Speakers
We’re thrilled to have empowering people from the design community joining our event to share their wisdom and insights with you. Sign up to watch and be inspired!
Friday, 9/18 | 4 PM PDT
Keynote Speaker: Kat Vellos
“DESIGNING A BETTER WORLD”
Kat Vellos is a user experience designer, author, speaker, coach and facilitator. Her passion is helping people connect authentically. She’s researched, designed, and advised on the user experience of countless flows in digital products serving millions of people at companies like Slack and Pandora, and created community for hundreds more as a facilitator.
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Guest Speaker: Hyun Woo
"ADVOCATING FOR USERS THROUGH RESEARCH"
Hyun is a User Experience Researcher on the Google's Play team who focuses on games research. Prior to Google, Hyun was a user researcher at Blizzard Entertainment. Hyun has a Master's degree in Human Factors and Applied Cognition from George Mason and bachelor's degree in Psychology from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Guest Speaker: Fonz Morris
“MORE WAYS THAN ONE: USING YOUR DESIGN POWER TO GIVE BACK”
Fonz is a self taught designer, lifelong learner, and 2x successful entrepreneur with 15+ years of experience in design. He’s worked with some of the most respected brands and helps companies grow, engage, and retain their users.
THE UX PANELISTS
Following our guest speeches on Friday, we are hosting a UX Industry Panel with three incredible people from different UX backgrounds in user research, ux content strategy mangagement and interaction design. Tune in as we have a conversation about how these panelists found their path and listen to their advice on becoming more impactful designers, researchers and managers.
Alba Villamil
Alba N. Villamil is an independent User Researcher who specializes in designing for the social sector. Her projects focus on underserved populations such as refugees, low-income parents, and formerly incarcerated youth. In addition to working with community organizations, she is also a facilitator at HmntyCntrd, a course and community crafted to help designers navigate their work in a more human-centric way.
Kristen House
Kristen House is the UX Content Strategy Manager for Google Ads. She manages a team of UX Writers and UX Content Strategists to build products for billions of users. Hiring and supporting an inclusive team with diversity of thought and experience is key to following Google's motto: Build for Everyone.
Tiffany Eaton
Tiffany Eaton is an interaction designer at Google working on Rich Business Messages. In her spare time, she writes on Medium and coaches young designers. She has spoken at events on behalf of Google or personally at events, regarding design and personal development. She also mentors professionals in the design industry and gives advice on job search, design projects and career.
Saturday, 9/19 | 11 AM - 4 PM PDT
MEET YOUR WORKSHOP HOSTS
On Saturday we have some amazing designers and leaders coming to host workshops and talks throughout the day. See our schedule for the times of each session. Be ready to listen, learn and participate!
Sophia Liu
PRODUCT DESIGN FOR BEGINNERS
Sophia Liu is a product designer by day, maker by night. She has a background in architecture and photography, and loves to explore creativity through illustration, music, and fashion. Connect with her at studiosophy.com
Liana Kong
INTERACTION DESIGN FOR HARDWARE
After graduating with a degree in industrial design in 2015, Liana joined the Nest UX team to create the helpful home. Five years later, she specializes in designing how people interact with Nest hardware on the Device Interaction Design team.
Jonathan Brink
BUILDING COMMUNITY WITH ENGINEERING & PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Jonathan is a UX Lead with a passion for Saas products in this crazy Silicon Valley environment. He follows a design thinking process that empathizes with the customer, and believe in a collaborative approach to product design, working with teams to iterate and design as much as possible.
Karl Mendonca
DESIGN RESEARCH FOR INCLUSIVITY
Karl Mendonca a Design Researcher, Artist, Educator and Filmmaker. Prior to his current role at Google, he founded and was Head of the Design Research programs at Amazon Music and Goodreads. His mixed media work has shown at a number of galleries and film festivals including the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Queens Museum of Art, the Oxford Film Festival, Jersey City Museum and Experimenta (India). Karl was an adjunct faculty at The New School where he taught hybrid courses on media theory and production. He is finishing a PhD in Film & Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Danyel Rios Printz
FUSING YOUR PASSIONS WITH UX
Danyel (she/her, they/them) is an anthropologist and user researcher who is passionate about bringing empathy, understanding, equity, and action to product and design strategy. She is currently a Senior User Experience Researcher at Google working on internal tools for Google’s Legal teams. Prior to joining Google, Danyel led UX Research at Ancestry and AncestryDNA exploring the intersection between technology, biology, family history, and identity. Danyel has lived and worked all over the US as well as internationally in Japan, Germany, and Mexico.