throughout his career as general partner of Phase II, a CAD based facilities management consultancy, and with Cliffside Software, Inc., a Portland software development firm, Leo has maintained a strong experience-centered design philosophy.

In 2012, Leo joined Intel Corporation as Product Design Manager in IT. In the years prior, Leo was a Principal Architect, User Experience at Tektronix, Inc. Leo holds a B.A. in Environmental Planning from UCSC and an M.Arch from SCI-ARC. In 1984, Leo began his career as a User Experience Architect (before he knew that’s what it was called).

Paul Bryan is a user experience strategist and researcher who started designing e-commerce web sites in 1995. He consults with large organizations on the strategy, direction, and design of their e-commerce web sites and mobile apps. Paul organizes UX STRAT Europe and USA conferences, and manages the UX Strategy and Planning group on LinkedIn. He teaches user experience to graduate business students at the University of Georgia.

Peter Merholz is a design executive. A co-founder of Adaptive Path, the design consultancy that helped popularize the notion of user experience strategy, he most recently was VP of Global Design for Groupon. Peter believes terms like agile and lean are crutches people use so they don't have to engage in critical thinking.

Molly Needelman is a user experience strategist at YouTube, a part of Google. As the second person on the then-nascent Visioning team, Molly has been instrumental in developing a successful UX Strategy practice at YouTube. She works with product teams across YouTube to identify opportunities and articulate a clear product vision.

Previously, Molly worked with premier business design consultancies helping corporations envision, explain, and realize their internal strategy. She has worked with a diverse range of organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and leading non-profits.

Mike Hubler founded and leads the User Experience (UX) Team at Northrop Grumman Corporation. Through the team, he is focused on influencing U.S. Government acquisitions to prioritize human purpose in technology development. Drawing from the successes (and failures) of building academic, government and industry programs, he developed strategies for introducing UX across the business lifecycle of projects ranging from missile control to managing hurricane disaster relief. Hübler brings over twenty years of UX-related industry and communication experience to lectures and workshops with national and international audiences. He is most excited about returning to Athens, GA, where he studied with media pioneer Scott Shamp in the Dowden Lab basement (before the New Media Institute) and DJ’d the Cold Fusion jazz program at WUOG.

Tim joined the Walt Disney Company in June of 2012 as the Vice President, Global Digital Creative for Parks & Resorts. In this role, Tim is responsible for leading the UX Design team as all as digital creative development to produce the highest-caliber creative content across all platforms.

Prior to joining the Walt Disney Company Tim spent 8 years with ZAAZ (now Possible Worldwide) – a digital agency headquartered in Seattle, WA. At ZAAZ his creative team of Designers, Copywriters and User Experience Architects generated innovative and successful marketing and transactional experiences across web, mobile and social media for a variety of clients including Audi, Morgans Hotel Group, Converse, Tazo, Entertainment Weekly and Alaska Airlines. Prior to ZAAZ Tim was the Creative Director at Summit Projects working on active and outdoor consumer brands including Nike, Dakine, SmithSport Optics, Smartwool and Swiss Army.

Tim has a BA in Art with an emphasis in Graphic Design from San Diego State University. He currently lives in Glendale, CA with his wife Marcie, daughter Katelyn, son Walker and a Bernese Mountain Dog named Hank. He can also walk, chew gum (same time), has decent 80's trivia chops and in younger times was a fairly accomplished volleyball coach.

Phil runs the mobile product design program for TurboTax as a Design Strategist at Intuit. With a focus on UX, he methodically planned the entire mobile user experience for the entire TurboTax line-up, including guiding the new architectural and technology strategies to enable the first-ever app that allows anyone in the US to prepare and file their taxes on their phone (or switch at anytime to their tablet or computer). Phil has authored over 10 patents for Intuit and sits on the Patent Review Committee for Intuit.  When he is not working on mobile strategy at Intuit, he can be found advising on the Board of startups like FieldLogix or out mountain biking.

Shiloh Barnat leads User Experience Strategy for Lokion Interactive where she manages a talented team of interaction designers, business analysts and information architects. She has provided ux strategy consulting, innovation workshops, audience analysis, usability consulting, information architecture and/or interaction design for numerous multi-national enterprise-level companies. She loves facilitation of ThinkFactory® workshops helping teams focus strategic priorities, envision better future stories and  align efforts into achievable ux strategy plans. Direct contact with real users continually reaffirming her passion for aligning business and technology strategy with human needs. And in her spare time, she established the region’s first usability-dedicated test lab. And she volunteers with Black Girls Code because she believes strongly in giving back and growing the next generation of talent.

Ben Judy is passionate about designing software for highly skilled professionals and the people they serve. Currently he brings veteran interaction design skills and thought leadership to the eXperience Design team within the Pro Tax Group at Intuit. In its first year, the team grew exponentially in size and pioneered a ‘mission-based’ staffing model aligned to strategic business priorities.

Prior to Intuit, Ben designed and strategized with innovative design teams in health care (Novation), commercial real estate (CBRE Labs), and travel (Sabre.)

Ben has presented at SXSW, Big (D)esign, and also talks to himself a lot. He’s a self-proclaimed ‘ambiguity assassin,’ bringing clarity to teams facing change and complexity. Ben is a happily converted Texan, but only says “y’all” ironically.

Kirsten Mann has over 20 years of experience in the IT industry, and 17 of these have been in the area of user experience.

As Director of Customer / User Experience at Aconex, Kirsten and her team create engaging and satisfying user experience with the Aconex platform; the most widely-used online collaboration platform in the world for construction, infrastructure, energy and resource projects.

Aconex has helped thousands of companies to manage project information and processes to the highest standard. Kirsten’s team help design the experiences that support these processes.

Andrew Hinton is an information architect at The Understanding Group, and the author of Understanding Context. Since the early 90s he's worked with companies to make habitable, delightful environments out of information. Andrew lives in a weird little neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Online, he tweets at @inkblurt and keeps a bunch of links about Andrew-things at andrewhinton.com. 

Paul Bryan is a user experience strategist and researcher who started designing e-commerce web sites in 1995. He consults with large organizations on the strategy, direction, and design of their e-commerce web sites and mobile apps. Paul organizes UX STRAT Europe and USA conferences, and manages the UX Strategy and Planning group on LinkedIn. He teaches user experience to graduate business students at the University of Georgia.

Paul Bryan is a user experience strategist and researcher who started designing e-commerce web sites in 1995. He consults with large organizations on the strategy, direction, and design of their e-commerce web sites and mobile apps. Paul organizes UX STRAT Europe and USA conferences, and manages the UX Strategy and Planning group on LinkedIn. He teaches user experience to graduate business students at the University of Georgia.

Jen is a User Experience (UX) Researcher at Facebook, where she works to understand users’ perceptions of privacy and security and to improve Facebook’s Privacy products. She specializes in eye tracking, experimental design, usability testing, survey design, and UX for older adults. Jen is the co-author of Eye Tracking in User Experience Design (2014) and Usability Testing for Survey Research (forthcoming, 2016). Previously, Jen led a UX team at Fors Marsh Group in the Washington DC area. She has served on User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA) boards for several years – both the international org (Director of Marketing and Communications) and the DC chapter (President, Vice President, Conference Chair). Jen is a recent transplant to the Bay area and is thoroughly enjoying the weather, the people, and the cable cars.

Emily Leahy manages UX Strategy and heads the Digital Return on Experience (ROX) program for IHG. She is responsible for leading continuous improvement of the web customer experience for IHG's 9 brands, which include Holiday Inn, Hotel Indigo, and Crowne Plaza. Emily's eclectic career began in 1999 with Information Architecture and User Research roles and branched into related areas such as Product Management and Digital Marketing Strategy for major corporations, startups, agencies, and software companies. Her academic background is in Library and Information Studies, with BS and MS degrees from Florida State University. At home in Roswell, Ga, Emily enjoys spending time with her husband and son hiking, riding bikes, and having epic water gun battles.

Gregg Bernstein leads qualitative research for MailChimp. He spends his days listening, thinking, collaborating, writing, and then listening some more. Before this, he taught design, branding, and typography for university students. In a previous life, he designed for clients in the music and advertising industries.

Gregg earned his MFA in Graphic Design from the Savannah College of Art & Design, where he researched the design of tax return forms and digital legal agreements. He’s been hooked on product research and design ever since.

He resides with his family in Athens, Georgia. In his spare time, he runs early and often.

Richard Dalton, AVP Experience Design, USAA
richard@mauvyrusset.com, @mauvyrusset
Richard has led design teams in large organizations for 15 years. He is a recognized thought-leader in the UX and IA field and chaired the 2008 IA Summit in Miami. He has spoken widely on the topic of maturing the Experience Design discipline and on establishing management and measurement frameworks for the experiences we create. He currently leads Design for USAA. His juggling is quite good and his guitar playing is not.

David Wertheimer is Vice President, Customer Experience at PR Newswire, the premier global provider of multimedia platforms and content distribution. He oversees the Research and Strategy, User Experience Design, and Ecommerce departments on global product and audience initiatives.

Prior to PR Newswire, David worked as a strategist for several digital agencies, where he guided the successful launch, repositioning, and growth of some of the ecommerce industry's most influential websites. He was an early usability specialist and a published author on user experience topics.

David is an advisor and consultant to numerous startups and part of the NYU Stern Venture Mentor Network. David's Ideapad is one of the world's oldest continually publishing blogs.

Lada is a UX strategy expert with two decades of experience in research, cross-cultural communication, product development, and professional development. She combines the depth of in-house experience at British Telecom, IBM and Microsoft with the breadth of extensive consulting expertise. Lada approaches every engagement as an opportunity to teach a client “how to fish”, and has helped many organizations to embrace User Experience as an integral part of their business and culture. Lada is a Founding Director of IxDA.

Hi, I'm Jon. I'm part enginerd, dot connector and UX problem solver. In my roles, I’ve been stuck in the middle between developers, creatives and executives, bringing sustainable experiences to public policy and infrastructure sectors, tackling civic and social problems equal parts gov, nonprofit and corporate. Once band geek, twice father and forever a Wildcat, I was farm-raised in rural Kansas and am now rooted in Kansas City. I’m inspired by analogies, aspire to be a better fisherman and am uninspired by marathon running. I volunteer with the local UXPAKC chapter, Code for America Brigade and at universities mentoring students in their social entrepreneurship journeys. Events I recently spoke at include SXSW, UXPAKC and the RUX community.

Alex Wright is the Director of Research at Etsy and a professor at the School of Visual Arts’ MFA program in Interaction Design. From 2007-2013, he was Director of User Experience and Product Research at The New York Times, and previously led UX design and research initiatives for IBM, Adobe/Macromedia, Harvard University, frog design, Yahoo!, and the Long Now Foundation, among others. He speaks frequently at industry events such as SxSW, Gartner Group, The Long Now Foundation, and the IA Summit. Alex has also written two books about the history of the information age, including his most recent: Cataloging the World: Paul Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age; his writing has also appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Salon.com. He maintains a personal website at www.alexwright.org

Paul Bryan is a user experience strategist and researcher who started designing e-commerce web sites in 1995. He consults with large organizations on the strategy, direction, and design of their e-commerce web sites and mobile apps. Paul organizes UX STRAT Europe and USA conferences, and manages the UX Strategy and Planning group on LinkedIn. He teaches user experience to graduate business students at the University of Georgia.