Behind the curtain

Meet the Summit committee

Here are the people who are making this conference possible:

Peter Boersma, The Netherlands
Peter is male, 35, and lives in a warehouse in Amsterdam that was built in 1670. At his university he combined computer science with ergonomics and came up with information ergonomics, which he applied to workflow software. He has been working in the user experience (UX) field since 1995 (1995-2000: General Design, 2000-2002: Satama Interactive, 2002-2005: EzGov) and has been an active contributor to CHI and IA conferences and mailinglists. Peter is currently a managing partner at UserIntelligence, a user experience research, design, evaluation and strategy collective. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the IA Institute and organizes the Amsterdam IA Cocktail Hours. Peter maintains his blog "[BEEP]" at

Reinoud Brosman, The Netherlands
Reinoud Bosman has been working as an IA since 1999 going from e-education to e-government to e-commerce. Projects he worked on include the UK online Tax Return while working at EzGov and applications for the mobile internet at his current employer MediaCatalyst. He discovered he was doing Information Architecture while working in Sydney where he heard of the term first and now tries to negotiate puzzled faces of family, friends and recruiters by helping to organise a conference on the topic. He holds a degree in Biology which only adds to the confusion.

Jared Folkmann, UK
Jared Folkmann has been working as an information architect for 7 years, in Canada, the US and the UK. He has worked for a variety of agencies and after 2 years as a Senior information architect at Wheel he has now joined GoodTechnology the Head of User Experience. He has worked for a variety of clients in almost every sector. Most recently he has completed projects for Absolut, Allied Domeqc, BA, and Marks and Spencer.

Margaret Hanley, UK
Margaret Hanley has worked as an Information Architect for more than 10 years on three continents. Margaret is currently the Executive Producer of Core Products for bbc.co.uk, managing a set of IA related products like search, homepage and Programme Information Pages. While working as an IA at the BBC, she developed content models and controlled vocabularies to describe everything from "Composer of the Week" to traffic updates on the Nottingham WIL site. Prior to joining the BBC, she served as Senior Information Architect at Ingenta in Oxford. In the United States, Margaret was a project manager for Argus Associates, concentrating on the development of deep information architecture for corporate web sites. Clients included Microsoft, IBM, Square D and LookSmart.

Dick Hill, USA
Richard Hill has been working with ASIS&T; since 1989, having previously run a private recruiting firm for three years and managed a trade association for three years. He has been membership development director, director of communications, and director of government affairs. Dick has a masters degree in Comparative Literature from Occidental College and taught high school for 6 years.

Theba Islam, UK
Theba has been a practising Information Architect for nearly five years. She currently works at LexisNexis in the Taxonomies, Design & Development Team, specialising in Information Architecture and User Interface design. Her particular area of interest is in drawing on user research to inform taxonomy design and creating user-focused product features that leverage taxonomic capabilities. Prior to LexisNexis, Theba worked as an Information Architect developing award winning web products for an internet consultancy.

James Kalbach, Germany
James Kalbach holds a degree in library and information science from Rutgers University, as well as a master's in music theory and composition. He is currently a Human Factors Engineer with LexisNexis and previously served as head of information architecture with Razorfish Germany. James is an active speaker and author on information architecture and usability in Germany, where he has cofounded an IA community.

Eric Reiss, Denmark
Born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1954, and raised in St. Louis and Chicago, he holds degrees in Political Science and Performing Arts from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1976, he moved to Denmark to accept a position as a stage director at the Danish Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Eric has been a full-time writer and business strategist since 1984 and now heads E-Reiss & Associates in Copenhagen. In November, 2000, his book, Practical Information Architecture was published by Addison-Wesley, one of the first books devoted specifically to this important subject. Eric currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Information Architecture Institute.