Speaker Biographies

Fran Arble

Fran Arble has been practicing user-centered design for many years, designing and testing both enterprise client-server applications and web interfaces. She is a Board Certified Human Factors Professional and holds a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Delaware. She has been an active, long-time member of ACM SIGCHI.

Lois Bangiolo

Lois Bangiolo is a student at the University of Chicago, pursuing a degree in biology. She graduated in 2007 from the Math/Science/Computer Science Magnet program at Montgomery Blair High School. During summer 2007, she worked as an Intern at the National Library of Medicine, Office of Computer and Communication Systems. She has also interned at the Naval Medical Research Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

Lorelei Brown

Lorelei Brown serves as the Director of User Experience at Matrix Group International. She has provided interface design, information architecture, usability testing, branding, editorial, and project management for clients as diverse as PBS, the National Association of Realtors, Easter Seals, UNICEF, MCI WorldCom, Qwest, Christian Children’s Fund, and Prime Retail. Lorelei’s passion is translating user and business needs into a user-centric, easily navigable experiences.

Angela Colter

Angela Colter is a senior usability specialist at UserWorks in Silver Spring, Maryland. She built her first Web site while in the graduate Publications Design program at the University of Baltimore ten years ago, and never left! She’s now a doctoral candidate at UB researching how to make Web sites and search interfaces easier for low-literate Web users. Angela presented “Multiple Methods for Assessing Usability”, a case study of a usability evaluation of credit card disclosure materials, at last year’s UPA-DC conference. 

Duane Degler

Duane Degler founded IPGems to focus on performance improvement through user-centered design, knowledge/content strategy, and semantic technologies. He works with government agencies and commercial firms in the US and internationally. Duane is a participant in the UPA Body of Knowledge activity and co-organizes the Semantic Web User Interaction workshop series. He has over 20 years of experience in business, technology, and communication, inspiring his multi-disciplinary approach.

Susan Fowler

Susan Fowler has been an analyst for Keynote Systems, Inc., which offers remote unmoderated user-experience testing. She is currently a consultant at FAST Consulting and an editorial board member of User Experience magazine. With Victor Stanwick, she is an author of the Web Application Design Handbook (Morgan Kaufmann Publishers). 

Jean Fox

Jean Fox has been involved in the usability field since 1988, when she joined American Institutes for Research.  At AIR, she worked on a variety of projects for government and industry clients.  Currently, Jean works at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where she is responsible for the usability efforts in the design of data collection applications for the Consumer Price Index and a variety of other BLS programs.  She has presented at numerous usability-related conferences and workshops.

Craig Green

Craig Green has been directly responsible for the development and deployment of 100’s of websites – first as a developer at Proxicom, one of the first interactive agencies, and for the last 8 years at Network Solutions. At Network Solutions, he has gone from hand-coding live homepage updates to management of a mature UI/Design team.

Richard Hazlett

Richard Hazlett has a Ph.D. in Psychology and is an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University. His area of research interest in HCI is user emotional experience and product desirability, and he has presented his findings at numerous conferences and in publications in leading journals. He also maintains a private consulting practice in which he has applied his emotion measures to help a number of local and Fortune 500 companies develop their products and advertising.

Carollynn Hammersmith

Carollynn Hammersmith has worked on the Internet Staff in the IT Directorate of the Census Bureau for 6 years.  She has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Studies, is the co-leader of the Information Architecture and Design Working Group (IADWG), and a contributing member of the DC Web Women, a professional women in technology group.

Dick Horst

Dick Horst is the founder and President of UserWorks, Inc., a usability engineering consulting firm in the Washington, DC area. Dick has conducted or overseen more than a hundred usability testing projects for organizations in government, the private sector, non-profits, and academia. Remote testing methods have been increasingly utilized over a five year period. Dick has a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Carnegie-Mellon University and is a board certified professional ergonomist.

Melanie Huston

Melanie Huston is a Systems Librarian working at the National Library Medicine. Her interests include cognition, systems design, usability, and information retrieval. She serves on the steering committee of the Federal Intranet Content Managers Forum. She has a master’s degree in Library & Information Science from the University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign.

Bill Killam

Bill Killam is the President and Principle Human Factors Engineer at User-Centered Design, Inc.  Mr. Killam has degrees in both engineering and psychology and is board certified in Human Factors Engineering by the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics.  He has been providing Human Factors Engineering, user-centered design, and usability services for over 25 years. He and has provided web site design and testing service to the numerous US Government agencies including the State Department, the US Geological Survey, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, NIST, and the National Cancer Institute as well as numerous commercial and non-profit organizations.  Mr. Killam teaches as an adjunct professor at both the University of Maryland and George Mason University and has taught the workshop on usability at the University of Maryland’s HCIL Open House symposium for the past 7 years.  He is an active member of the human factors engineering and usability testing community at both the national and local level and has been the Vice President and President of the Potomac Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, president of the DC Chapter of the Usability Professionals Association, and is on the board of DC Chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Human Computer Interaction (ACM SIGCHI).

Katherine Kendall

Katherine Kendall is a Senior Information Architect and User Experience Lead at Marriott International. She has led several projects during her three years with Marriott including the redesign of the site's hotel search functionality, and the development of B2B customer extranets. Katherine has also worked on internal processes and documentation standards to improve communication between business stakeholders, user experience team members, and technical developers. Katherine has a Master¹s Degree in Information Architecture from Kent State University.

Deirdre Menard

Deirdre Menard has worked in the usability field for over a decade. Her background includes a consultancy in Boston and in Northern Virginia with clients such as New American Paintings magazine, Beth Israel Hospital, AOL, and Sprint/Nextel.   

Erica Olmsted-Hawala

Erica Olmsted-Hawala has worked at the Usability Lab in the Statistical Research Division at the Census Bureau for the past 6 years.  She has a Master’s degree in Technical Communications and is a member of the Information Architecture and Design Working Group (IADWG) and UPA.

Rob Rhyne

Equal parts designer and developer, Rob Rhyne has a perspective not commonly found in the technology field: he believes that technology should appear as beautiful to the user as it does to the developer.  He is a veteran User Experience Designer who has participated in many large-scale design activities, including recent work for the American Red Cross, the Missile Defense Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Renate Roske-Shelton

Renate Roshe-Shelton is the Director of Usability at Quotient Inc., a small consulting company in Columbia, MD. She currently works as a contract consultant to the National Library of Medicine (NLM), Office of Communication and Computing Systems (OCCS) where she conducts usability studies as well as undertakes basic grant-funded research. She earned her Ph.D in Cognitive Psychology from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces and has worked in various National Research Laboratories on a variety of challenging applied technology issues ranging from Aircraft Cockpit Menu design at NASA Ames Research Center to  Medical and Health Information Messaging issues related to the design, usability and accessibility of NLM Web sites.  Renate is a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the ACM special interest group for Human-Computer Interaction and participates in many local professional associations. Her primary interest lies in the development and application  of scientifically rigorous methods and the documentation of best practices to achieve excellent design solutions for user interfaces for evolving technologies.

Andrew Schall

Andrew Schall is a Project User Interface Designer and Usability Specialist at UserWorks.  He also manages UserWorks’ lab facilities. He has conducted both in-person and remote usability testing for numerous clients in the public and private sectors. Andrew has a B.S. in information technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology and is completing his master’s degree in interaction design and information architecture at the University of Baltimore.

Jared Spool

If you’ve ever seen Jared Spool speak about usability, you know that he’s probably the most effective, knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. What you probably don’t know is that he has guided the research agenda and built User Interface Engineering into the largest research organization of its kind in the world. He’s been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term "usability" was ever associated with computers. Jared spends his time working with the research teams at the company, helps clients understand how to solve their design problems, explains to reporters and industry analysts what the current state of design is all about, and is a top-rated speaker at more than 20 conferences every year. He is also the conference chair and keynote speaker at the annual User Interface Conference, is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute, and manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time.

Mike Steadman

Mike Steadman brings nearly 20 years of technology industry experience ranging from his work with the US Air Force to his current role as President, Susquehanna Technologies [SusQtech], a Virginia-based Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint solutions.  Mike is an active speaker and writer within the Association and Non-Profit industry, and is a member of the American Society of Association Executives. Mike holds a B.S. in Computer Science from James Madison University, and an M.S. in Information Technology Management from Virginia Tech.

Kathryn Summers

Kathryn Summers was one of the first researchers in the DC Metro area to begin using eyetracking.  She teaches user research, usability testing, and interaction design for the University of Baltimore’s master’s program in Interaction Design and Information Architecture.  Along with a host of projects for major corporations, she has done research about navigation, on-line reading comprehension, and information design.  She has spoken at a number of international research conferences, and published in industry journals.

Michael Summers

Before starting SUMMERS Consulting, Michael Summers was User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group, Director of User Research at Scient, and Senior Information Architect at USWeb/CKS.  He has advised AstraZeneca, GSI Commerce, Major League Baseball, Morgan Stanley, Pfizer, REUTERS, and NCOA. Michael has been invited to speak about user-centered design to the American Center for Design, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and the Association for Computing Machinery's special interest group in Computer-Human Interaction.

Kate Walser

Kate Walser has designed and built engaging, intuitive, and accessible products for customers including T. Rowe Price and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services for the last 10 years. Kate’s biomedical engineering and research background coupled with an MBA give her a unique perspective into establishing usability within organizations. She established and leads the SRA Usability Center of Excellence, where she explores mobile and Web 2.0 design. Kate serves on the Section 508 Refresh Committee.

John Whalen

John Whalen has a PhD in Cognitive Science and is a Project Director and Teacher with Human Factors International with eight years of User-Centered Design experience.  John’s specialty is improving user experience through a mix of in-depth user study and use of expert knowledge of human vision, visual attention, memory and language.  John's latest research interest is studying how we can measure "experience" by capturing facial emotions, eye movements, and behavior.