Speakers
Want to learn new things on front-end and UX? Aching for fresh inspiration and learning new skills? Let our speakers help and inspire you.
Our speakers and workshop teachers are the best in their fields, and they love to share what they know, how they work and what drives them. Let our speakers and teachers help and inspire you. On top of that, they are all smashingly nice.
We plan to announce our first speakers soon. Stay updated on the latest speakers and topics via our newsletter or follow us on Twitter.
Yeah, okay. @smashingconf has been an unforgettable experience this year as my first time, and honestly, I’d love to go back over and over and over again because it really is that good.
-
Cassie Evans
Cassie is an international speaker and developer with a background in graphic design and motion design. She got started with coding back in the days of Myspace and Neopets and is on a mission to make the internet more whimsical again. She currently works as a creative developer and educator on GSAP at Webflow.
When learning to code she was blown away by how supportive the web community was and loves nothing more than giving back and passing this knowledge on to new developers. Her favourite motto for teaching others is "assume zero experience but infinite intelligence".
She loves creating and encouraging spaces for people to share, learn and bounce ideas off each other. When she's not tinkering on the web, she's off having adventures in the English countryside with her best pal Brody — the most wonderful dog in the world.
- Talk
- Animating the Impossible
- On the web
- https://www.cassie.codes
- On LinkedIn
- cassie-codes
-
Steve Schoger
Steve is a designer and partner at Tailwind Labs — the folks behind Tailwind CSS, Tailwind UI, and Refactoring UI. He is mostly known for the design tips he shares on Twitter and his UI design breakdowns on YouTube.
More recently, he has been building Heroicons — a collection of free, SVG icons for the web.
- Talk
- Let’s Design an Icon Set
- On the web
- https://refactoringui.com
-
Harrison Wheeler
Harrison builds teams, inspires through storytelling, and communicates complex design ideas to both technical and non-technical audiences to ensure that products are as effective as they are beautiful.
Currently, he’s a Director of Product Design at LinkedIn, where he focuses on people management and building the vision for consumer and enterprise experiences.
Outside of work, he enjoys contributing to the UX Design community through articles, interviews, and speaking about all things design. This interest inspired him to launch Technically Speaking with Harrison Wheeler, a podcast about BIPOC designers, entrepreneurs & technologists sharing their unique challenges, triumphs, and the “why” behind their decisions.
- Talk
- Facilitating Safe and Inclusive Feedback
- On the web
- https://www.harrisonwheeler.com
- On LinkedIn
- hmwheeler
-
Jason Pamental
Jason is a Principal Designer at Chewy.com, helping lead their design system efforts across ecommerce, enterprise, and mobile app experiences; an invited expert to the W3C Web Font Working Group; and insatiably curious about pretty much everything.
Previously, he spent much of his time working with clients to establish their typographic systems and digital strategy, helping design and development teams works smarter and faster, and running workshops about all of the above. He is a seasoned design and user experience strategy leader with over 20 years' experience on the web in both creative and technical roles. Past clients range from state governments, type industry giants, Ivy League and High Tech, to the NFL and America's Cup.
Jason researches and writes extensively on typography for the web. He's author of Responsive Typography from O'Reilly, pens articles for .Net Magazine, PRINT Magazine, HOW, Monotype.com, frequently joins as a guest on podcasts, and has authored online courses for Aquent's Gymnasium platform and Front-end Masters. Jason's an experienced speaker and workshop leader, having presented at over 100 national and international conferences.
The real story: mainly he just follows Leo and Henry around Turner Reservoir, posting photos on Instagram.
- Talk
- Design System Typography: Intent, Application, and Scale
- On the web
- https://chewy.com
- On LinkedIn
- jpamental
- On Bluesky
- @jpamental.bsky.social
-
Una Kravets
Una Kravets is a Brooklyn-based developer who's making the web more styleable as a Developer Advocate at Google Chrome. Previously, she was the Director of Product Design at Bustle Digital Group and worked on building maintainable design systems as a UI Engineer at both DigitalOcean and IBM Design.
She also co-host two web development podcasts: Toolsday, and the CSS Podcast, as well as the web video series Designing in the Browser. She creates technical illustrations called Dev Doodles, does brush lettering and calligraphy, and started technical meetup groups in Washington and Austin.
- Talk
- Web UI
- On the web
- https://una.im
- On LinkedIn
- unakravets
-
Henri Helvetica
Henri is Head of Developer Community at WebPageTest, who has turned his interests into a passionate mix of site performance engineering and pinches of user experience.
When not reading the deluge of daily research docs and case studies, or auditing sites, Henri can be found contributing back to the community: Toronto Web Performance Group meetup + Jamstack TORONTO organizer + curating conference content or volunteering his time for lunch and learns at various bootcamps.
Additionally, you can find him frequenting conferences and touching base w/ the community - all with a radiant smile. Otherwise, Henri focuses on running the fastest 5k possible (surprise surprise).
- Talk
- In a New York Minute
-
Christine Vallaure
Christine Vallaure is the founder of moonlearning.io, a UX, UI Design, and Figma learning platform where design meets code. She’s also the author of theSolo.io, a practical guide to building and growing digital products as a company of one, and a regular speaker at design and tech conferences.
With over a decade of experience collaborating with leading brands, agencies, and startups across Berlin, Mexico City, and London, Christine now calls Madrid home.
Christine is passionate about bridging the gap between design and code. She encourages designers and developers to learn from each other, fostering curiosity, collaboration, and mutual respect. Through her teaching, writing, and workshops, Christine helps designers confidently tackle new challenges while staying current with the tools and advancements shaping the industry.
- Talk
- Yes, You Should...
- On the web
- https://www.moonlearning.io
- On LinkedIn
- christinevallaure
-
Átila Fassina
Átila Fassina is on a mission to make code simple. When not recording screencasts or courses, you may find him either writing and talking about jamstack, performance, or developer tooling.
He is a Google Developer Expert for Web Technologies, and a member of Tauri Working Group and SolidJS Developer Experience team. He has participated in multiple conferences and taught workshops on Next.js, Tauri, and SolidJS to many developers.
Currently, he works as DevRel Teamlead at CrabNebula and he writes for Smashing Magazine.
- Talk
- Optimistic UX
- On the web
- https://atila.io
-
Laura Kalbag
Laura Kalbag is a British designer living in Ireland, and author of Accessibility For Everyone from A Book Apart. She’s founder of Small Technology Foundation, a tiny organisation advocating for and building small technology designed to increase human welfare, not corporate profits.
- Talk
- (The Ethics of) Web3
- On the web
- https://laurakalbag.com
- On LinkedIn
- laurakalbag
-
Guillaume Kurkdjian
Illustrator and animator based in Paris, Guillaume creates colorful and living mini worlds, populated by friendly characters and curious vehicles.
- Talk
- Inspired by Reality
- On the web
- https://guillaumekurkdjian.com
-
Eva Ferreira
Evangelina Ferreira is a Front-end developer and teacher. She currently works as a UI Developer and has been teaching web technologies at the National Technological University of Argentina for more than five years.
Throughout her career Evangelina has been deeply involved in the Argentinian web community. She enjoys giving workshops and talks and since 2015 she has been organizing CSSConf Argentina, an international non-profit event that brings experts from all around the globe to speak about web technologies.
In her spare time she loves reading W3C drafts as much as Harry Potter, creating animations and playing with her cats.
-
Mystery Speaker
Obviously, our Mystery Speaker is a bit of a… well, Mystery. In true smashing style, you can expect something wonderful. It’s someone worth waking up for. Something unexpected, a little magical, and very much unmissable.
So yes, set that alarm for Day Two. Grab a coffee. Be curious. You won’t want to miss this.
-
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
