Presenter Bios

Rachel currently works for Microsoft as a Sr. Developer Evangelist based in the NYC Metro area. Rachel is an industry recognized author, mentor, trainer, and speaker, who regularly speaks at national conferences such as DevConnections, MIX, VSLive, and CodeStock. Previous to joining Microsoft, Rachel has worked with a variety of languages, technologies, and systems for over more than 20 years in software development. She has developed software products of all sizes, from small desktop programs to large scale enterprise applications at some of the world’s leading companies. Rachel's area of expertise is building enterprise .NET systems working with Microsoft ASP.NET, HTML5, and related technologies. Rachel also develops Metro applications on Windows 8. Other technical interests of Rachel’s include hard core computer science and artificial intelligence.

Jared is a highly regarded public speaker and software architect with more than sixteen years in the industry. Jared is currently employed as a Sr. Mobile Evangelist for Microsoft where he helps companies, individuals and startups build applications for Windows 8 and Windows Phone. In his career he’s developed a wide range of skills across several industries, including IP telephony, ruggedized mobile computing, rich clients and soft skills as an advisor and educator. Jared immensely enjoys helping people do amazing things with cutting-edge technologies.

Ultra passionate. That’s how Jeff describes his relationship with web development – and who’s to argue? Over the past 10 years, Jeff has enthusiastically applied his technical expertise to build industry-changing websites and marketing efforts for mega brands including Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, Ford Motor Company, Sony, and several pharmaceutical companies. He’s especially proficient in user interface design, web standards and web application development. In addition to his developer evangelist role for Microsoft, Jeff contributes to the O’Reilly title Windows Developer Power Tools on the subject of code validation services and serves as an organizer for the CodeMash and Stir Trek conferences. On the academic front, Jeff holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Ohio’s Bowling Green State University. When he’s not solving web development challenges, Jeff’s on a mission to convert iPod users to the Zune MP3 player – one music lover at a time.

Dave Bost is a Technical Evangelist in Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) Division. In this role, Dave works with the broad developer community to help them succeed on the Microsoft Platform. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was a Software Developer and Solution Architect working with many Fortune 500 companies as a technical mentor and consultant. Dave started his technical passion when he wrote his first assembly-language program out of a Commodore-64 manual that produced a hot-air balloon to sail across his Commodore 1701 Video Monitor. From there, he was hooked on creating something from nothing with software. More recently, Dave has been working with both app and game developer to bring their titles to the Windows Phone and Windows 8 platforms. You can contact Dave at http://davebost.com, listen to him on the Thirsty Developer Podcast (http://thirstydeveloper.com/), or follow him at http://twitter.com/davebost.

Chris Bowen is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft in the Boston area. He works with all things .NET, but has specialties in application architecture and building highly-scalable transactional web systems. A software architect and engineer with over 15 years of experience, Chris joined Microsoft after holding senior positions at Monster.com, VistaPrint, Staples, and IDX Systems. He is coauthor of "Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System" from WROX and the upcoming “Essential Windows Communication Foundation” from Addison-Wesley. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Management Information Systems, both from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Jeff joined Microsoft just after the release of Windows 95 – what he calls “heady days” that laid the groundwork for his current fascination with all things .NET. He also watched the long march of Windows 2000 and can brag that he was on the ground for the browser wars. At Microsoft, Jeff has worn a number of different hats, working as an infrastructure consultant, an e-commerce specialist, and an enterprise technology advisor. In his current role, Jeff helps customers and developers to evaluate, develop and deploy applications built on the .NET framework and the Microsoft platform.

Doris is a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft for the Western region of the United States. Doris has over 13 years of experience in the software industry working in several open source web tier technologies, Java platform, and distributed computing technologies. She has developed and delivered over 400 keynotes, technical sessions, code camps worldwide, published widely at numerous international conferences and user groups including JavaOne, O'Reilly, SD Forum and worldwide Java User Groups (JUG). Doris works very closely to create and foster the community around NetBeans, Glassfish, and related technologies. Before joining Microsoft, Doris Chen was a Technology Evangelist at Sun Microsystems. Doris received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in computer engineering, specializing in medical informatics. She loves to travel and she has visited 48 countries (out of 872) so far. In her spare time, she also enjoys music, movies and museums.

Danilo Diaz, aka Dani, is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft's Mid-Atlantic State district. In this role, he helps developers understand Microsoft's product offerings and strategy. Prior to joining Microsoft, he worked at Perficient Philadelphia where he helped establish their Mobility Practice. Dani has over 8 years of experience in the IT industry. His ability to identify and utilize the right blend of technologies to solve business needs has been an asset on all projects he has worked on. Dani's first .NET project was a Web-based eLearning application which was built on ASP.NET 1.0 Beta 2. As a consultant he has served the roles of system architect, technical lead, developer and mentor on various large and small projects. He has worked on SOA-based applications, Web applications, Windows applications and mobile systems.

Ed Donahue works for Microsoft as a Technical Evangelist. She specializes in the academic space and works with students to create cool stuff, like phone applications and Xbox games, using Microsoft technologies. She loves to share her passion for technology with others! You can find her online at her blog, creepyed.com, or on Twitter, @creepyed.

Andrew is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Corporation, covering the Mid-Atlantic states. He has been working with computers since the days of the Commodore PET, hacking game programs loaded from cassette tapes to say funny stuff, and has been writing and speaking about developer technologies for more than a decade. While his developer specialty is web development, Andrew also enjoys gadgets of any stripe, gaming, cigars, and poker. In his free time he can be found spending time with his wife and two sons, reading, or playing music.

For Clint, it's all about the architects. He was educated as a mechanical engineer, but quickly saw the error of his ways and has spent his entire 17-year career in software development, preparing for his current role as an architect evangelist. Cutting his teeth on Turbo Pascal (with Objects!) in high school, he moved to C++ and immersed himself in the Windows API when he landed his first professional job. When .NET and C# were released he immediately jumped in head first and never looked back. Clint has applied his expertise to a wide range of industries, including utilities, education, call centers, construction, and beer brewing (tough assignment, Clint!). When he’s not deep in a conversation or delivering presentations on software layering, Clint enjoys studying game design and 3D game engine architecture.

Originally from Chicago, Daniel moved to California in the early ‘90s – right when the Bulls were stampeding the NBA. He dabbled in several industries (from hospitality to law) and soon found his niche in engineering and information technology. Before joining Microsoft, Daniel served as the Chief Architect and CEO for Odyssey Consulting Group, which provided custom application development for mid-range companies. In the Microsoft fold, Daniel has been a Regional Director, an MVP (ASP / ASP.NET), a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, and a .NET insider for the Southern California region. He’s also the founder of the SoCalDotNet Developers Group, teaches a .NET certification course at California State University Fullerton, and previously served as president of INETA – the international .NET association. Away from the screen, you’ll find Daniel racing to bring down his marathon times (don’t ask for numbers) or putting his Canon camera through the paces in search of the perfect shot.

Jeremy Foster was educated in computer engineering and mathematics, gathered disparate industry experience in education, aerospace manufacturing, and insurance. With just enough and not nearly enough education and experience, he finally joined Microsoft with the goal of informing and inspiring other software developers to write code and write it right. When he is not working, he is likely spending time with his wife and son, hiking and camping, sailing, scuba diving, or working on house projects. Find Jeremy online at @codefoster and codefoster.com.

Jesse Freeman is a Technology Evangelist at Microsoft focusing on Windows 8 and HTML5 Gaming and helping developers build amazing apps and games for Windows 8. Jesse has been a Web developer for over 13 years as well as a mobile app developer for the better part of the last 4 years. He moved back to NY in 2002 and has worked with some of the city’s top companies such as MLB, the New York Jets, HBO, Tommy Hilfiger, Bloomberg and even internationally for clients such as VW. Through his career he has seen all sides of development from independent contractor, government, consultant, agency and product. It has been a crazy ride and an amazing one that helped make him the developer he is today. In addition to client work, Jesse has been a blogger for the past 6 years. Through all of his work Jesse has always had a passion for making games and over the past year has been focusing on HTML5 game development. Jesse recently wrote a book for O’Reilly called Introducing HTML5 Game Development using the ImpactJS framework. He has always used his passion for making games to help him learn new programming languages and this passion is one thing he hopes to share with others.

Edwin Guarin is an Academic Developer Evangelist with Microsoft based in Boston. In 2000, he graduated with a B.A. in Computer Science from Boston Univesrity and joined Microsoft as a Support Engineer for Exchange Server. Prior to being an ADE, Edwin was a Rapid Response Engineer - Northeast Regional Team Lead. In his current role he educates, excites and empowers students and faculty about technology and its career possibilities, and he loves his job!

Randy Guthrie is an Academic Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Corporation. In this role, Randy provides academic and research support to faculty and students at schools in the southwestern portion of the US. Prior to his working at Microsoft, Randy was a professor at California State Polytechnic University - Pomona, where he taught software engineering, programming and information systems courses. During his tenure at Cal Poly, Randy was also the volunteer Director of a community employment center where he coached hundreds of job seekers in job searching, resume writing and interviewing. Before his appointment at Cal Poly, Randy spent thirteen years working for the Northrop Grumman Corporation, where he was a contract manager on the Stealth Bomber project, a project manager, and financial analyst. Randy earned his Bachelors Degree in Business from the University of La Verne in 1991, an MBA in 1998 from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management, and a PhD in Information Science in 2007 from the School of Information Science and Technology at Claremont Graduate University. Randy currently resides in the Denver, Colorado area where he likes to ski, bike ride, and hike.

Matt Harrington is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Before joining Microsoft in 2011, Matt was active in the local open source community. He discovered functional programming through Scala. At a Silicon Valley Code Camp in 2008, Matt had a break in his schedule and decided to attend a talk on F# by Tim Ng of Microsoft. At that time, he didn't even own a Windows computer and had only heard faint whispers about F#. By the end of Tim's talk, Matt was sold. F# really clicked with him, so he stopped what he was doing, switched his home machine from Solaris to Windows, and dove into F# and .NET. He soon learned that to really become an expert in .NET, you have to know C#, which he then picked up and enjoyed just as much. Matt tossed VB.NET in for good measure, which he found to be just as powerful as C# but with a more readable syntax.

Based in Tampa, Joe is the developer evangelist for Microsoft Gulf States district, bringing all things .NET to his fellow coders in Florida. He serves a variety of different clients, from corporate accounts to broad-reach events and user groups. He also lectures on numerous development and architectural topics, with a spotlight on .NET frameworks, Visual Studio.NET, and associated servers. Joe worked previously for Microsoft Consulting Services in the custom application development arena, specializing in Internet, Web Services, Rich Client, B2B, and browser-delivered systems. Joe has also lent his technical expertise to eAngler.com, Arthur Andersen, Cap Gemini, EDS and IBM. Away from the office, you’ll find Joe trying to coax redfish, snook, and trout from various nooks and crannies around Tampa Bay, and playing an occasional game of poker at Derby Lane. His two little girls, Ryan and Morgan, are already honing their angling skills and will soon give Joe a run for his money on the local waters.

Brian Hitney is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft Corporation, covering North and South Carolina. He frequently delivers presentations and works with local community groups and customers on emerging technologies, .NET, and developer tools. Prior to his Developer Evangelist role, Brian worked as a software engineer on a Windows Vista team in Redmond, and before he joined Microsoft he helped build large scale e-commerce applications for various companies across the United States. Brian is based out of Greensboro, NC.

Adam is an technical evangelist working for Microsoft, focused on the cloud. By day, you can likely find him somewhere in the Midwest, driving somewhere, ready to figure out how the cloud can save your family from certain doom, and make you rich and successful in the process. Before he started evangelizing, Adam was a Senior Developer Lead for Microsoft in Redmond, working on Office 365, BPOS, and Office Live. He misses Redmond, and the excitement of the mother ship, but the call of bitter cold and lots of snow in Chicago was too much for him, and he had to return (plus, he needed good pizza). Prior that that he developed software and ran teams for Thomson Reuters, Method Engine (which he co-founded), VSA Partners, Navigant Consulting, Andersen Consulting, and a couple of CASE tool companies way back in the day. His favorite possession is a clone of the original Altair computer, running BillG's 8K BASIC, which he's still intending to hook up to the cloud, someday, somehow. You can read his Windows Azure Blog at http://stratospher.es, and tweeter-er him at http://twitter.com/stratospher_es.

Ever since creating his first "Choose Your Own Adventure" video game using Commodore BASIC, Dave has been fascinated by the potential of computers and the worlds they can bring to us. Debuting in the Enterprise space with Visual Basic 5, he has over 12 years IT experience and has worked for numerous Fortune 100/500 companies. These include industries such as retail and life sciences on projects ranging from smart Devices, Web services, and rfid to the creation of Web sites within the retail industry. He enjoys talking about technology and has taught full day courses on various Microsoft topics as well as being a presenter at both MSDN Events and Microsoft DevDays. His current passion is showing companies in the Mid-Atlantic states how important good user experience is within the Enterprise as well as how easy it is to get to. In his spare time, Dave enjoys gaming online with fellow Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) users, as well as reliving the 80's arcade classics on X-Box Live.

Take having worked in IT in industry for several years and then moving into being a professor for a number of years and combine the best of both of those worlds - that is what I do! I also am responsible for the Microsoft Enterprise Consortium where we offer large-live datasets to faculty and students around the world for their use in research and teaching. I am also in the process of assembling a set of security modules for faculty that are focused on Critical Infrastructure Protection. For fun, I sit on the Texas Business Education Coalition for K-20 for the state of Texas where our primary focus is driving students to STEM degree programs and careers.

Michael Johnson works for Microsoft as a Principal Technical Evangelist focusing on connecting with independent Developers to develop application for Windows Phones and Windows 8.

Ryan Joy is a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft where his passion lies in JavaScript and great UX! He brings to the position more than 12 years of experience developing for the web and desktop user interfaces. During that time, he's also worked with more than a few backend technologies and frameworks. As a User Experience consultant, Ryan has had the chance to work with world-class brands and Fortune 100 retailers to develop world-class websites. In addition he is active in the local Austin tech communities both as organizer (Refresh Austin and the Austin Web Design Meetup) and as frequent attendee. Ryan resides in Austin, TX and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. He's an avid photographer and a decent cook. Find him online at ryanjoy.com or follow him at twitter.com/atxryan.

It all started in 1979 with an Atari 800 computer, helping his friend write a simple programming language for his little brother. Since that time, Chris has worked as a developer and architect for dozens of enterprise customers, helping them build compelling applications across their various platforms. After joining Microsoft as a Developer Evangelist in the spring of 2007, Chris has helped launch several amazing products including Silverlight, Expression Studio, Windows 7, Visual Studio 2008 and 2010, Windows Azure and most recently Windows Phone 7. Currently, Chris channels his passion for technology by helping to build, grow and enhance the developer communities of North Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Windows Phone 7 in hand, Chris is always eager to share his passion for technology with anyone willing to listen. When he's not evangelizing the latest amazing Microsoft technology, he can be found at home helping with homework, Scout meetings, football games, music studies and chauffeur duties for his 4 children, and experimenting with new and interesting food recipes while planning exciting vacations with his amazing wife. Keep up with Chris on his blog at http://chriskoenig.net or reach him via Twitter at @chriskoenig.

Peter Laudati is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft. In his current role, Peter works with the developer community in New York and New Jersey to support area user groups, code camps, and other events. Previously, he worked as a consultant in Microsoft’s services division. As a consultant, he worked on several application development projects and provided architectural guidance for large customers throughout the NY & NJ metro area. He lives with his family in central New Jersey and loves kayaking and biking at the Jersey Shore.

Lindsay Lindstrom is a Technical Evangelist for Microsoft, based in Pennsylvania. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern California. During her time at USC, she worked with ABC and Wells Fargo supporting their web properties. In her current role she educates, excites and empowers developers about Microsoft technology, and she loves her job! Lindsay is also passionate about supporting Women in Technology, especially inspiring girls to explore technology careers.

Ryan Lowdermilk is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He educates and empowers developers to deliver first class application experiences to the Windows Phone and Windows 8 platforms. Prior to joining Microsoft, Ryan served as a software consultant in the Los Angeles area with responsibility for designing and implementing customer relationship and business intelligence solutions. Ryan has worked alongside some of L.A.’s top entertainment and retail firms to design and implement custom software solutions which boosted productivity, lowered the bottom line and increased profitability. Ryan is the author of “Auditing the Cisco Aironet” and holds certifications in computer security and server/network infrastructure design. Ryan is the host and producer of the Windows Developer Show. The weekly show records live where Ryan, and his brother Travis, cover the hottest topics surrounding Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Xbox development. The show has been featured in Gizmodo, Engadget, ZDNet, Ars Technica and The New York Times.

Jennifer claims she’s got the coolest job in the company. She learns about Microsoft’s new technologies for developers, takes them for a spin, then delivers the details to her colleagues and clients. She is a frequent speaker at software development conferences across the United States. In 2009, Jennifer was chosen as "Techie whose innovation will have the biggest impact" by X-OLOGY for her work with GiveCamps, a weekend-long event where developers code for charity. She has also received many honors from Microsoft, including the Central Region Top Contributor Award, Heartland District Top Contributor Award, DPE Community Evangelist Award, CPE Champion Award, MSUS Diversity & Inclusion Award, and Gold Club. Before she landed the prized developer evangelist gig, Jennifer was a software developer in Microsoft’s Natural Interactive Services division, where she filed two patents for her work in search and data mining algorithms. She also held positions with Ford Motor Company, Natural Instruments, and Soar Technology. Jennifer holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering and a Master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where her (seriously brainy) graduate work focused on artificial intelligence and computational theory. Jennifer blogs at http://blogs.msdn.com/jennifer and tweets at http://twitter.com/jennifermarsman.

For over 15 years Zain has been working with the latest Microsoft technologies. He’s been a consultant and trainer since 1995. He currently creates the Visual Studio Tips and Tricks series. Also he created Online Community Evangelism; which is an effort to build communities in virtual places like LinkedIn, Facebook, and elsewhere. He is not only a proponent of the community aspect of online environments but also is a supporter of the myriad business applications that these new mediums offer. Zain’s efforts have been featured by eWeek, Redmond Developer News, and many others. He has been interviewed by Forrester Research, Gartner, and the Science Channel for his work. He is a frequent speaker at events in LinkedIn, Facebook, and other online venues. Zain also lectures world-wide on a variety of developer topics.

Maria Naggaga is a Technical Evangelist for Microsoft in New York. She graduated with a Bachelor Informatics and a major in Health Informatics under the faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University, NovaScotia, Canada this April. In the past two years Maria has had experiences as a project manager at Research In Motion(RIM), an enterprise architect at Telus Communication, and a researcher at Dalhousie University. In these roles she has had the opportunity to create process workflows, inventory databases, prototypes, teaching plans, and policies and guidelines for system use. At Dalhousie University, Maria researched the use of Bayesian Theorem in clinical decision-making and created mobile applications to assist with disease management in rural East Africa. Prior to moving to New York Maria lived in Canada for 4.5 years and am originally from Uganda. Besides programming, Maria really enjoys running, yoga, swimming, and travel!

Jerry Nixon is a Microsoft Developer Evangelist in Colorado. He has been developing and designing on the Microsoft platform for 15 years. He speaks at universities, events and groups on Kinect, XAML, Windows Phone, and Windows 8. Most of Jerry’s days are spent teaching his three daughters Star Trek character backstories and episode plots.

Digging for answers and discovering connections are Jim’s obsessions. He’s built his fair share of applications for fun and profit, but attacking new technologies, understanding how they work, and communicating the details back to fellow developers is what gets him going each day. Starting with Microsoft C on a 286 in the late ‘80s, Jim’s career has focused on standalone Microsoft technologies and interoperability with the likes of CORBA and J2EE. He holds an MCPD: Enterprise Application Developer certification and was a certified Sybase instructor. As the co-author of two books on PowerBuilder, Jim has spoken at numerous events in the U.S., Canada and Europe over the past 15 years. If he weren’t digging around in technology, Jim would have been a classical archaeologist. That’s why he takes a week off every July to help run the National Junior Classical League Convention for secondary school students of Latin and Greek.

Prior to joining Microsoft, J. "Michael" Palermo IV served as a Microsoft RD and MVP based in Phoenix, AZ. Michael is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and maintains a number of industry related certifications. Michael is a published author on web technologies, and currently writes articles for DevProConnections regarding HTML5 technologies. Michael is invited to speak at developer events around the world.

Alice grew up in Louisiana and came out to sunny California after high school to attend Stanford University, where she received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering/Software. She then moved across the bay to get her M.S. degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and Management of Technology certificate through the Haas School of Business and College of Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. While at Stanford and Berkeley, she was heavily involved in various dance groups and enjoyed organizing networking, mentoring, and community outreach events for the Society of Women Engineers. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, discovering new places to eat, rock climbing, flipping upside down in aerial arts, riding motorcycles, and sharing Louisiana and Chinese culture with people. As a Microsoft Technical Evangelist in California, she focuses on WebMatrix and Windows 8.

Expect Brian to get (in his own words) “super excited” whenever he talks about technology, especially cloud computing, patterns, and practices. That’s a good thing, given that his job is to help customers strategically leverage Microsoft technologies and take their architecture to new heights. Before joining Microsoft in March 2008, Brian was senior director of technology strategy for a major Midwest partner and has over 13 years of expertise in information technology management. His consulting experience includes e-commerce, extranets and business technology for numerous industries, including real estate, financial services, health care, retail, and state government institutions. Brian also has exceptional proficiency in the Microsoft .NET framework, Service Oriented Architecture, building ESBs, and both smart client and web based applications. Brian’s the co-founder of the non-profit organization CodeMash (www.codemash.org) and speaks at various regional and national technology events, such as TechEd. Brian is the co-author of “Azure in Action”, published by Manning Press. Armed with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science and Physics from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, Brian is a zealous gamer with a special weakness for Fallout 3.

Name a role in the software industry, and Clark has probably played it. He started as a Y2K tester and has since worked as a developer, lead, “build monkey,” solutions architect and project manager. His professional sweet spot however, lies in designing and building software solutions that make life easier – there’s no chance for boredom and constant opportunities for growth. Clark is MCSD certified and received top Microsoft honors with the Circle of Excellence Award. He’s a graduate of Western Illinois University and before joining Microsoft in 2005, he served as a solutions architect at Allstate Insurance Company. As a senior developer evangelist and Visual Studio team system ranger, Clark brings a good dose of humor and a zest for life to the podium. You can hear Clark’s technical musings on “The Smackdown” at DeveloperSmackdown.com and The Thirsty Developer podcast – or find him getting grease under his nails in the garage. Clark’s a muscle car fanatic who’s currently finishing a body-off restoration of his 1970 Chevrolet Camaro.

Bret is a Microsoft Developer Evangelist in Southern California focusing on the Azure family of products, services and technologies. Bret has been working with Microsoft technologies for over twenty years. Bret spent a number of years on the admin side managing servers, networks and users, but has been a developer all along writing code for fun, utility and profit. For the past ten years, Bret has been the owner of Net Connex, a Microsoft Partner focusing primarily on providing training for SQL Server and .NET Development. Although he has been focusing on training, he kept his hands in the code on numerous development contracts through the years. Finally, Bret has been involved in the So Cal development community helping to organize the So Cal and LA Code Camps, multiple SQL Saturday events, as well as presenting at user groups and various regional events.

Sam Stokes has been creating software solutions at the leading edge of technology since, well let’s just say a long time. Computer languages includes: Ada, C, C++, C#, Objective C (on the NEXT computer), Visual Basic, FORTRAN, F#, JavaScript, Embedded Systems, but strangely never Java. For databases he has designed architectures for: SQL Based servers, Lotus Notes, and proudly MS Access. At Microsoft Sam Stokes is a Technology Evangelists who works with students and professors to help them understand how to use modern software technology in the classroom and in the research labs. In a previous life he has owned a successful software consultancy developing Project Tracking systems. And prior to his successful consultancy timeframe Sam designed guidance systems for satellites and automatic landing systems for commercial airliners. In his spare time he teaches Beginning and Advanced Game Design to Computer Science students at California State University Colleges.

Sara Summers is a User Experience Evangelist at Microsoft and has coauthored the recently published book for experience designers, entitled Dynamic Prototyping. She has a personal design mantra: happy, healthy designers and developers working and playing together to create beautiful, inspirational products. Sara loves to talk about big ideas, changing everything, breaking your toys, throwing away your designs and capturing new ideas. Sara reads everything she can get her hands on and prides herself in being an armchair social and cognitive scientist and researcher. Academically, she is trained as a technologist and visual designer, with a BS in Computer Graphics Technology, from Purdue University.

Like James Bond on secret assignment, Bruno spent his pre-MSDN Events days as a Microsoft premier field engineer – traveling around the clock to solve the most hair-raising client problems and meltdowns. From Asia to Latin America to Europe and Canada, Bruno has taught in nuclear power plants, assisted with life-or-death medical applications, and debugged multi-million-dollar financial trading software. Bruno has a finance and accounting degree from UC Berkeley and worked for several years as a money manager. Developing financial models to construct low-risk, high-return investment portfolios sparked his interest in computing, and the rest is self-taught history. Bruno brings two decades of worldwide training experience to his MSDN presentations, instructing students on C#, .NET, C++, SharePoint, J++, HTML, Web Parts and much more. He’s a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer with a wide array of platforms in his repertoire, a seasoned author and Microsoft channel partner trainer, and a confirmed thrill seeker. Bruno’s also a stand-up comedy connoisseur who works hard to make his audiences laugh – just like his role model, Anders Hejlsberg.

Tara E. Walker is a Microsoft Academic Developer Evangelist living in Atlanta, GA working for the Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelism team.. She has the great privilege to work with students and faculty in the Georgia, Florida and Alabama area. She has been with Microsoft for 10 Years, but worked for various companies across Georgia as a Software Engineer and Software Developer prior to joining Microsoft.