Category: Speakers

Andrew Nacin

Andrew Nacin is a Lead Developer of WordPress. He’s led major releases, mentored contributors, and spearheaded new development. He has strong feelings about the core philosophies of WordPress, among them “decisions, not options” — software should be opinionated in lieu of burdening the user with too many options. In January 2014, he joined the U.S. Digital Service where he worked to improve the usefulness and reliability of the country’s most important digital services. He currently works for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Stephanie Walters

Stephanie began her career as a freelance designer / developer but soon moved on to a fast-paced, global marketing services firm in 2010 as a frontend developer. Throughout her career, Stephanie has worked for multiple agencies and created custom solutions for a diverse range of clients including Fortune 500 companies and big pharmaceuticals, as well as small law practices and young start-ups. Currently, Stephanie is a Senior Web Engineer at 10up with 6 years of WordPress experience. Stephanie was born and raised in New Jersey but currently resides in northern Virginia with her husband and their two dogs. She is an active member of the Potomac Curling Club, a yoga practitioner, and a New Jersey Devils hockey fan.

Jessica Parsley

As an Associate Director of Project Management for Matrix Group International, Jessica oversees the day-to-day execution of projects by collaborating with the Matrix Group team and constantly communicating and guiding clients, to ensure everything stays on track and within budget. Jessica has managed web redesign projects for nearly ten years, and has an impressive ability to keep dozens of plates spinning at once while keeping clients happy.

Portia Burton

Portia Burton is principal developer at Cecil Digital Agency. Before Cecil Digital Agency she worked as a community engineer at Protocol Labs and as a software developer at the Atlantic Magazine.

Danielle Held

Danielle Held is on the Web Services team at Georgetown University.

Danielle is a senior project manager who is responsible for helping content editors build and maintain their websites and is passionate about developing a communications strategy with site editors. She also loves baking cakes (and eating them, too) and practices vinyasa yoga.

Mikel King

Mikel the VP of Engineering at Haymarket Media Inc and has been a Technology leader for over 20+ years. He is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard and early in his career was a columnist for BSD Magazine, He has written for BitRebels and Huffington Post and is currently serving as the Senior Editor of JAFDIP.com.

George Stephanis

George (he/him) works on the Jetpack Security team at Automattic, building tools and systems to help keep WordPress sites safe. He has also been a contributor to the WordPress core software for the past nine years. In his “spare time” (theoretical, not yet proven to exist), he enjoys woodworking, 3D design and printing, electronics projects, and assorted card and board games.

Catharine McNally

Catharine McNally is the accessibility lead at Phase2, a digital experience agency. Addressing accessibility on a website or mobile application can be overwhelming and confusing, that “looking the other way and begging forgiveness later” is a common approach. But this leads to technical debt and inaccessible user experiences that affect everyone, not just those with disabilities. Adoption of accessibility on a product succeeds best not when under regulatory pressure, but when there’s an organizational culture shift. McNally has devoted her career to training and consulting internal teams and clients around the country to implement and prioritize accessibility processes and programs. Both at Phase2 Technology and as chair of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, her work has been recognized by the American Association of People with DIsabilities and listed in the “Tech Titans: People to Watch” feature by the Washingtonian Magazine.

Tara Johnson

Tara Johnson is the founder of AlchemyThree: a digital agency focused on the empowerment of women owned businesses. She’s committed to humanizing the online experience by way of smart design, compelling content and elevated branding. In her free time Tara loves to knit, ride bikes, hang out with her 2 kids and watch scary movies.

Dustin Pfeifer

Dustin Pfeifer has over 16 years of experience designing and developing websites. Dustin’s wide range of experience includes full life-cycle work for ecommerce, nonprofit, and higher education organizations. Since co-founding Drexler in 2009, Dustin has utilized this extensive development knowledge to build forward-thinking sites for clients including, Evergreen Health, California Tortilla, United States Naval Academy, and many others. As Drexler’s technical director, Dustin ensures all digital work is held to the highest technical standards.

Jaime Quiroz

As a Lead Front-End Developer at Matrix Group International, Jaime is charged with implementing CMS systems, migrating data and creating custom modules and widgets. He’s an experienced javascript developer, often tasked with creating the immersive and highly interactive experiences that his clients love. Jaime is also in charge of helping Matrix Group identify front-end trends and tools that will make client sites better. He is a wizard at working with Sitefinity and WordPress content management systems and he has developed many mobile apps, including an Apple Watch App and a benefits calculator.

Courtney OCallaghan

Who I am … professional listener, enthusiastic teacher, culture connoisseur, museum digital technologist, book hoarder, rabid museum lover, CA native, proud DC resident in search of an ocean.

Kevin Koehler

A proud longtime citizen of D.C., Kevin works at Automattic trying to make the web a better place through policy, humane technology, and animated gifs.

We have MORE wonderful speakers! Meet them!

Joni Halabi

Joni is a Senior Web Developer for Georgetown University. She specializes in developing CMS themes and Javascript applications, and has spent the last 20 years building solutions for higher education, e-commerce corporations, non-profit organizations, and technology companies. Joni has a BS in Computer Science and Electronic Media and a MFA in Electronic Arts, both from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Outside of work, Joni is a single mom to an amazing toddler, a long-distance runner, and a lover of live music. Learn more at https://thatdevgirl.com and https://jhalabi.com.

Russell Heimlich

Russell Heimlich has been wrangling the interwebz since the dawn of the century. By day he is a Senior Interactive Developer at nclud, a provocative creative agency. By night he is a small human co-wrangler of two daughters with the help from his partner in crime, Kristina. True to his name, he is capable of life-saving choking maneuvers for the greater human good. Milkshakes make him smile.

Tracy Levesque

Tracy Levesque is the co-owner and co-founder of YIKES, Inc. a web design and development agency located in Philadelphia. Women and LGBT owned, YIKES is a proud WordPress VIP agency partner and certified B Corporation focusing on sustainable business practices and observing the triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profits.

Tracy has been involved with web development since the 90s and at YIKES you can find her managing projects, running discovery meetings and working on business development. Tracy also loves to teach and present on all things WordPress. She has spoken at WordCamps Philly, New York, Montreal, San Francisco, San Diego, Lancaster and WordCamp US. She was also a contributor to multiple versions of WordPress and gave the keynote at WordCamp Philly 2018. As a former Girl Develop It instructor, Tracy developed and taught the WordPress curriculum for GDI, and co-developed and taught the Web development program for inmates at Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution.

When not behind a computer, Tracy loves to enjoy the Philly food scene, ride her bike around the city, play drums, hang out with her wife & daughter and watch a lot of television.

Jeannette Washington, M.Ed.

Jeannette Washington, M.Ed. worked as a speech pathologist and software engineer before facilitating the first ever WordCamp talk about programming while dyslexic. She recently released the book Technical Difficulties: Why Dyslexic Narratives Matter In Tech. Jeannette owns Bearly Articulating a diversity, equity and inclusion think tank.

John F. Croston III

John has 18+ years of experience of mainframe programming (COBOL) and 14+ years of web programming experience and about 10 years of that has been accessibility related.

Mauricio Dinarte

Mauricio Dinarte is passionate about open source, teaching, and traveling. Over the years, he has presented 30+ sessions and trainings in events across America and Europe, including WordCamp US and DrupalCon. He serves as a lead organizer of the Nicaraguan Drupal community. He also volunteers with the WordPress community helping organize WordCamp Managua. Mauricio believes in the value of communities working together and looks for collaboration opportunities and ways to learn from each other.

Laura Byrne Cristiano

Laura began her career with non-profits, where marketing the mission was part of everyone’s job. After dabbling in FrontPage for a few years, Laura found WordPress in 2006 when she and a friend unexpectedly created a viral website. Thrust into a vortex of website management meets Hollywood, her marketing arsenal exponentially grew with new skill sets in SEO, social media strategy, podcasting, event management, and more. These days, Laura works for Bet Hannon Marketing. She’s created/written content for over 50 WordPress sites mostly in the non-profit and entertainment worlds. Laura currently resides in Philadelphia, PA with her husband, Kevin, and dog, Scully.

Joseph Parsley

Even though his title is simply Front-End Developer at Matrix Group International, Joseph wears a lot of hats. While most of his day is spent making sure all web pages look good and work efficiently, he’s also the company’s go-to resource for all things Google Analytics. He also helps to migrate content, test websites in different browsers and devices, and, perhaps most importantly, helps clients create and manage their analytics reports.

Chris Walbert

Joining Drexler in 2010, Chris Walbert has a wide range of marketing and writing experience that he brings to our clients. Over the last 16 years, Chris has worked extensively in strategy, copywriting, account management and various marketing disciplines, including digital media planning, email, and search. As part of the Drexler team, Chris leads our Crate&Barrel / CB2 account and works with Ceremony Coffee, Chrysler Museum of Art, Mt. Cuba Center, and many others.

Dharma Pachner

Dharma Pachner is the Founder and Creative Director of Contrast & Co. (www.contrastandco.com), an award-winning boutique brand strategy and design driven to create strikingly different brand experiences. From industry startups to established national players, Dharma and his team have conceived award-winning brands that defy industry conventions and power their clients to stand out in the great sea of similarity.  Prior to founding Contrast & Co., he has been the Creative, Interactive, and User-Experience Director at DC’s leading creative and digital agencies including HZDG (www.hzdg.com) and the recently acquired Chief, now known as U-Group (www.u.group).

In the span of his career, Dharma has reimagined and redefined brands for the most visible organizations in the world including Disney, The Department of State, Sandals Resorts, Hyundai, Seventh Generation, Newman’s Own Foundation, and Rockefeller Center. For as long as he can remember, he has been challenging conventions and exploring the undiscovered. He stumbled into this industry two decades ago as a somewhat fresh-faced young designer, and has continued to invent—and reinvent—himself every day since. In the span of his career, he has been a designer, a developer, an information architect, user experience lead, and the creative visionary behind hundreds of projects who has inspired countless others along the way.

But his best days still lie ahead, and Dharma is determined to continue to create brand experiences that leave a powerful and lasting mark in this industry. The world of branding and design will always be filled with constraints, and it is tempting to succumb to them. But real opportunity usually lies deeply buried within the insurmountable, and that is exactly the space you will find him exploring. 

Michelle Schulp

Michelle is an independent graphic designer and frontend developer in Minneapolis. Prior to beginning her career, she studied Visual Communications, with minors in Psychology and Sociology. As her work progressed, she also branched into front-end development and user experience design to round our her skillset. This combination of disciplines led her to adopt a strategy-based approach to design, focused on solving tangible problems and achieving real goals based on how people think. Now, she collaborates on projects with clients ranging from solopreneurs to enterprise. She loves the open source community, and when she is not working on projects she speaks/volunteers/organizes at events and workshops around the country. Her passions are communication and empowerment, and she believes in the power of “Why?”

Jacob Hardbower

As the Front-End Developer at Greenpeace USA, Jacob has spent the past three years utilizing WordPress to create a content-publishing environment for staff at all skill levels.

A lovely hello to more lovely speakers who will be at WordCamp DC!

Melanie Phung

Melanie Phung is a digital marketing consultant specializing in search engine optimization and content strategy, with a successful track record of driving results for businesses, education sites, and non-profit organizations. She has worked with brands such as PBS (and its affiliates) and the World Bank – to audit websites, launch content programs, lead workshops and, in some cases, grow organic search traffic by more than 500%.

Kelly Dwan

Kelly Dwan has been a developer for over 10 years, with the last 5 at Automattic. She’s worked across Jetpack, WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and now builds tools for WordPress community events. For the last year, she’s had a focus on modernizing existing workflows to use Gutenberg, and is excited to share the future with everyone. She is also passionate about accessibility, both on the web and in real life.

Adam Silverstein

Adam started programming writing games in assembly code, and eventually a CMS in Java and many websites before discovering and embracing WordPress. He is an active core committer and focused on improving WordPress core’s JavaScript. Adam is a Developer Programs Engineer at Google where he helps make the open web better for everyone by empowering developers. Adam loves long rafting trips, playing mbira, travel, taking walks and tending his over-sized garden.

Marissa Goldsmith

Marissa Goldsmith is a digital analytics specialist from Washington, DC. She works with not-for-profit organisations, governments, and SMEs on auditing and implementing digital data collection strategies, helping them to use the data gleaned from analytics reports in a privacy-friendly way to maximise donations and resource allocation. When she’s not elbow-deep in spreadsheets (and loving it!), her side-passion is accessibility.

Michael Dance

Michael has been building websites with WordPress for over ten years. He currently works as a web developer for the Motley Fool’s Global Tech team.

Eileen Violini

I’m a designer and developer of user experiences and interfaces for WordPress websites and products. With over seven years experience building WordPress solutions, I currently put my skills to work for nonprofits, organizations and agencies as cofounder at Sidetrack.Studio and wpBlockShop.com specializing engineering custom WordPress block solutions and site conversions for organizations upgrading to the new editor. Get in touch on my website beyondpretty.design, @itsjusteileen on Github, WordPress.org and WordPress Slack and on Twitter @itsjusteileen.

Solomon Scott

Solomon is based in Washington D.C. where he is a Full Stack developer at Reaktiv Studios. There he helps to solve and build solutions to suit a client’s needs. He has plenty of experience developing products from the ground up into functional websites and applications. When he’s not coding, you can find him playing tennis, practicing and coaching flying trapeze, reading comics, traveling, or watching cult classic movies.

Kyle Bondo

Kyle M. Bondo is dedicated to simplifying the complicated world of Podcasting. As the Chief Creative at Gagglepod, and co-host of Podwrecked, Kyle has been podcasting for 5 years, designed and produced several podcasts, and hopes to make a small dent in your podcasting universe by evangelizing the principles behind good podcast design.

Cami Kaos

Cami lives, works, and parents in the rainy city of Portland, Oregon. She’s had a love of WordPress and WordCamps since the last century, when she happened to stumble upon the first WordCamp Portland. Since 2013, she has worked at Automattic, as a community organizer for the WordPress open source project. In that role, she gets to work with WordCamps and their organizers from around the world, every day. She continues to write on an irregular basis at camikaos.com where she explores concepts from the plight of modern parents to mental health to marveling at the seemingly mundane. Cami is active on a number of social platforms but can be most readily found as @camikaos on Twitter.

Matt Kopala

Matt is the founder of SiteDistrict, a powerful & flexible WordPress hosting platform. He has a degree in Computer Engineering, and started off his professional career as a member of the design team for AMD’s first 64-bit processor. Matt is passionate about understanding and helping people solve technical problems. He feels that WordPress hosts should do as much as possible to provide good performance, security, and automation, so that you can focus on your business while your host takes care of the rest. He enjoys travel and previously spent 3.5 years backpacking non-stop across South America, Oceania, and Asia.

Micah Wood

A professional WordPress developer for over a decade, Micah has worked on sites for Fortune 100 companies, has released over a dozen WordPress plugins, is a frequent speaker at WordCamps, is a WordCamp Atlanta organizer, is a co-host on the WP Square One podcast, and shares his knowledge by blogging on WordPress development topics. Currently, Micah works at Bluehost and spends most of his time contributing back to WordPress.

Corey Brown

Corey Brown is the Director of Web Services at Knucklepuck (Knucklepuck acquired his agency in 2018). He offers expertise from over 23 years of designing, inventing, building, leading and tweaking successful websites spanning publishing, e-commerce, social platforms and user-generated content. He’s also a WordPress evangelist and enthusiast, working exclusively with that platform as a CMS. Corey is the CEO and founder of No Treble (notreble.com), now the most read magazine for bassists, online or off. Corey was the COO and cofounder of Squidoo.com, the popular user-generated content platform he started with Seth Godin in 2005. From 1998-2003, Corey was the CEO of Solutions Factory, a web strategy, custom content, design, and development firm based in the Washington, DC area. During the go-nuts-now, make-money-later 1990’s, Corey still managed to run the highly profitable web division of Another Universe, where he designed and led development on a contextual commerce platform. He also led business development on e-commerce partnerships with The Sci-Fi Channel, Marvel, and Sony. Corey was one of the first to use Paul Graham’s Viaweb, soon generating the highest sales of all Viaweb stores. Corey has been staring at a computer screen for hours on end since the 1980s (first, a VIC-20). To keep his eyes from crossing, he spends time goofing off with his daughters and granddaughter, playing bass and piano, and tinkering with his always growing list of new ideas.

We are super excited to see all of these folks and more at our second WordCamp DC!

Let’s meet our second group of speakers:

Kimberly Cottrell

I’ve been a heavily-caffeinated, professional web developer for almost 10 years now, and have worked as a freelancer, an agency consultant, and these days, as a full-stack developer over at The Motley Fool’s Global Tech team.

Nick Croft

Nick “the Geek” Croft has been developing with WordPress for over a decade. Today he is a senior developer for Reaktiv Studios, a WordPress VIP Partner. He has created several plugins for WordPress.org mostly using the Genesis framework as well as custom work for clients and his employer. Nick is the author of the Genesis Explained, a book that focuses on Genesis theme framework. Lately, he has focused on writing highly efficient code, automating all the things, improving in Javascript and React, security, and accessibility. When he’s not working, he enjoys spending time with his wife, 4 children, and a puppy and lives on a quiet cul de sac in the Shenandoah Valley. He also enjoys home improvement projects, hiking, and river activities.

Sabrina Liao

Sabrina Liao has a passion for all things creative, fun and challenging. She has worked at a top agency on global brands in Asia as the Creative Director. Her work consists of UX research and educating future designers/developers at universities and providing digital solutions to Fortune 500 companies as well as government agencies. She has an extensive background in music, published seven books in Technology, life in New York City and Chinese Astrology, and also an avid tennis player/Federer fan. She looks forward to meeting, sharing and learning from other WordPress enthusiasts at WordCamps Worldwide.

Reed Piernock

Reed Piernock is on the Web Services team at Georgetown University. Reed is a senior front-end web developer, is a stickler about code standards and a major advocate for web accessibility. They are also a grad student who knits socks and sings in a competitive karaoke league.

Taylor Lovett

Taylor Lovett is the Vice President of Engineering at 10up, one of the biggest WordPress centric agencies in the world. Having been involved with WordPress since 2007, he is the creator of ElasticPress, contributed to WordPress core, authored popular plugins (downloaded over a million times), and spoken at many conferences across multiple continents. He is a lover of all things open-source. Other than developing web applications, Taylor is a lover of music. He enjoys listening to blues and jazz music as well as playing acoustic fingerstyle guitar.

Allie Nimmons

Allie is a self-taught WordPress user. She does support and community outreach at GiveWP and is a GoDaddy Pro Ambassador. She provided website design and development for 3 years and she currently runs Pixel Glow Maintenance, providing WordPress maintenance services to other busy business owners. She lives in Miami, Florida with her fiance, Greg. Her biggest joy comes from talking to other WordPress community members about how to maintain and foster positive and inclusive environments on the web.

Rian Kinney

Founder of Kinney Firm and eCommLegal, Rian is a tech and privacy attorney, legal consultant, and published author. Kinney Firm represents and advises founders and businesses of every size, from freelancers to enterprise; across industries in the areas of intellectual property, e-commerce, privacy and corporate law, as well as business and marketing strategy. Actively engaged in the Open Source and WordPress communities, she has spoken at conferences nationally and internationally on topics ranging from “The Future of Open Source” to “How to CYA Your Site” and “The Key Differences Between EU and US Privacy Law”. Rian was recently appointed Vice-Chair of the American Bar Association, Section on Science and Technology’s Committee on Open Source Software and she holds the International Association of Privacy Professionals’ CIPP/E and CIPM designations.

Francesca Marano

Francesca is the WordPress Community Manager at SiteGround, the independent web hosting company. She is the current release co-lead for WordPress, where she serves as the project coordinator. She founded C+B, a blog with an editorial staff of more than eighty authors offering advice for Italian female creative entrepreneurs. Francesca is a passionate speaker and you can find her around the world talking about WordPress, community, open-source, women in tech, and small businesses.

Aaron Jorbin

Aaron Jorbin is a polyhistoric man of the web who knows rabble-rousers get shit done. Currently, Aaron is the Director of Editorial Technology for Penske Media Corporation, where he supports the editorial and business teams on over 20 brands including Rolling Stone, Variety, and Footwear News. He is also a WordPress Core Committer that focuses on improving developer happiness and making the internet usable and enjoyable by everyone. He tweets at @aaronjorbin and can be found on his site https://aaron.jorb.in

Mark Wahl

Mark Wahl helps build teams and manage processes to create digital products and services, often using WordPress! He is Technical Director at the Jake Group, a DC-based digital agency.

Tracy Rotton

Tracy Rotton (she/her) is Founder and Principal of Taupecat Studios, an independent WordPress development agency based in North Bethesda, Maryland. She has been a web developer for over twenty years, and a WordPress developer for ten, specializing in custom theme and site development for nonprofits and the enterprise. She has spoken at WordCamps throughout the eastern United States and has been a core contributor to WordPress and related projects.

Afshana Diya

Afshana Diya is Growth Strategist & CMO of WPDeveloper where she is helping to accelerate business growth and the company is currently serving 500,000+ users from 120+ countries around the world. Prior to her current position, she has worked with a couple of WordPress brands to get results by changing the way they use their digital channels. She is the only female co-organizer of WordPress Dhaka Chapter, organized multiple meetups and WordCamp Dhaka 2019. She has also volunteered & spoken in different WordCamps around South Asia.

Nick Adams

Nick Adams is a Connecticut native living in New York and is the COO at WP Buffs. He loves talking about WordPress, design and business.

After reviewing more than a hundred and fifty speaker applications, we’re thrilled to start introducing the fantastic people from DC and beyond who will speak at our second WordCamp DC!

Without further ado, let’s meet our first group of speakers:

Joe Howard

Hi! Joe here. I’m the Head Buff at WP Buffs, a 24/7 WordPress website maintenance service for serious website owners and white-label partners. Whether you’re looking after 1 site or 1000, we’ve got your back! I also run WPMRR, a robust video course that teaches WordPress professionals how to implement, sell and execute ongoing care plans for their clients and increase their revenue every single month. Or you can just tune into The WPMRR WordPress podcast entirely focused on growing successful WordPress businesses and monthly recurring revenue. Boom!

Mel Choyce

Mel Choyce is a wicked awesome product designer based in Boston, Massachusetts. Not only is Mel a WordPress Core Committer and former Release Lead, she is a regular core contributor and speaks frequently at WordCamps on design, typography, and user experience. When Mel isn’t designing products at Automattic, she enjoys cold brew coffee, craft beer, and rocking out in her band. Say hi to her on Twitter at @melchoyce, and visit her site at choycedesign.com.

Tiffany Bridge

Tiffany Bridge has been building websites for over 20 years, sometimes for herself, sometimes for others. Along the way, she has honed her skills in digital strategy, cat-herding, and checklist development. After years of experience in recruiting, associations, and the federal space, now she’s helping interesting organizations and individuals have an excellent experience with WordPress as part of Automattic’s Special Projects Team.

Romona Foster

Romona Foster is a highly endorsed social media trainer and consultant teaching small businesses and nonprofits how to leverage and brand their businesses through the use of social media. She trains groups and individuals on how to use LinkedIn, how to market their business on Facebook, all about Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WordPress, Google My Business, the best practices of Email Marketing, Online Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, and Personal Branding.

Katherine Ong

Katherine Watier Ong is an online marketing trainer, public speaker, and consultant. She has over 20 years of experience in communications strategy and online delivery of communications messages, including thirteen years of SEO, social media, SEM, and web analytics management. Katherine is an accomplished trainer on online marketing strategy and tactics and has provided online marketing strategy and training for a number of clients, including: Fisheries.NOAA.gov National Cancer Institute (Cancer.gov) (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (HealthIT.gov) American College of Cardiology Legends of Learning New York Health Benefits Exchange (NYStateofHealth.gov) Cleveland Clinic RollCall.com Razoo.com FedEx IBM Dignity Health Conagra Express Scripts Caris Life Sciences National Honey Board GHI International Environmental Working Group WattAgNet.com Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Westat Ms. Ong is most proud of the fact that she has trained (often from scratch) a total of 16 young people on her various teams that are now employed as digital strategists at various online marketing firms around the country.

John Cornthwait

John Cornthwait is the Partner + Director of Products at Firefli and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Virginia Western Community College. He holds a MS in Information Architecture and UX from Kent State University. John has presented “How to Win at Information Architecture” at WordCamp DC and WordCamp Raleigh. He works across industries with regional and global companies to design products that drive business. John’s work has been recognized by The Webby Awards, American Advertising Federation, and Public Relations Society of America.

Mika Epstein

Mika Ariela Epstein is better known as Ipstenu, the WordPress Half-Elf Rogue. Working for DreamHost as a full stack WordPress developer on DreamPress and managing the WordPress.org Plugin Review Team, Mika helps make the internet safer for everyone. When she’s not writing her own code, she’s helping WordPress developers write something better. The cofounder of LezWatch.TV, the greatest database of queer characters and shows, she develops software and trawls queer representation on television to make the data visible. Passionate about code, open source technology, open data, and mindful development practices, Mika may watch a lot of TV but it’s for a good cause. You can find Mika travelling internationally to speak about the intersection of software, fandom, and humanism.

David Wolfpaw

David is a professional web developer focused on WordPress theme and plugin development. He emphasizes helping small businesses, providing ongoing maintenance and support, and educating users through his service FixUpFox.

Donata Kalnenaite

I am a data privacy and technology attorney based in Chicago, IL. I’m a Certified Information Privacy Professional and the President of a software company that has generated thousands of Privacy Policies. I am also the newsletter editor of the American Bar Association’s e-Privacy Committee and the chair of the Chicago Chapter of the International Association of Privacy Professionals. My passion is web professionals comply with complex privacy laws. I excel at breaking down complicated topics into actionable tips and hope to share my expertise with WordCamp D.C. attendees.

Ryan Sholin

Ryan is on the Business Development team at WordPress VIP, where he connects publishers of all shapes and sizes with the best people, tools, and companies in the WordPress community. A WordPress user since version 1.2.2, Ryan brought blogging into newsrooms and then spent a decade in digital product and portfolio management at GateHouse Media, Gannett, startups, and nonprofits before joining Automattic in 2017.

Chris Ford

Chris Ford spent the first seven years of her career collaborating with talented project managers to deliver sites for clients including Wynn Hotels and Gateway Computers. The next 12 years she was a freelance designer: managing client expectations, running discovery meetings, keeping track of budgets and deliverables, while also squeezing in designing and building sites. Four years ago she pivoted to project management. For the last two and a half years she’s been a project manager at Reaktiv Studios. She’s also an Asana ambassador and is happy to talk your ear off about designing efficient processes. In her spare time she enjoys kerning type as meditation, playing and building guitars, and hanging out in Slack drinking bourbon while talking about reading the huge stack of books in her Goodreads backlog.

Bud Kraus

Most WordPress site developers are not instructors and not really interested in teaching WordPress to clients that want to learn it. That’s what makes Bud Kraus very different. As he likes to say, “I don’t just make web sites. I teach too.” Bud brings over 20 years of experience teaching best practices with WordPress (in New York City and beyond) to every project he gets involved with. From startup sites to site re-designs, it is his experience and professionalism that clients have come to depend on. No matter the project, Bud is willing to work with clients the way they want to work and not the other way around. He finds the best ways to collaborate with others to accomplish their goals. He always encourages every student to learn whatever they want with WordPress. His students have become web site clients, and some site owners have become his students. Bud is very active and well known in the WordPress community in and around the New York City and Northern New Jersey areas. His Joy of WP site – joyofwp.com – includes 2 free courses with over 60 WordPress videos which has been used by over 1,000 people in 2019 to learn WordPress the world over.

Have you been thinking about applying to speak at WordCamp DC, but you aren’t sure what topic to propose or are wondering if it’s OK if you’re a first time speaker? Please join me (Beth Soderberg, Speaker Wrangler and Co-Organizer of WordCamp DC) during my upcoming office hours to talk it all out.

These office hours are a safe space to talk out your thoughts, fears, etc. My job is to help you figure out what you’d like to do. Do you want to apply? What talk would you want to propose? What should go in your bio?

Our speaker selection is a blind process for initial submissions, which means that only one person knows who you are: me! I am the person who anonymizes submissions so that they can be reviewed by the rest of the organizing team. I do not vote in the initial selection process for this reason. As a result, talking with me during office hours or otherwise asking me questions about speaking will not impact which submissions are accepted, nor will it guarantee the acceptance of any submissions.

So please, join me for office hours! I can’t wait to talk about all of your ideas!

If you can’t make it to either of the below sessions, please feel free to email us OR reach out to me privately on Twitter and we can set up a time to chat.

Office Hours, Session 1: January 14 8:30-9:30pm eastern

Join the Zoom Meeting via video: https://zoom.us/j/164649694

Or call in by your location:
+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 164 649 694

Office Hours, Session 2: January 22 8:30-9:30pm eastern

Join the Zoom Meeting via video: https://zoom.us/j/839255198

Or call in by your location:
+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 839 255 198