Organizers

Ben Dunkle is a teacher, designer, and occasional artist. He’s a core designer for WordPress.org, and has designed thousands of icons for WordPress, including the Dashicons that we see in the wp-admin. Ben has organized and spoken at numerous WordCamps and runs a bi-weekly WordPress users meetup group.

Brent Patterson is a multimedia artist currently based in Buffalo, NY. He teaches digital media courses as Professor of Art & Design at SUNY Buffalo State College. Patterson’s research involves utilizing free and open source software for cultural authorship and individual empowerment. He also advocates for and studies the effects of software in creative learning environments.

Chrissie is a Happiness Engineer at Automattic, Inc., providing customer support for WordPress.com as well as for the WordPress mobile app. A former writer and editor specializing in children’s media and media literacy, Chrissie has provided content for WordPress sites for over a decade.

Jen Witkowski loves creative problem solving and the research process. She started her career as a graphic designer but fell in love with web design after working on a small in-house website back in 2003. She’s now an Interactive/UX Designer with over ten years of experience. By day, she’s a UX aficionado at Lullabot. By night, she hacks away at WordPress, experimenting with custom themes and plugins. Jen is also an active teacher in the community and has taught several classes in design and development for Buffalo State College, Villa Maria College, Canisius College, and the University at Buffalo.

Ron is the owner of CANI Consulting Group, a Buffalo-based firm that works with companies to help them establish and improve the efficiency of their business and marketing operations. He holds degrees in Computer Programming and Business Management and has been developing custom websites with WordPress since 2008.