These questions are from AST members to all candidates for the  2020 AST Board elections.

Q1. How do you intend to promote diversity within the AST? How could AST promote diversity, of all kinds, within our own organization and within the wider testing and technology communities

Increasing diversity means welcoming more people into the conversation, amplifying voices that may be easily drowned out, and making sure people are comfortable with the shared spaces. Cancel culture is a hard thing. Some people have been extraordinarily helpful to the discipline and legitimacy of software testing, even if their social skills are lacking. We are better when we have lots of people sharing ideas, and those people come from different backgrounds. On the board, I would do my best to amplify diverse voices through social media and webinars.

Q2. Please share your vision for the future of the AST’s BBST program.

BBST is a fabulous introduction to testing for many people. I would want us to market it more widely and offer classes more frequently. They fill up very quickly as it is.

Q3. What do you think the AST board has historically done well, and what do you think needs to change?

I think the AST board has done well with broadening the scope of people who are welcomed into the context driven community. However, I think we need to be a louder voice in the community and make sure the organization’s advocacy of being context driven is not drowned out by a few exceptionally loud individual voices.

Q4. If you are elected to serve on the board, what is your vision for the future of AST and what do you hope to accomplish as part of the board?

I want to increase membership and increase engagement. We have a great infrastructure for the community but limited engagement. I’ll look for other successful communities to figure out how they do it well and bring that back to AST.

Q5. Many people come to be AST Board of Directors candidates through a long history of community involvement. This community involvement usually involves teaching, creating and running peer conferences, creating and running regular conferences, and working with commercial entities. Please describe any current initiatives you participate in that might affect your ability to serve on the AST board, and serve the AST membership.

I have no conflicts of interest.

Q6. In what ways have you supported the mission of AST?

I push context driven testing in my workplace and local testing community.

I am a passionate, engaged, active tester with a background in law. I found the context driven principles very early on in my testing career, and I embraced them and follow them. I’m fun, kind, supportive of people, and I’m always pushing to do better and be better. I would love to serve on the AST board.