Jeremy Barksdale

User Experience Research Manager, Unity Technologies
Councilmember, City of Bellevue

Jeremy Barksdale served on the City of Bellevue's Planning Commission prior to City Council. He now serves on the Board of Directors for Leadership Eastside and Fuse Washington.

Jeremy earned a PhD in Computer Science (with a concentration in HCI) and a master’s in Public Administration from Virginia Tech. He earned a bachelor's degree in Broadcast Production with a minor in Business Administration, and a master of science degree in Computer Science with a concentration in software engineering from North Carolina A&T State University.

Jeremy’s personal interests include volunteering in the community, playing musical instruments, singing, reading, hiking and biking. He lives in south Bellevue.

Jeremy Beasley

UX Design Lead, Google

Jeremy is a UX design lead at Google, focusing on emerging technologies and platforms.

He has over 15 years of experience crafting product vision and design strategy in a range of environments: large tech (Microsoft, Google, Apple), design and technology consultancies and early-stage startups.

Jeremy has a passion for local design and creative communities. He organizes CreativeMornings/Seattle, has taught at School of Visual Concepts, mentored capstone projects in MHCID program and serves on the board of the Museum of Pop Culture. 

Pernille Bjørn

Professor, Computer Science University of Copenhagen, DIKU

Pernille Bjørn is Professor & Deputy Head of Department for Research at the Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen (DIKU), Denmark.

Pernille's main interest is to investigate how people collaborate within complex work arrangement aiming at developing concepts useful for the design of collaborative technologies, and her main research area is Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). She has conducted ethnographic studies of collaborative work practices in several domains such as healthcare, engineering, tech entrepreneurship, and software development. Currently, she has three different research interests: 1) Diversity in Computer Science, 2) Cooperative Virtual Reality in Industry, and 3) The future of Hybrid work. Professor Bjørn just published her second book ‘Diversity in Computer Science - design artefacts for equity & inclusion’ in October 2022.

Carol Dahl

Chair, Program Advisory Council of Grand Challenges Canada
Chair, Nomination Evaluation Committee for US National Medal of Technology and Innovation

Carol Dahl has over three decades of experience cultivating science and technology-based discovery and innovation, innovation ecosystems, and innovation talent in support of addressing critical challenges such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), fostering economic growth, and creating high quality jobs. She currently chairs the Program Advisory Council of Grand Challenges Canada and the Nomination Evaluation Committee for the US National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and serves on the Boards of VentureWell, VertueLab, the Washington Research Foundation, and WiSys.

As the Executive Director of The Lemelson Foundation from 2011 to 2021, Dr. Dahl led the Foundation’s work to use the power of invention to improve lives, by cultivating inclusive programs and systems to inspire and educate the next generation of inventors and innovators to solve crucial challenges and thrive in the innovation economy, and providing inclusive support for inventors and entrepreneurs to create value from their ideas in the form of products and businesses. While there, she paved the way for the launch of the Invention Education and Engineering for One Planet movements, with large and growing communities of researchers focused on innovation talent for a sustainable future. 

Prior to joining The Lemelson Foundation, Dr. Dahl served as founding Director of the Global Health Discovery Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and led development of the Grand Challenges in Global Health and Grand Challenges Explorations programs, innovation programs which have been replicated in countries around the world.

Previously, Dr. Dahl worked at the NIH National Cancer Institute, at the National Center for Human Genome Research, at a start-up diagnostics company, the Advanced Technology Program at NIST, and was on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh. She received a bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa, master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Wisconsin, and postdoctoral training at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and the University of Minnesota.

Adam Drolet

Program Officer, Water & Sanitation, PATH

Adam Drolet is a global public health professional with 15 years of experience advancing policy, research and program design, and implementation on a variety of health topics. His primary expertise is in the WASH sector, where he currently manages global WASH programs at PATH (www.path.org), specializing in WASH in healthcare facility service improvements. Adam has served as a strategic advisor and technical project lead on topics ranging from product development and introduction programs, product and service landscaping, market and technological assessments, consumer and enterprise financing strategies, and user evaluations. He received his Masters of Arts in International Development from the George Washington University.

Liz Gerber

Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Communication Studies, Northwestern University
Co-Director, Center for Human Computer Interaction + Design

Liz Gerber is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Communication Studies and, by courtesy, Computer Science and Learning Sciences at Northwestern University and the Co-Director and Co-Founder of the Center for Human Computer Interaction and Design.
 
Liz helps organizations design and implement new technologies to effectively collaborate. She is particularly interested in how new social technologies enable new ways to share and create new information with diverse stakeholders; how the new sources of information change how people work and how the shifts in the way people work changes the role of the organization. Her work cuts across design, computer science, and organizational studies, is generously supported by the National Science Foundation and industry, and informed by her formal training in product design, management science, and studio art at Stanford University and Dartmouth College.
 
Liz consults with profits and nonprofits about how to manage the human side of technology implementation. Recent engagements focused on helping companies use social technology to increase knowledge sharing internally and externally to strengthen product development. Her work has been featured in outlets including NPR, ABC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Forbes, The Guardian, Harvard Business Review, and Wired.

Gillian Hayes

Vice Provost for Graduate Education & Dean of the Graduate Division, University of California, Irvine
Robert A. & Barbara L. Kleist Professor of Informatics, School of Information and Computer Sciences & School of Education & School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine

Gillian Hayes is the Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate Division at UC Irvine. In my professor life, I am  the Robert A. and Barbara L. Kleist Professor of Informatics in the School of Information and Computer Sciences and in the School of Education and School of Medicine at UC Irvine. Her research interests are in human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, assistive and educational technologies, and health informatics. She and her students and postdocs focus on designing, developing, deploying, and evaluating technologies to empower people to use collected data to address real human needs in sensitive and ethically responsible ways. She co-directs the Jacobs Foundation CERES global network.

Natasha N. Jones

Associate Professor, Michigan State University
President, Association of Teachers of Technical Writing

Natasha N. Jones is a technical communication scholar and co-author of the book Technical Communication after the Social Justice Turn: Building Coalitions for Action (winner of the 2021 CCCC Best Book in Technical or Scientific Communication). Her research interests include social justice, narrative, and technical communication pedagogy. She holds herself especially accountable to Black women and marginalized genders and other systemically marginalized communities. As such, she strives to conscientiously center the narratives and experiences of those at the margins in her scholarship. Her work has been published in a several journals including, Technical Communication Quarterly, the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, and the Journal of Business and Technical Communication. She has received national recognition for her contributions, being awarded the CCCC Best Article in Technical and Scientific Communication (2020, 2018, and 2014) and the Nell Ann Pickett Award (2017). She currently serves as the President for the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) and is an Associate Professor at Michigan State University in the Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures department. 

Liz Juhnke

Principal Product Designer, The Home Depot

Liz is a Principal Product Designer at The Home Depot with a specialty in designing complex enterprise software. Previously at Boeing, Liz was the Principal Product Designer for the IT Connected Factory team and the founder of the UX Community of Excellence. She holds Boeing Designated Expert Awards in User Experience, Design Thinking, Human Computer Interaction and Software Design and was honored with a Boeing Associate Technical Fellowship in 2021. Liz received one Meritorious Invention Award, one patent and one Innovation Award for software she designed throughout her tenure at Boeing. 

Liz loves teaching user centered design at universities, speaking at conferences and leading experiential workshops (such as the Design-a-thon for social good 2021). She also loves mentoring aspiring UX Designers through the Informatics department (UW), HCDE department (UW), and ADPList. Liz holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Informatics (HCI) from the University of Washington and a Master of Science degree in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University. 

Daniella Kim

Principal User Researcher & Founder, Halibut Flats

Daniella Kim, PhD, is the principal user researcher and founder of Halibut Flats Research and Development. She is an academically trained experimental psychologist with over 15 years of research experience. Daniella spent seven years at the University of Washington, investigating how babies listen to and hear music. Most recently she is teaching a class on Toddler iPad Game development at the UW and on faculty at the Art Institute of Seattle where she taught Psychology and Acoustics. Daniella has recently been investigating the acquisition of gestural communication by digital natives. She loves the spark of collaboration in UX and believes that good experience is a priority in all interactions.

Erin McLean

Experience Design Lead for Space Systems Development, Blue Origin

Erin McLean is a design strategist and alumni of the HCDE bachelors program. Her career has spanned hospitality, theme parks, consumer hardware devices, and digital apps. Currently, she is an Experience Design Lead for Space Systems Development at Blue Origin. Her work involves spearheading the design and technical development of astronaut experiences in orbital, lunar, and in-space transport settings. In addition, Erin has built several Accessibility & Inclusive Design programs across her career and participates in the development of design knowledge regarding accessibility solutions in-space.

Dimeji Onafuwa

Principal UX Research Manager, Microsoft

Dr. Dimeji Onafuwa is a researcher, designer, artist, and educator whose interests intersect with transition design, the pluriverse, and enabling better user experiences. He is currently a Principal UX Research Manager at Microsoft. Dimeji earned a Ph.D. in Design from Carnegie Mellon University. While at CMU, his research study sought to understand commons-based approaches to user experience on platforms. During his doctoral study, he worked with different collectives to understand how platforms enable resource negotiation. Dimeji also holds an MBA in management from UNC Charlotte and BAs in design and studio art from Concord University.
 
Dimeji co-founded Common Cause Collective, an interdisciplinary group of designers exploring transition design methodologies for social impact in the Pacific Northwest. He has published papers, written book chapters, delivered several talks & keynote addresses, and led workshops on design's role in social justice. Dimeji's art has been featured in exhibitions at galleries and museums. 

Behzod Sirjani

Founder, Yet Another Studio

Behzod Sirjani is a research consultant, advisor, and investor. He founded Yet Another Studio to help people bring more rigor to their curiosity and organizations build better research practices, working with everyone from two person teams up to companies like Figma and Dropbox. He is also an Executive in Residence and Program Partner at Reforge, where he built and leads the User Insights for Product Decisions program, and a Venture Partner at El Cap.

Previously, Behzod led Research Operations at Slack and was a Senior UX Researcher at Facebook, where he co-founded the Research Associates Program. He cares deeply about sharing and teaching the practice of research, and has experience conducting research in consumer and enterprise settings across North America, Europe, and Asia. Behzod earned a MS in Human Centered Design & Engineering from the University of Washington and a BA in Rhetoric & Media Studies from Willamette University.

Carolyn Wei

UX Research Lead at Facebook

Carolyn Wei is a user experience research lead at Facebook. She has previously worked as a user experience researcher for Microsoft and Google. She studies consumers and enterprise users in the lab and in the wild. Carolyn received a PhD from Human Centered Design and Engineering (then known as Technical Communication) at the University of Washington in 2007, where she studied technology use in digitally emergent settings.

Haiyan Zhang

General Manager, Gaming AI, Microsoft Gaming

Haiyan is Chief of Staff at Xbox, Microsoft’s Gaming division. She was formerly Senior Director of Innovation at Microsoft Research Cambridge and Technical Advisor to Lab Director, Christopher Bishop. She has also served as an inventor and TV host on the BBC series, Big Life Fix, inventing cutting-edge technology in support of people and communities in need.

An innovation and technology leader, Haiyan has spent the past 20 years working hands-on in software engineering, user experience, hardware R&D, service design, Cloud platforms, design thinking and blue-sky envisioning. She continues to push on the boundaries where technology can transform people’s lives for the better.

Previously roles include Innovation Director at Xbox Games Studio; Co-Founder, Design & Development Lead for the SaaS platform, OpenIDEO. With over 150,000 users worldwide solving challenges for social good and used as the enterprise innovation engine for organizations such as British Airways, DeutscheBank, Harvard Business School.

Working at the design consultancy, IDEO, Haiyan has created innovative tech experiences for community building, entertainment, financial services. She has worked with leading video game makers on research and ideas for new play experiences. Clients have included Mattel, Electronic Arts, HBO, Citibank, France Telecom, Alcatel, Cisco, and AT&T.

Haiyan’s work is informed by her previous profession as a software engineer & user interface designer creating applications for the biomedical & data-mining industries.

Haiyan has a Masters degree with Distinction in Interaction Design from the renowned Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, and has a Bachelor of Computer Science (1st-Class Honours) from Monash University, Australia.