Speakers
Below you’ll find the schedule for SmashingConf New York 2018. We’ll keep this page regularly updated with new sessions, so be sure to keep checking in! Stay updated.
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Sara Soueidan
Sara Soueidan is an independent inclusive design engineer, author, speaker, and trainer from Lebanon.
She works with companies around the world building Web user interfaces and digital products with focus on responsive design, accessibility, performance, and cutting-edge tech. And she teaches designers and developers how to create inclusive web user interfaces.
Sara is the creator of the “Practical Accessibility” course—a get-right-down-to-it online video course for Web designers and developers who want to start creating more accessible Web user interfaces and digital products today.
She is also the author of the Codrops CSS Reference and co-author of Smashing Book 5. She blogs about inclusive design engineering on her blog, and delivers talks and workshops at events worldwide, as well as in-house, sharing practical insights and tried-and-true practices for building scalable, resilient front-end foundations.
- On the web
- https://sarasoueidan.com
- On LinkedIn
- sara-soueidan-619069257
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Chiara Aliotta
An award-winning designer, Chiara Aliotta is the founder of Until Sunday, a creative agency that encapsulates her obsession with colour, typography, and detail. Chiara wears many creative ‘hats’, with years of experience as a graphic designer, art director, and brand consultant under her belt. Not only does she write and speak regularly about design-led storytelling, she has also directed impactful visual brand development for renowned global organisations.
Whether she’s creating an immersive digital journey or a compelling design for print, Chiara’s ideas are characterised by the enduring power of storytelling. She skilfully combines her deep understanding of classic tales, with an instinctive sense of what makes a story memorable, to create user experiences that pack an emotional punch.
Born in Italy, Chiara now resides on the beautiful island of Syros with her husband, with whom she co-runs an art gallery and a personal lifestyle project, The Pattern Tales.
And because at Smashing Magazine, cats are the protagonists… Her beloved cat Kissa provides inspiration… and the occasional cuddle!- On the web
- http://untilsunday.it
- On LinkedIn
- chiara-aliotta
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Debbie Millman
“Named “one of the most creative people in business” by Fast Company, and “one of the most influential designers working today” by Graphic Design USA, Debbie Millman is also an author, educator, curator and host of the podcast Design Matters. As the founder and host of Design Matters, one of the world’s first and longest running podcasts, Millman has interviewed over 400 artists, designers and cultural commentators.”
- On the web
- http://debbiemillman.com
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Jason Grigsby
In 2000, Jason Grigsby got his first mobile phone. He became obsessed with how the world could be a better place if everyone had access to the world's information in their pockets. But _WAP_ was crap so he headed back to the desktop web for several years. Now Jason spends far too much time thinking about mobile. Jason is a mobile strategist, co-founder of [Cloudfour.com](http://CloudFour.com) and frequently speaks about mobile technology and strategy.
- On the web
- https://blog.cloudfour.com
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Josh Clark
Josh Clark is a UX design leader who helps organizations build products for what's next. He is founder of Big Medium, a New York design studio specializing in future-friendly interfaces for artificial intelligence, connected devices, and responsive websites. His clients include Samsung, United Airlines, ExxonMobil, About.com, O’Reilly Media, and many others. Josh has written several books, including Designing for Touch and Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps. He speaks around the world about what’s next for digital interfaces.
Before the internet swallowed him up, Josh was a producer of national PBS programs at Boston’s WGBH. He shared his three words of Russian with Mikhail Gorbachev, strolled the ranch with Nancy Reagan, hobnobbed with Rockefellers, and wrote trivia questions for a primetime game show. In 1996, he created the popular “Couch-to-5K” (C25K) running schedule, which has helped millions of skeptical would-be exercisers take up jogging. (His motto is the same for fitness as it is for software user experience: no pain, no pain.)
- On the web
- https://bigmedium.com
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Michael Flarup
Michael is a Danish designer & entrepreneur. He runs entertainment studio Northplay, Pixelresort and design resource platform Apply Pixels. He’s got a treasure-trove of experience creating his own companies, leading teams of developers and designers and working on countless of succesful products, games and services.
- On the web
- http://flarup.com
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Monica Dinculescu
Monica works on Magenta, in Google Brain, where she makes generative music and art with Machine Learning. In the past she’s worked on Polymer, web components, and Chrome, and has probably at least once broken the Internet for you.
She is unreasonably excited about emoji, wary of web fonts, and will become your best friend if you bring her cheese. On second thought, she may be a mouse.
- On the web
- https://meowni.ca
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Paul Boag
Paul Boag is a leader in conversion optimisation, digital strategy and user experience design. He has been working with diverse organisations such as The European Commission, PUMA and Doctors Without Borders for over 25 years. Through consultancy and training, he helps organisations better connect with today’s digital consumers.
Paul is also a well-respected figure in the digital sector. Author of six books, including Click, Digital Adaptation and User Experience Revolution. Finally, he is a prolific writer for numerous publications, including his blog, and regularly speaks internationally.
- On the web
- https://boagworld.com
- On LinkedIn
- paulboag
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Dan Mall
Dan Mall is a creative director and advisor from Philly. He’s the founder and CEO of SuperFriendly, a design collaborative that helps in-house teams make better digital products with design systems. Dan is an enthralled husband & dad, author of Pricing Design, and co-founder of SuperBooked, a service that helps you find work with a little help from your friends. He writes about design and other issues on http://twitter.com/danmall and on his industry-recognized site, danmall.me.
- On the web
- http://danmall.me
- On LinkedIn
- danmall
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Sarah Drasner
Senior Director of Engineering at Google
Sarah Drasner is Senior Director of Engineering, Core Web, iOS, and Android Infrastructure at Google, powering all of Google's applications like Search, YouTube, Workspace, and more. Sarah is formerly VP at Netlify, Vue core team emeritus, a Frontend Master instructor, and an O'Reilly author.
- On the web
- https://sarah.dev
- On Bluesky
- @sarahedo.bsky.social
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Tim Kadlec
Tim Kadlec is an independent web performance consultant and trainer focused on building a web everyone can use.
He is the author of High Performance Images (O'Reilly, 2016) and Implementing Responsive Design: Building sites for an anywhere, everywhere web (New Riders, 2012).
- On the web
- https://timkadlec.com
- On LinkedIn
- tkadlec
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Vitaly Friedman
Creative Lead and Co-Founder of Smashing Magazine
Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. When he is not writing or speaking at a conference, he’s most probably running front-end/UX workshops and webinars. He loves solving complex UX, front-end and performance problems.
- On the web
- https://smashingmagazine.com
- On LinkedIn
- vitalyfriedman
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Yoav Weiss
Yoav Weiss has been working on mobile web performance for longer than he cares to admit, on the server side as well as in browsers. He now works as part of Google Chrome developer relations team, helping to fix web performance once and for all.
He takes image bloat on the web as a personal insult, which is why he joined the Responsive Images Community Group and implemented the various responsive images features in Blink and WebKit. That was his gateway drug into the wonderfully complex world of browsers and standards.
When he’s not writing code, he’s probably slapping his bass, mowing the lawn in the French countryside, or playing board games with his family.
- On the web
- https://blog.yoav.ws
