Higher Education Web Symposium
A conference focused on the unique challenges of web design and development in academia
July 14, 2009
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
Home > Speaker Bios
- Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
- Derek Featherstone, Founder, Further Ahead
- Lisa Neal Gualtieri, Adjunct Clinical Professor, Tufts University
- Todd Zaki Warfel, Partner & Design Research consultant, Messagefirst
Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal
User Interface Engineering
If you’ve ever seen Jared speak about usability, you know that he’s probably the most effective, knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. What you probably don’t know is that he has guided the research agenda and built User Interface Engineering into the largest research organization of its kind in the world. He’s been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term “usability” was ever associated with computers.
Jared spends his time working with the research teams at the company, helps clients understand how to solve their design problems, explains to reporters and industry analysts what the current state of design is all about, and is a top-rated speaker at more than 20 conferences every year. He is also the conference chair and keynote speaker at the annual User Interface Conference, is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute, and manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time.
Derek Featherstone
Founder, Further Ahead
Derek Featherstone is an internationally-known authority on accessibility and web development, and a respected technical trainer, and author. As founder of Ottawa based Further Ahead, he has been an in-demand consultant to government agencies, educational institutions and private sector companies since 1999.
His wealth of experience and insight as both a web developer and accessibility consultant enables him to provide audiences with immediately applicable, brilliantly simple approaches to everyday challenges in web site and application design. He serves as Lead of the Accessibility Task Force of the Web Standards Project, is also a member of the DOM Scripting Task Force and comments on a variety of subjects at the popular boxofchocolates.ca. He speaks regularly around the world on the topic of accessibility and is recognized as a thought leader in this highly specialized field.
Lisa Neal Gualtieri
Adjunct Clinical Professor, Tufts University
Lisa Neal Gualtieri is an adjunct clinical professor at Tufts University
School of Medicine, where she teaches a course on Online Consumer Health. She also teaches part of a course on Social Marketing and another on Media Strategies at Emerson College. When not teaching, Gualtieri consults with organizations including the National Institutes of Health, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Goucher College. Gualtieri earned a PhD in computer science from Harvard University and is editor-in-chief of eLearn Magazine. She writes a blog about health at http://lisagualtieri.com and a blog about e-learning at http://blog.acm.org/elearn.
Todd Zaki Warfel
Partner & Design Research consultant, Messagefirst
Todd Zaki Warfel is a founder and President at 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, Comcast, Citi, Cornell University, Hartford, IntraLinks, LA Times, Motorla, Palm, Sallie Mae, and SBC. Todd currently lives in Philadelphia, blogs at toddwarfel.com, and is currently working on his first book with Rosenfeld Media "A Practitioner's Guide to Prototyping" available in 2008.
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