Gail Swanson helps people solve product and service problems without blowing themselves up. Throughout her design career across many industries, she’s been dedicated to helping talented folks be effective at their jobs. Gail built the strategy practice at 18F, and has returned to public service improving the experience of disaster survivors as they recover and rebuild. Gail speaks and writes about all manners of design, strategy, and digital innovation.

Jason is a creative strategist, writer, and speaker who has written numerous books and articles about digital design and creative development. His books include the best selling CSS Visual Quickstart Guide and Final Cut Pro and the Art of Filmmaking.

Christian Crumlish is a product and UX leadership consultant at Design in Product, where he also hosts a product/UX community.

Will Hacker is a Manager of Interaction Design at Cars.com, where he leads a team responsible for experience design and usability for a portfolio of consumer-facing automotive shopping, research, and financing products.

Andy Hullinger is a design professor and the Program Chair for Web Design and Development at Harrington College of Design.

Dennis Kardys is a Chicago based UX designer and author with an affinity for all things mobile. He’s the author of the recently published Mobile Web Triage, and a contributing author to Smashing Magazine’s The Mobile Book.

Samantha Starmer is Vice President of Customer Experience for Razorfish’s national Commerce and Content practice, where she works on strategy and best practices for creating seamless experiences across all touchpoints of the customer shopping journey.

With the help of UserTesting.com’s archive of usability videos, Phil Sharp uncovers unique insights about design, UX, and conversion rate optimization, and then shares them with the rest of the world.

Dan LeBoeuf is a Senior UX Architect at Manifest Digital and graduate student at DePaul CDM studying HCI and Computer Science. With 16 years of industry experience, his career began as a visual designer.

Dan Shipton is the CEO of Change, a cash register app for the iPad built by BitMethod in Des Moines, Iowa. BitMethod is made up of mobile craftsmen who swoon over well-made apps and love finding ways of making complex things simple.

Jon Buda is web developer who loves to design, or a designer who loves to code–depending on the day. He enjoys solving problems holistically, thinking about back-end, front-end, and design all as equally important parts in crafting great experiences.

As a designer and front end developer, Shay Howe has a passion for solving problems while building creative and intuitive products. He specializes in user interface design and front end development, working inside HTML, CSS, and JavaScript on a daily basis.

Darby Frey is a software engineer and consultant who has worked on web and mobile applications for many clients including Groupon, Toyota, Paramount Pictures and others.

Golli Hashemian is a user experience architect in Chicago, currently working as a senior experience designer at R/GA. Her experience includes designing and developing web and mobile applications for companies like Accenture and IBM.

Representing the new breed of uber-brand journalist, Jacey recently graduated from Indiana University with a BA in Journalism which included a focus on web and graphic design; she also earned two minors in Theater and Psychology.

Simon King is a Principal Interaction Designer at IDEO Chicago where he leads both strategic–and implementation–focused work, designing macro- and micro-interactions across a diverse portfolio.

Greg Nudelman is a Mobile Experience Strategist and CEO of DesignCaffeine, Inc. For over 15 years he has helped his clients eBay, WebEx, Wells Fargo, PayPal, Safeway, Cisco, IBM, Associated Press and Groupon amass millions of satisfied customers.