Announcing the WordCamp US, 2015 Schedule!

Here it is, folks! The moment that you’ve all been waiting for! We’re pleased to present the full schedule and sessions for WordCamp US, 2015!

We have so many amazing sessions lined up, with something for every interest and skill level! Our incredible speakers are nothing short of top notch. We couldn’t be more excited about what they have planned to share with us.

Without further ado, here is the full listing: https://2015.us.wordcamp.org/schedule/

Go on! Take a look and let us know via Twitter what you’re most excited about.

Introducing the WordCamp US speakers – Part 5

Wow! What a speaker list we’ve published so far. You’ve met 60 of our amazing speakers in Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four of our speaker post series. Now onto the rest!

Part Five

Curtiss GrymalaCurtiss Grymala

Curtiss Grymala is the Senior Web Technologist at the University of Mary Washington. While he’s at UMW, he spends the majority of his time managing the WordPress installations that power the UMW websites. When he’s not working on the UMW website or hanging out with his family, he also runs a small freelance agency called Ten-321 Enterprises, where he builds websites for non-profits and small businesses, and consults with clients in higher ed. He is also the founder of WPHighEd and is currently co-organizing WPCampus, a conference & community for people using WordPress in higher ed. He is a WordPress evangelist, an accessibility advocate and an open-source & open-standards fanatic.

Gary PendergastGary Pendergast

Gary is a WordPress, web and music geek who writes poetry with Automattic. He’s been know to commit random things to WordPress Core, just to see what would happen. He can be observed in his natural habitat at pento.net, or usually in Melbourne, Australia.

 

Andrea ForteAndrea Forte

Andrea is a professor at Drexel University whose passions are to make and think about technologies that help people do things they couldn’t do before.

 

Allen MooreAllen Moore

Allen is a Front-End Engineer at 10up, a full service digital agency that makes web publishing and content management simple and fun. He has over 12 years of professional web development experience, and now focuses on crafting amazing User Experience’s for the amazing clients of 10up. He’s a musician, writer, and husband to his beautiful wife Karoline. He enjoys a good book, cup of coffee, pint of local beer, and cigars & scotch.

Adam SilversteinAdam Silverstein

Adam started programming in assembly code and learned Java when Netscape Navigator ruled the web – eventually embracing WordPress as his platform of choice. He is a contributing developer to WordPress and a Senior Web Engineer at 10up. Adam loves long rafting trips, playing mbira, travel, taking walks and tending his over-sized garden.

Mel ChoyceMel Choyce

Mel Choyce is a Design Engineer at Automattic, WordPress core contributor, and co-organizer for the Boston WordPress community. She loves big typography, cold brew coffee, and teaching people about WordPress. You can find her on twitter @melchoyce.

 

Beth SoderbergBeth Soderberg

Beth Soderberg a developer who is obsessive about clean code, solid design execution, and empowering the user. Her happy place is where code and design intersect and therefore also loves dabbling in user experience and design work. By day, Beth works as a web developer at CHIEF and by night is a co-representative of the WordPress Training Team, a co-organizer of the WordPress DC Meetup, and a Hack for Good organizer with the DCFemTech coalition in Washington, DC.

Andrew NacinAndrew Nacin

Nacin is a lead developer of WordPress. He’s wrangled contributions, developed new features, and tried to fix more bugs than he created. He led a number of major releases, including 3.5’s overhaul of media management and 3.7’s automatic background updates. He currently works for the U.S. Digital Service, a team dedicated to tackling some of government’s most pressing problems.

Scott TaylorScott Taylor

Scott Taylor is a Senior Software Engineer at The New York Times on the Interactive News Team. He is a Core Developer of WordPress and the Release Lead for WordPress 4.4. Scott lives in Williamsburg (Brooklyn, not Colonial) and really likes Mexican food. He is mainly a musician, but also finds time to code and has contributed in small and big ways to the last 10 releases of WordPress.

Mark LlobreraMark Llobrera

Mark Llobrera (@dirtystylus) is the Technology Director for Bluecadet in Philadelphia, where he and his team build websites, native iOS/Android applications, and touchscreen applications for museums and non-profits. He specializes in CMSes built with WordPress and Drupal.

matt cheney Matt Cheney

Matt is a long time web developer is excited about decoupled CMS solutions using AngularJS and Backbone. He is also the co-founder of Pantheon which provides WordPress and Drupal hosting.

 

Linda DanielsLinda Daniels

Linda Daniels is a Design Thinker, Experience Architect and Educator with over 20 years experience leading interactive and traditional teams for Fortune 500 companies such as Merck Pharmaceuticals, M&M Mars and now Comcast University. She specializes in the strategic direction and design of projects for internal and external organizations, creating inspirational user experiences to maximize results for corporate, consumer and educational initiatives. To find out more about Linda you can find her here: @ldaniels_design.

Taylor LovettTaylor Lovett

Taylor Lovett is the Director of Engineering at 10up, one of the biggest WordPress centric agencies in the world. Having been involved with WordPress since 2007, he has contributed to WordPress core, authored popular plugins (downloaded hundreds of thousands of 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.

Tony PerezTony Perez

Tony is one of the Co-Founders, and CEO at Sucuri; a globally recognized website security firm specializing in cleaning and protecting websites. Tony has spent the better part of 5 years building an organization designed to provide value to website owners when they need it most. He has worked with 100’s of thousands of websites, helping them navigate their online security challenges, has spoken at dozens of events and conferences around the world, and is adamant in the power of education and awareness. He actively writes and shares his thoughts on both business and security on his <a href=”http://perezbox.com”>personal website</a>. He is a former US Marine, holds his undergraduate degree in Technology Management, and is an active Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner and competitor.

Joe SchaffnerJoe Schaffner

As a Courseware Support Librarian, Joe Schaffner works with faculty, students, and staff who use Canvas, the University’s learning management system. Joe belongs to a team of librarians who plan and lead training sessions to help users see the system’s potential for attaining their teaching and learning goals. Additionally, Joe designs documentation for Canvas and other educational technology tools, and he also provides direct user support. Joe holds a B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from Rutgers University and an M.S. in Library and Information Science from Drexel University.

Dennis Snell Dennis Snell

Dennis is a Code Wrangler at Automattic, Inc. and spends his days reticulating splines, working on backend APIs, refactoring code, and thinking. As an engineer, he tends to ramble about code performance, signal processing, and how to play well with others. As a digital nomad, he owns very few things and enjoys living simply with his most wonderful wife. He loves cooking, engineering, photography, and his Christian faith.

Josepha HadenJosepha Haden

Josepha comes from a long line of writers and was raised to be a life-long learner. She has a passion for language and storycrafting, a skill she practices on starsandthemoon.com. She is experienced at using SEO, data analysis, and content marketing to bring success and visibility to clients all over the world. Since 2010 she’s been working in her hometown of Kansas City to increase digital literacy and get more women in technology. Josepha works at Automattic as a community organizer for the WordPress open source project .

Introducing the WordCamp US speakers – Part 4

We’re on a roll announcing speakers, so we figured that we’d bring you another batch! You’ve already seen 36 of our speakers in Part One, Part Two, and Part Three of our speaker post series. Here are 24 more for your viewing pleasure!

Part Four

AAron-BrazellAAron Brazell

Aaron is a Sr. Web Engineer for 10up and has been actively working with WordPress since 2004. He is the author of the WordPress Bible, has done WordPress consulting for large and small clients, before joining 10up in an engineering and DevOps role. He lives in Baltimore where he religiously follows football and soccer, samples beer and practices his photography.

Courtney-OCallaghanCourtney OCallaghan

Courtney OCallaghan is Chief Digital Officer for the Freer and Sackler Galleries at the Smithsonian. She has been obsessed with WordPress since building Ms. magazine’s blog in 2010. She is a professional listener, amateur teacher, vegetarian mom, animal caretaker, people watcher, culture enthusiast, off-hours feminist, book hoarder, designer/coder/other, CA native, proud DC resident, always in search of an ocean.

Frederick-MeyerFrederick Meyer

Fred Meyer is co-editor of WPShout (wpshout.com), which offers weekly WordPress tech tutorials, and co-author of Up and Running (upandrunningwp.com), a multimedia guide to WordPress development. Fred also operates a boutique web agency, Press Up (pressupinc.com), that specializes in WordPress projects.

Judi-KnightJudi Knight

Judi Knight is the founder and chief at New Tricks. When she’s not working with businesses to help them spread their goodness online, she’s probably checking people into the Urban Oasis Bed and Breakfast, planning WordPress events or hanging out with her husband and three Basset Hounds.

Chris WiegmanChris Wiegman

Chris is a Senior Web Engineer for 10up and has been working on WordPress since 2008. Before joining 10up Chris built one of the largest security plugins in the WordPress community as well as numerous other plugins and solutions. When not coding Chris loves to teach and has presented at numerous WordCamps and other conferences as well as taught computer security for St. Edward’s University and other University courses ranging from computers to aviation.

Anthony BubelAnthony Bubel

A proud (suburban) Philadelphia native, Anthony has been at Automattic for the past seven years and currently leads the Akismet team as it fights its way through the world of web spam. He’s been a faithful WordPress user since 2007 and was one of the founding organizers of WordCamp Philly back in 2010.

Brian KrogsgardBrian Krogsgard

Brian is a web developer, writer, and consultant based in Birmingham, Alabama. He’s the editor of Post Status, a news and information website for WordPress professionals. It’s a community-centric project with around 500 members doing incredible things with WordPress.

Timmy CrawfordTimmy Crawford

Right now, in the middle of Oregon, in the outdoor mecca of Bend – Timmy is likely shredding the gnar, wrangling the codes, throwing hooks covered in feathers and thread at trout, chasing around his daughters, running with his bearded dog, or sharing a rare moment of peace with his lovely wife. All the while he is thrilled to be a JavaScript Wrangler at Automattic.

Stephanie BrinleyStephanie Brinley

With a life-long passion for art and a BFA in Graphic Design, Stephanie is a web designer with an emphasis on design. She started freelancing as a print designer many years ago, but found the transition to web design a natural progression. Shortly thereafter, Stephanie and her husband began experimenting with WordPress around version 2.0.2 and built a thriving company around it. In 2011 they moved their family to Jacksonville, FL and rebranded as Flightless. Stephanie has been involved with the Florida WordPress community since 2014 and recently started finding herself on the opposite side of the audience at WordCamps. Most weeks you will find her attempting to balance web design and homeschooling, exploring the world of flavors she can invent in her kitchen, and sometimes on Twitter @sjbrinley.

Ryan RudolphRyan Rudolph

Ryan Rudolph started building websites while attending La Salle University. Shortly after graduation, he became Partner, and CTO at GetPhound, a digital marketing agency located right outside of Philadelphia. Ryan loves the challenge of crafting clean and professional websites for clients.

Robert JollyRobert Jolly

An accessibility-focused Project Manager with nearly 20 years in the industry, Robert has worked on award winning sites for teams including Happy Cog, Simply Accessible, Seven Heads Design, SuperFriendly, and Big Medium. Past clients include Zappos, Georgetown University, Nintendo, Time Inc., RealSimple, ESPN, American Airlines, JetBlue, and many others. When not online, Robert may be found with his family, riding his bike, or at a nearby Waffle House.

Morten Rand-HendriksenMorten Rand-Hendriksen

Morten Rand-Hendriksen built his first website in 1997 and has used the web to further communication between people ever since. He’s a senior staff author at lynda.com, a LinkedIn Company, where he has published 60+ courses on WordPress and front-end development reaching hundreds of thousands of learners world wide. He also teaches web design and development at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. In his spare time he co-organizes the Vancouver WordPress Meetup Group, contributes to WordPress core, and wears out his shoes on a ballroom dance floor.

Michael ArestadMichael Arestad

Michael is a designer at Automattic. He may be a tad obsessed with CSS (especially Sass) and beautiful typography. Michael is currently working at Automattic on some pretty neato WordPress projects.

 

nancy.thankiNancy Thanki

Nancy Thanki is a photographer, filmmaker, and Happiness Engineer. Whether she is tinkering on the web or editing a film, she’s enjoys introducing users and storytellers to visual design and how to avoid the pitfalls of “en vogue” to create products that can withstand the test of rising and falling fashions in typography, photography, moving images, and design.

 

RC LationsRC Lations

RC is the lead developer for the Control Center plugin and works at WetPaint, building marketing tools for WordPress sites. His passion for data and automation fuels his curiosity to connect WordPress to the internet of things and build meaningful experiences where the two intersect.

Luke WoodwardLuke Woodward

Luke Woodward is an engineering manager with 10up, a freaking amazing web agency. He has been working in the WordPress space for 4 years. While he enjoys code and difficult software engineering problems, his real passion is continuous learning. If he has some down time, you’ll likely find Luke listening to podcasts, reading, or writing about a variety of topics ranging from leadership and business to software and graphic design. This passion for learning has pushed Luke to share his knowledge. It’s absolutely true that the best way to learn something is by teaching it. Working through problems with others is the hallmark of a good day for him. Luke can sometimes be a little shy, but he works hard to make everyone know they matter.

Kyle MaurerKyle Maurer

Kyle is the co-founder of a Jackson, Michigan based agency called Real Big Marketing which specializes in using WordPress to solve complicated problems for businesses. He is also the author of and a contributor to dozens of WordPress plugins, is the co-organizer of the Jackson WP meetup, is a co-organizer of WordCamp Ann Arbor, plays in a band and is an aspiring beer snob.

Evan VolgasEvan Volgas

Licensed Caffeine Therapist and Data Geek. Huge lover of dogs, tea, coffee, and cantaloupe. Wanders on purpose. Often gets lost a lot while driving.

 

David MurphyDavid Murphy

Prior to joining Automattic as a code wrangler a year ago David was a engineering manager for Canonical for over seven years, and has over 20 years experience in the industry. He has authored two technical books, numerous articles, and participated in various projects over the years. As a husband, a father of four, and helping to run two schools as a Governor, he is also well practiced at time management!

Gregory CorneliusGregory Cornelius

Gregory Cornelius is a software engineer at HubSpot and WordPress core contributor who brings his passion and thoughtfulness from years of writing and performing music to the craft of web development. Before joining HubSpot, he worked at Automattic on a complete revamp of the WordPress.com dashboard. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife and daughter.

HelenHelen Hou-Sandí

Helen is a lead developer of WordPress and the Director of Platform Experience at 10up, where she contributes to the WordPress open source software project full-time. As a lead developer, she writes and reviews patches and supports community contributors, with special focuses on UI development and pain points commonly experienced in large-scale client work. Having been a professional musician in a previous life, Helen believes in the value of the intersection of technique and artistry in all aspects of life, including software.

Michael ToppaMichael Toppa

Mike Toppa has been coding for the web since the days of HTML 1.0, and he caught the WordPress bug when he wrote his first plugin in 2007. He’s the CTO for Poka Yoke Design, a web consulting firm specializing in WordPress and Ruby on Rails. Mike was previously the Director of Development for WebDevStudios, and he’s also worked at U Penn, Stanford, Georgetown, Ask Jeeves, and E-Trade. Outside of work you will most likely find Mike embroiled in a Nerf gun battle with his two young boys.

Dennis HongDennis Hong

By day, Dennis engineers happiness at WordPress.com. By night, he is a relationships and comedy writer, which can be redundant or an oxymoron, depending on your perspective. Dennis’s experiences as a WordPress user led him to his current job at Automattic, and he’s excited to share everything he’s learned about both the craft and the technical aspects of maintaining a blog.

Charlie ReisingerCharlie Reisinger

Charlie Reisinger is the IT Director at Penn Manor School District in beautiful Lancaster County Pennsylvania. He leads instructional technology programs and school enterprise technical operations. An impassioned advocate for open education and empowering students through technology, Charlie and his team deeply integrate a free and open source philosophy into classroom teaching and learning. He recently launched Pennsylvania’s largest high school 1:1 student laptop learning program using Linux and open source software exclusively.

Introducing the WordCamp US speakers – Part 3

If you’ve been following along at home then you’ve already learned the identities of 24 of our speakers in Part One and Part Two of our speaker post series. Without further ado here are our next 12 featured speakers!

Part Three

 

scott_clarkScott Clark

Scott is a Senior Web Engineer at 10up, Lead Developer of the Pods Framework, and all-around hooked on contributing to WordPress core and other open source projects. He’s happily married and has two beautiful daughters, but in his “free time” he likes to write and play music for his solo project “Soft Charisma”.

david_kennedyDavid Kennedy

David A. Kennedy works as a Theminator at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and many other fine web products. He wrangles themes for WordPress.com, making them the best they can be and ensuring everyone can find a theme they love. He’s also an accessibility evangelist who loves the open web and open source code. He contributes to WordPress Core, the WordPress Accessibility Team and the Underscores starter theme.

Tina_KTina Kesova

Tina is the VP of Strategic Partnerships at SiteGround web hosting company. In her role she is primarily responsible for growing the company client base through partnerships. She oversees the events and affiliates marketing teams through which SiteGround currently recruits the majority of their partners. She has attended numerous WordCamps and other industry events and thanks to her and her team efforts the company has managed to grow their client base and build the successful brand that SiteGround is today.

Morgan_EMorgan Estes

Veteran, family man, coffee enthusiast, and open source contributor; Morgan works with the Core and Documentation teams to patch and enhance WordPress. By day, he’s a Web Engineer with 10up, where he uses WordPress to help make publishing easy (and maybe even fun) for clients, and ElasticPress to help them find it afterwards.

Aaron_EAaron Edwards

CTO of WPMU DEV (140+ premium plugins and support) and Edublogs (hosting 3 million+ education blogs) with a team of 26 developers around the globe. WordPress plugin developer specializing in Multisite for 6 years, working from home in Dallas. Proud father of 3 and a world travel nut.

Kim_SKim Shivler

Kimberly (Kim) Shivler, M.Ed. has been a technical trainer and writer for over 20 years. She learned HTML in 1995 building help files as a UNIX system administrator and opened her first web development company in 1996. Since then, Kim has worked as a business owner and employee in a variety of fields including a few years as part of an IBM worldwide team. Between 2008 and 2012, she worked with a variety of Content Management Systems and ran an online membership site for skincare professionals using Drupal. In 2012, Kim found WordPress and never looked back at any other CMS. She has been creating online courses in WordPress since 2013 and currently combines her background in education, years of business experience, and WordPress experience to teach others how to build online courses and membership websites.

Eric_MEric Mann

Eric Mann is a seasoned web developer with experience in languages from JavaScript to Ruby to C#. He has been building websites of all shapes and sizes for the better part of a decade and continues to experiment with new technologies and techniques. Eric is a Lead Web Engineer at 10up (http://10up.com) where he focuses on developing high-end web solutions powered by WordPress.

Anthony_d_pAnthony D. Paul

I help build great digital experiences and software through usability research, IA concepts, and prototypes. Outside the office, you’ll find me spread across regional meetups and conferences—evangelizing IA/UX, accessibility, and a variety of open source dev projects. When I’m not doing responsible adult things, I grow the world’s hottest chili peppers and bottle my own hot sauce. I’d divulge something funny from my past, but these days the Internet does a better job of surfacing our embarrassing moments; find me anywhere by Googling “anthonydpaul”.

Andrea_RAndrea Rennick

When you think of quilting grandmothers, you probably don’t think of Andrea. And yet – she is a grandma to three, creates WordPress tshirt quilts, and is a Customer Tech Support Lead for Rainmaker Digital. Excessively friendly, Andrea has been a long term volunteer, recovering freelancer, author and all around community evangelist. Make sure you introduce yourself!

Paul_SPaul Schreiber

Paul Schreiber has been building for the web since 1995. He spent eight years as an Mac OS X engineer at Apple, served as the founding CTO at TurboVote, codeveloped the 2008 Obama campaign’s voter registration tool and built Admitting Failure for Engineers Without Borders Canada. When he’s not making FiveThirtyEight hum, Paul can be found baking cakes, hosting house concerts, playing hockey and doing crossword puzzles in ink.

Dmitry_MDmitry Mayorov

Dmitry is a freelance web designer and developer. He builds custom themes and plugins for WordPress. Founder of a theme shop called ThemePatio. Loves meaningful typography, beautiful color schemes, maintainable code and the smell of a good coffee in the morning.

Shayda_TShayda Torabi

Shayda Torabi is a Product Marketer at WP Engine living in her hometown of Austin, Texas. She is a WordPress community advocate having been to over 30 WordCamps worldwide, and she’s never met a WordCamp she hasn’t had the time of her life at. In her spare time she can be found food blogging at www.DineWithShayda.com, hiking a national park, or hanging out on twitter @shaptora.

 

 

Philadelphia is ready for you!

Philadelphia SkylineWe are coming up on one of the most exciting weeks for Philadelphia—WordCamp US 2015! At about a month away we’re getting ready to make some big announcements! We’ve told you about the locations for WordCamp, Contributor Day, and the Community Summit. We’ve shared with you 24 of our amazing speakers (there are more to come tomorrow), and of course we’ve let you know where to stay and how to purchase tickets.

But there is so much more to come. In the next week we’ll roll out announcements about the rest of our phenomenal speakers followed by the full schedule. Leading up to the event there’ll be posts about our generous sponsors, food recommendations, coffee recommendations, a list of must see places, the unveiling of our after party location, and a few surprises.

Because Philadelphia is ready for you.

We’ve been prepping city officials, residents, and our many tech groups about the significance of holding the inaugural WordCamp US in Philadelphia and wow they are excited. I mean really excited. The city is ready to welcome you with open arms and full plates; because food. Have we mentioned the food yet? No matter what your preference, Philly has you covered. From James Beard award winning chefs to the famous Philly cheesesteak, you will fall in love with our food. Side note, you can totally run the Rocky stairs a few times if you want to burn off the extra calories.

The Pennsylvania Convention Center can’t wait to welcome us.

WordCamp US has a private entrance known as the Broad Street Atrium. Completed in in 2012, this section of the Convention Center is adorned with floor to ceiling windows at registration, a concourse full of sunlight, and state of the art A/V equipment. There will be yoga during registration, a quiet area if you need a break, a bar full of experts ready and willing to help you with your WordPress needs, and wonderful sponsors waiting to talk to you. And swag. There will be awesome stickers and swag.

The Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown Hotel is kind of a pseudo headquarters.

Most attendees in need of overnight accommodations will be staying there so the party won’t stop! The hotel will be teeming with speakers, sponsors, volunteers, and fellow attendees.  If you arrive the day before, you’ll be able to stop by our early registration table in the lobby to pick up your badge. That’s right, you could skip the lines at the Convention Center and stroll right in to a yoga class or opening remarks. Plus there’s a coffee shop for your morning pick me up and a great bar and restaurant to help wrap up your long day. Some of the rooms have crystal clear views of the Art Museum so you an watch your fellow WordCampers work off their cheesesteaks. From the Sheraton it’s a brief walk to the Convention Center, Community Summit, and After Party Venue.

The knowledge and friends you will gain are the perfect way to wind down 2015.

One thing that stands out above all at any WordCamp is the information you take with you. This event is specifically designed to cover all levels of WordPress abilities, from enthusiasts to advanced developers. Regardless of your comfort level, you are going to find sessions tailored to you. The only thing that can rival the benefit of knowledge gained is the camaraderie. Whether it’s the new people you meet or the friends you haven’t seen in a while you’ll, get to share your days with a bunch of folks who want to be there as much as you!

If you’ve been putting off buying tickets, booking your room, or making your travel plans now is the time. We look forward to seeing you in December!

Introducing the WordCamp US speakers – Part 2

It was only a few days ago that we brought you Part One of our speaker lineup, and we couldn’t be happier with it. Yet one round of speakers just won’t do. We have so many more speakers to announce. There’s going to be such incredible content at WordCamp US, you’re just not going to know what to do with yourself.

Welcome to Part Two

sarah-presslerSarah Pressler

I’ve been working with WordPress for the past 8 years, and directly in the field of Digital Project Management for the past 3 years. I’ve been working with the team at ServerPress.com for the past year, where I’m serving as Director of Steve, Marc, and Gregg. I get to manage fun, engaging, and exciting enterprise level WordPress builds over at PlainMade.com and CodeBrainMedia.com. I’ve also recently joined the team at WPDevelopersClub.com to assist with marketing and communications. I have been building communities and working online since the mid 90’s, and I live near Austin, TX.

Erica-varleseErica Varlese

Erica Varlese works at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, on the Happiness Hiring team. When she’s not glued to her laptop, she likes to practice photography, fawn over her dog, and espouse the various wonders of New Jersey.

David-BissetDavid Bisset

David is a full-time freelancer and WordPress developer living in South Florida (Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area). His work focuses on consulting businesses while building themes and plugins (and dabs in front-end development). Specializes in BuddyPress. David is also speaker at various conferences, helps run the local WordPress meetups, and is a conference organizer (has been involved with WordCamp Miami for over seven years). He is a father to twin 6yr. daughters and a 11yr. old daughter that already wants to be a coder. Oh yes… loves his wife too.

Luca-SartoniLuca Sartoni

Luca Sartoni is a media professional with more than a decade of technical and marketing expertise. Thanks to his extensive experience in business environments ranging from SMEs to large corporate projects, Luca helps companies scale up by implementing data-driven strategies. He does not believe in Santa Claus, magic spells and everything not backed by facts. Luca is a Growthketeer at Automattic.

Patrick-RaulandPatrick Rauland

Patrick lives in Denver Colorado and loves yoga, minimalism, running, & board games. He’s an author, poly, and the Product Manager for #WooCommerce at Automattic.

 

Lisa-MelegariLisa Melegari

Lisa Melegari is a web content writer, social media manager, and all-around web nerd, currently working at We Do Web Content, Inc. Her work passions include ghostwriting eBooks, fixing minor WordPress issues on her clients’ sites, creating infographics and any projects where her odd creativity can be put to use. Outside of work, she organizes the WordPress Orlando meetups and WordCamp Orlando, as well as advises her home chapter of the Alpha Phi Omega co-ed service fraternity at her alma mater, the University of Central Florida. She lives in Deltona, FL with 11 cats and enjoys traveling, Japanese things, video games, and cooking.

Sara-CannonSara Cannon

Sara Cannon is Partner and Creative Director at Range. She loves design, typography, user experience, and art. Sara loves giving talks around the globe on web design, responsive design, web typography, and more. A seasoned designer, Sara has done work for clients such as Disney Publishing and Flickr. She loves open source, her pets, traveling, and WordPress.

Andrea-BadgleyAndrea Badgley

Andrea Badgley is a writer and Happiness Engineer with Automattic. She has been blogging on her Butterfly Mind site for four years, and her writing appears in Southern Women’s Review, on the Brevity blog, and on WordPress.com’s Daily Post. She grew up on the coast of Georgia and now lives with her husband and two children in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia. You can also follow her writing at Andrea Reads America, where she chronicles her literary tour of the US, and on Twitter @andreabadgley.

Ryan-DuffRyan Duff

Ryan Duff has been working with WordPress since early 2004 and was the original author of the WordPress Contact Form plugin. As a long time community member, he enjoys exploring new ways to make use of WordPress. Making things simple for clients and pushing the envelope of what’s possible is at the core of that. Ryan is a developer by nature so he focuses primarily on back end architecture and less on design. He’s also an experienced linux sysadmin with a few years under his belt. Over the past couple of years he’s given various WordCamp talks highlighting these skills. He also runs the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania WordPress meetup group.

Sara-CopeSara Cope

Sara Cope is a project manager and developer with the U.S. federal government, operations guru at CSS-Tricks and co-founder & instructor for Girl Develop It Dayton. WordPress is her weapon of choice and digital gov is her passion. She is a lifelong midwesterner, working remote from Dayton, Ohio. When Sara isn’t immersed in all things web, she can be found playing tabletop games and supporting her local park system.

Tracy-RottonTracy Rotton

Tracy Rotton is the Front-End Architect for RP3 Agency and is passionate about creating responsive web experiences for their clients. She is also a WordPress core contributor, speaker, and instructor at General Assembly in Washington, D.C. Away from her computer, Tracy is obsessed with skiing, football, and her two children.

Carl-AlexanderCarl Alexander

Carl Alexander is a PHP developer that loves learning and teaching advanced technology topics. He publishes articles about them on his blog on a regular basis. It’s his way to help you with these hard-to-learn topics. Besides that, he’s been a WordPress Montréal organizer since 2010. He helps organize WordCamp Montréal and other WordPress events during the year. You can find him on Twitter and GitHub.

Please join us in congratulating our second round of speakers!

Spread the WordCamp love!

One of my favorite things about being involved in any WordCamp is the stories. It doesn’t matter where I go or who in the WordPress community I speak with, it seems everyone has a great story about their first WordCamp, their favorite WordCamp, the crazy WordCamp at which they met someone incredible. WordCamps help our community put faces to names and personalities to interactions. Each time I hear a story of why someone loves this WordCamp or that session there’s a part of me that wishes they would share it with the world.

Well now is your chance. We want to hear your great WordCamp stories. What you look forward to before showing up at the venue or signing into the live stream. What your first WordCamp was like. What your most recent WordCamp was like. We want to know what you love most about WordCamp! But we want you to keep it brief. Condense all your WordCamp love into a one minute video and share it with us so we can share it with the world.

We ask that you keep the video to around 1 minute, make sure it’s family friendly, and verify that you have the right to use any image or sound you feature. It’s that simple.

Submit your Why I love WordCamp video today!

Introducing the WordCamp US speakers – Part 1

After reviewing an almost overwhelming landslide of amazing speaker applications we’ve finally reached out to all those who have applied. We’re absolutely thrilled to start introducing you to the 80 spectacular speakers who will be gracing the stages of WordCamp US! Without further ado, let’s greet our first round of speakers.

LeAnn_KLeeAnn Kinney

LeeAnn is a front-end developer living in Philadelphia, PA. She is a web accessibility advocate, co-organizer of LadyHacks and ELA Conf as well as co-organizer and teacher for Girl Develop It Philly. In her spare time she loves to hike, bike, camp and travel as much as possible.

joe_dolsonJoe Dolson

Joe Dolson is an active contributor to the WordPress accessibility team, and provides ongoing support to the Theme Review team by performing accessibility audits on themes submitted for the accessibility-ready tag. He’s been developing for WordPress since 2007. Joe provides accessibility consulting, develops WordPress plug-ins, and builds bespoke WordPress web sites primarily for non-profit and disability service organizations. Joe also brews beer, practices Shotokan Karate, and plays classical violin.

hilary_fosdalHilary Fosdal

Hilary Fosdal is the owner of Red Phone Studio, a design and development company based in Chicago. She started building websites while working in the broadcast television industry. While still a news junkie, she loves to talk shop about all things digital. In her spare time, she seeks outdoor adventures that involve mostly hiking and running.

josh_koenigJosh Koenig

Josh Koenig is a Co-Founder and Head of Product for Pantheon, the website management platform for WordPress and Drupal. Pantheon provides the complete toolchain for developers using the leading open-source CMSs to build, launch, and run all their sites.

rich_robRich Robinkoff

Rich is a WordPress community advocate, WordCamp speaker/organizer and WordCamp Central Community Deputy. He teaches Web Development at a local community college, loves to travel and is addicted to coffee. He is learning to cope with Impostor Syndrome.

David_LDavid Laietta

David began building HTML websites in high school, breaking in programming classes as they appeared at his school. PHP came shortly after, with the mind blowing ability to make websites more than static entities. Later, early in 2008, David discovered WordPress and has been a proselytizer ever since. As lead organizer of WordCamp Orlando, David regularly speaks, mentors, teaches and trains on best practices with WordPress.

Kathryn_PKathryn Presner

Kathryn Presner thrives on helping people get the most out of WordPress. After a career designing and building websites for clients, she joined Automattic as a Happiness Engineer in 2012. She’s currently Theme Whisperer on the Theme Team, where she helps folks with customization, configuration, and troubleshooting. She enjoys spreading her passion for WordPress and encouraging new public speakers at WordCamps, Girl Geeks, Ladies Learning Code, and other grassroots events. Non-WordPress obsessions include vintage Pyrex mixing bowls and growing garlic.

Rami_aRami Abraham

Rami Abraham is a developer lead at WebDevStudios / Maintainn. He’s been building with WordPress since version 2.8, with a heavy focus in plugin development and javascript applications, as well as explorations with WebGL and game development. Prior to that, he worked in a few lead roles at traditional web agencies in the mid-Atlantic area of the US; with primary focuses being php, java, Objective-C, and javascript application development. He enjoys working with an unending variety of frameworks, SVG animation, and is part of the AffiliateWP.com support team. An organizer of WordPress Lancaster / WordCamp Lancaster, Rami attends and speaks at a variety of conferences, universities, and meetups. He has an affinity for user-focused topics, and sharing ideas about emerging technologies.

Joe_CJoe Casabona

Joe Casabona is a Front End Developer at Crowd Favorite and author of the book, Responsive Design with WordPress. He is also a Yankee fan, plays the drums, and enjoys a fine cigar from time to time. You can find him over at casabona.org or on Twitter at @jcasabona.

Rachel_BRachel Baker

Lead Engineer at thewirecutter.com and thesweethome.com. Lead Developer of the WP REST API plugin and WordPress Core contributor.

 

Aaron_JoAaron Jorbin

Aaron Jorbin is a polyhistoric man of the web. Currently Technical Architect on the Conde Nast Platform Team and a WordPress Core Committer, he works to improve developer happiness and is dedicated to making the internet usable and enjoyable by everyone. He tweets at @aaronjorbin and writes regularly at daily.jorb.in.

greg_brownGreg Brown

Greg is a Data Wrangler at Automattic on the WordPress.com Data Team. He helps organize the team, writes code, juggles servers, and occasionally inserts some machine learning and natural language processing into the mix.

Let’s get this on the schedule!

While we work behind the scenes updating this and finalizing that we want to keep you all in the loop on the general where and when things are happening. You all know that WordCamp US is happening December 4-6 and the Community Summit is taking place December 2-3,  but now we’ll let you in on a few concrete details to make your planning a bit easier.

WordPress Community Summit

Date: December 2 & 3
When: Doors open at 8:30am and the event kicks off a 9am and runs through 5pm both days
Where: The Hub at Commerce Square – 2001 Market Street Suite 210, Philadelphia, PA 19103

WordCamp US 2015 Speaker Sessions

Date: December 4 & 5
When: Registration opens at 8am and the sessions begin at 9am and run through 6pm both days
Where: Pennsylvania Convention Center Broad Street Atrium Entrance – 1101 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA

WordCamp US 2015 Official Afterparty

Date: December 5
When: 7pm, and don’t be late
Where: That’s a surprise, but we will say it’s an awesome all ages venue within walking distance of both the convention center and hotel!

WordCamp US 2015 Contributor Day

Date: December 6
When: Doors opens at 9am and the event runs 10am – 5pm
Where: Pennsylvania Convention Center Broad Street Atrium Entrance – 1101 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA

 

Announcing the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship Winner: Anyssa Ferreira

When the WordPress Foundation first envisioned a memorial scholarship to honor Kim Parsell, there was a deep interest in ensuring that Kim’s spirit, ethos and commitment to the WordPress community would be reflected in the recipients of the new award. We are delighted to announce that the winner of the inaugural Kim Parsell Memorship Scholarship is exactly the woman Kim would want to meet at WordCamp US. The 2015 recipient is Anyssa Ferreira; a Brazilian designer, feminist, and WordPress community activist.

About Anyssa Ferreira

anyssaIn 2013, Anyssa and her business partner decided to redesign their studio’s website. For help with WordPress, they turned to the official Brazilian WordPress forum and Facebook group. The generosity of that community to assist with their project encouraged Anyssa and her business partner to attend to WordCamp São Paulo in 2013 as micro sponsors. While attending that first WordCamp, Anyssa began to understand the nature of the WordPress community – and very much wanted to be a part of it.

The following year, Anyssa served as an organizer for WordCamp São Paulo 2014, and was responsible for the visual identity of the WordCamp and its website. She also presented a talk. As an organizer and a speaker, she was the only woman. From there, she began to work to encourage more women to join the WordPress community in Brazil.

Since then, Anyssa has played an active role in increasing the participation of women in the WordPress and tech communities in Brazil. She has spoken publicly on the importance and value of female involvement in both. She has worked to debunk the myth that women have no interest in WordPress and web development. She has explored why women were not participating, speaking personally with many female programmers, designers and other WordPress professionals about this important topic. She regularly invites women to attend her local WordPress meetup, and works to ensure that they feel welcome and wanted when they do attend.

Kim Parsell often spoke of how the WordPress community was an inviting and personable group. Kim also was eager for more women to feel safe and welcome at WordPress events and within the WordPress community as a whole. We are convinced that Kim would agree that Anyssa Ferreira is exactly the sort of woman and activist who should attend WordPress US.