Jeff Triplett
Conference Chair
Jeff, this year's conference chair, is a Django developer for Revolution Systems (Revsys). He's also a co-founder and President of the Board of the Django Events Foundation North America (DEFNA), was Conference Chair for DjangoCon US 2015, and he co-organized the Django Birthday conference. In his spare time, he practices photography and is getting back into running.
Lacey Williams Henschel
Conference Co-Chair
Lacey is a senior software developer for the University of Texas at Austin, but she telecommutes from Portland, OR. She has organized several Django Girls workshops, served as a member of the Django Girls Support Team, and was last year's DjangoCon US Diversity and Financial Aid Chair. In her spare time, she's a Big Sister with Big Brothers Big Sisters, she serves on the technical board of Project Callisto, and she watches a lot of Netflix.
Anna Ossowski
Communications Chair
Anna works for Eldarion, helping them with community management and talent development. She is a former director of the Python Software Foundation, PyCon Open Spaces-Chair, DjangoCon US Communications Chair, and group leader of the PyLadies Remote group. Anna is very passionate about diversity and community outreach and wants to encourage more women to learn programming because it's awesome!
Andy Gonzalez
Diversity Chair
Andy is a co-organizer for several Django Girls workshops in Mexico. She’s a web developer for SendOutCards and is based in Salt Lake City, Utah. In her spare time, she loves photography and traveling.
Andrew Pinkham
Talks Chair, Program Co-Chair
Andrew is a half-French-half-American software engineer and the author of 'Django Unleashed,' published this year by Pearson. Andrew specializes in web and mobile products, but is also passionate about security and distributed systems. He is a 2009 graduate of Dartmouth College and works as a consultant and instructor in Python and Django.
Kenneth Love
Tutorials Chair, Program Co-Chair
Besides teaching all things Python at Treehouse, Kenneth Love is a husband & father. He created a few Python libraries (django-braces being the most popular), worked at most levels of the web stack, & was the Creative Director of a newspaper. He likes board games, activism, & dry humor.
Kojo Idrissa
Lightning Talks and Orientation Chair
After being an accountant, then a university instructor in China(中華隊!), Kojo recently became a software engineer. He's still learning how to do this. He likes teaching, helping new people join tech communities, inclusion, and K-Pop(한류). You might find him at a random PyLadies meetup, Girls Coding Club, TX/RX Labs, Python Houston, Python Web Houston and/or as @transition on Twitter.
Sara Gore
Financial Aid Chair
Sara is a senior software developer and analyst at the University of Texas at Austin, as nimble with mainframes as she is with Django. She loves teaching Django and working with Django Girls to help introduce more women to the technology. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and snuggling with her tuxedo cat.
Landon Jurgens
Sprints Chair
Landon is a senior software engineer at Rackspace. Originally from upstate NY, he now calls Austin, Texas home. In between, he spent a couple years in Lawrence, Kansas where he learned Django and web development. He currently supervises a team of engineers working on internal services that Rackers depend upon every day. In his spare time he rescues Border Collies and facilitates Women Who Code events.
Heather Luna
Sponsorship Chair
Heather aka. Heats works as a Systems Administrator within the Wharton Computing department at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She’s been with the school for about 3 years and is a n00b to the Python/Django realm. She is looking forward to the road ahead both in learning how to code and remaining a part of the DjangoCon family for years ahead! Fun fact: All the pets in the Luna household are named for nerdy things. Ecklo is named after Intel’s DQ45EK board, Ada is named after Ada Lovelace, and Qwerty Baud - the bird (look down :)) #nerdlife
Timothy Allen
Venue Liaison
Tim is the IT Director of Advanced Initiatives for Wharton Research Data Services, having worked for the Wharton School since 2008. Tim began programming at the age of 6, on Apple ][+ and Commodore Pets, before venturing on to many OS's, DB's, and languages which led to his favorite language / web framework pair, Python and Django. Tim is passionate about the Philadelphia technology community and culture, having served as Vice President of PANMA, a chair of the Wharton Web Conference and BarCamp Philly, an organizer of PhillyPUG, and PSF member. Tim loves ice hockey, cycling, sci-fi, hacking, playing guitar, and lives in South Philly with his wife and cats.
Philip James
Visas Coordinator
Philip writes code in Python, Django, and JavaScript. In his spare time, he writes novels, makes twitter bots, and gives technical talks. He used to run a webcomic, but there's just no money in it, you know? Philip is a refugee from the video games industry, and wishes anyone still there the best of luck. Philip has spoken at conferences about Python, Django, Node.js, and Linux. He has volunteered with PyLadies, Python meetup groups in the San Francisco Bay Area, and DjangoCon US. Philip believes in the web.
Craig Bruce
Treasurer
Craig first discovered Django in 2009 when he joined AstraZeneca. It was being used to power Design Tracker, a system used globally by chemists to aid their drug discovery efforts. It wasn't until he moved to the US to work for OpenEye that Craig got the opportunity to attend DjangoCon US. Craig is one of the three founders of Django Events Foundation North America (DEFNA) and serves as the Treasurer for both DEFNA and DjangoCon US. When not doing DEFNA business Craig enjoys skiing, hiking and walking his dog, Lucy.
Stacey Haysler
DEFNA Corporate Secretary; Venue and Hotel Liaison
Stacey is the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operations Officer of PostgreSQL Experts, Inc., a San Francisco open source software consultancy. She serves as Corporate Secretary of the Django Events Foundation North America, and was one of the organizers of DjangoCon US 2015. When not occupied with keeping her businesses running smoothly, Stacey passes her time with reading, writing, and doing historical re-enactment.