Courtney Nash chairs multiple conferences for O'Reilly Media and is the strategic content director focused on areas of modern web operations, high performance applications, and security. An erstwhile academic neuroscientist, she is still fascinated by the brain and how it informs our interactions with and expectations of technology. She's spent 17 years working in the technology industry in a wide variety of roles, ever since moving to Seattle to work at a burgeoning online bookstore. Outside work, Courtney can be found biking, hiking, skiing, and photographing the Cascade Mountains near her home in Bellingham, Washington.