2017 AST Election

The 2017 election is now over!

The candidates are listed below.

For more information on the AST board, see:

• Directors
• Past Leadership
• Election Proceedings

Thank you to everyone involved.

 

Carol Brands began her software career working as a technical support representative, where she developed an empathy and understanding for her users. After choosing to focus on testing, she moved to DNV GL Software and spent the next five years developing her testing skills and studying online. Carol became a student of Miagi-Do School of Testing, presented a poster paper at PNSQC, and spoke at the Conference of the Association for Software Testing twice. In additional to testing at work, Carol participates in a “Strategy Champion” program with the goal of helping coworkers develop a relationship with the corporate strategy by facilitating workshops. She spends her spare time volunteering with the AST Grants Committee, her local library, and occasionally with SpeakEasy, a group dedicated to helping find new voices in the testing and tech communities.

Read Carol’s Candidate Questionnaire replies here.

Eric Proegler is a test manager in San Francisco at Medidata, in a heavily Context-Driven influenced testing organization. He has worked in software for 20 years, and testing for 17. Eric has been an AST member since 2008, and is currently the VP and Treasurer of AST. He is now running for a second term on the AST Board.

Eric first ran for the AST board on a platform of getting deeply involved in AST operations. Some of the things he’s accomplished since joining the board include launching a new website, forming a volunteer technology team, serving as conference chair for a CAST, helping launch CASTx, implementing a new conference planning model, administering last year’s board election, writing summaries of board meetings and initiatives, creating AST Newsletters, and reducing operating expenses.

Outside of AST, Eric mentors new speakers for Speak Easy, organizes WOPR, and podcasts for PerfBytes. He takes his responsibility seriously to help software testing continue to progress towards a more welcoming, inclusive, and socially responsible community, which is necessary to help us all create a future where skilled, context-aware testing is relevant, respected, and well-compensated.

Read Eric’s Candidate Questionnaire replies here.

Gary Miller has been part of the AST community since 2013 as a member, conference speaker, grants committee member, and assistant BBST instructor. Gary hails from the San Francisco Bay Area where he lives with his partner and chocolate Labrador retriever, and where he works as the Director of Testing and Release at Boku Inc. Gary is also a member of the Bay Area Software Testers Meetup. As part of Gary’s professional role, he helped his team move from a test case culture to context-driven testing, reducing the time it took to release software to the customer along the way. His experience in testing and release engineering has given him a unique operational perspective and ability to make significant changes in how and when software is delivered to testers and the customer. Gary has been in software testing for 14+ years, starting out as a test pilot for an auto club startup, then making his way through e-commerce, dating/media portals, and most recently, mobile payments. When he isn’t testing software, Gary spends time in the kitchen, relying on his former culinary training to make delicious homemade meals, breads, and cakes.

Read Gary’s Candidate Questionnaire replies here.

Ilari Henrik Aegerter’s formal studies have brought him from General Linguistics and Sociology to Software Engineering and Software Testing. He has 10’002+ years of experience in the field, coming from the medical software domain at Phonak AG and progressing to e-commerce at eBay. He is now the Managing Director of the Swiss branch of House of Test and he believes that there is still a lot of work to be done for excellent software testing. In 2015 he was elected into the board of the Association for Software Testing (AST) where he acts as VP of Marketing. Ilari also likes to brew beer in his leisure time.

Read Ilari’s Candidate Questionnaire replies here.

Kate Falanga (Senior Director, Quality Assurance at Huge) has over 18 years of digital experience. At Huge she leads up the Quality Assurance discipline globally as well as actively supports projects and project teams with testing mentorship. As part of her role she works alongside other leadership within the company on overall technical and operational strategy. Outside of Huge, Kate co-created the New York City Testing meetup group whose goal is to serve the community by providing a place to learn, and to teach each others about testing (w/beer). She has spoken at numerous conferences and events on the topic of tester advocacy and is passionate about empowering testers.

Read Kate’s Candidate Questionnaire replies here.

Maria has been working within software development for over 15 years in many different roles and industries. She is currently working as a consultant for House of Test where she had the opportunity to work as a teacher in Software Testing for a 1.5-year vocational education. What she appreciates the most in each and every assignment she’s had, is the learning opportunities. Maria finds a lot of joy in sharing her experiences and helping others to improve. She is an international speaker who also enjoys running workshop and occasionally she shares her thoughts and experiences on her blog. Maria lives with her family in Malmö which is located in the south of Sweden. When her mind is not occupied around software development she enjoys spending time with her family, crafting, cooking and lifting heavy things at the gym. She wishes to contribute to AST with her broad experience and help strengthen the organization’s position in Europe.

Read Maria’s Candidate Questionnaire replies here.

Roxane Jackson has been the Secretary on the Board of Directors for AST for the last 2 years. I actively participate in a number of local organizations including the User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA), and GiveSec, an Information Security group. The local testing organization in our area disbanded about 2 years ago and I have been working with others in northeast Ohio to rebuild a testing community via Northeast Ohio Software Testers Meetup.

I currently supervise a team of super testers at Hyland Software. We create electronic content management software including OnBase. My team is responsible for the testing, rollout, support, and adoption of our organizations flagship client to our in-house users as well as our customers. I have assisted in the grassroots creation of our organization’s Usability Team and Security Team.

If I am re-elected, I look forward to continuing to work with the board to plan successful Conferences and share knowledge with our membership. I also believe that it is important for AST to focus on the education of professional testers and future testers.

I have been attending CAST since 2013. Every year I bring back a wealth of information and ideas to share with my peers. I hope to be able to continue this work for AST and its membership for another 2 years. Together we can shape the future of software testing.

Read Roxane’s Candidate Questionnaire replies here.