Presenter Bios

Doris is a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft for the Western region of the United States. Doris has over 13 years of experience in the software industry working in several open source web tier technologies, Java platform, and distributed computing technologies. She has developed and delivered over 400 keynotes, technical sessions, code camps worldwide, published widely at numerous international conferences and user groups including JavaOne, O'Reilly, SD Forum and worldwide Java User Groups (JUG). Doris works very closely to create and foster the community around NetBeans, Glassfish, and related technologies. Before joining Microsoft, Doris Chen was a Technology Evangelist at Sun Microsystems. Doris received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in computer engineering, specializing in medical informatics. She loves to travel and she has visited 48 countries (out of 872) so far. In her spare time, she also enjoys music, movies and museums.

Like James Bond on secret assignment, Bruno spent his pre-MSDN Events days as a Microsoft premier field engineer – traveling around the clock to solve the most hair-raising client problems and meltdowns. From Asia to Latin America to Europe and Canada, Bruno has taught in nuclear power plants, assisted with life-or-death medical applications, and debugged multi-million-dollar financial trading software. Bruno has a finance and accounting degree from UC Berkeley and worked for several years as a money manager. Developing financial models to construct low-risk, high-return investment portfolios sparked his interest in computing, and the rest is self-taught history. Bruno brings two decades of worldwide training experience to his MSDN presentations, instructing students on C#, .NET, C++, SharePoint, J++, HTML, Web Parts and much more. He’s a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer with a wide array of platforms in his repertoire, a seasoned author and Microsoft channel partner trainer, and a confirmed thrill seeker. Bruno’s also a stand-up comedy connoisseur who works hard to make his audiences laugh – just like his role model, Anders Hejlsberg.

Originally from Chicago, Daniel moved to California in the early ‘90s – right when the Bulls were stampeding the NBA. He dabbled in several industries (from hospitality to law) and soon found his niche in engineering and information technology. Before joining Microsoft, Daniel served as the Chief Architect and CEO for Odyssey Consulting Group, which provided custom application development for mid-range companies. In the Microsoft fold, Daniel has been a Regional Director, an MVP (ASP / ASP.NET), a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, and a .NET insider for the Southern California region. He’s also the founder of the SoCalDotNet Developers Group, teaches a .NET certification course at California State University Fullerton, and previously served as president of INETA – the international .NET association. Away from the screen, you’ll find Daniel racing to bring down his marathon times (don’t ask for numbers) or putting his Canon camera through the paces in search of the perfect shot.

Prior to joining Microsoft, J. "Michael" Palermo IV served as a Microsoft RD and MVP based in Phoenix, AZ. Michael is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and maintains a number of industry related certifications. Michael is a published author on web technologies, and currently writes articles for DevProConnections regarding HTML5 technologies. Michael is invited to speak at developer events around the world.

Alice grew up in Louisiana and came out to sunny California after high school to attend Stanford University, where she received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering/Software. She then moved across the bay to get her M.S. degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and Management of Technology certificate through the Haas School of Business and College of Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. While at Stanford and Berkeley, she was heavily involved in various dance groups and enjoyed organizing networking, mentoring, and community outreach events for the Society of Women Engineers. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, discovering new places to eat, rock climbing, flipping upside down in aerial arts, riding motorcycles, and sharing Louisiana and Chinese culture with people. As a Microsoft Technical Evangelist in California, she focuses on WebMatrix and Windows 8.

Bret is a Microsoft Developer Evangelist in Southern California focusing on the Azure family of products, services and technologies. Bret has been working with Microsoft technologies for over twenty years. Bret spent a number of years on the admin side managing servers, networks and users, but has been a developer all along writing code for fun, utility and profit. For the past ten years, Bret has been the owner of Net Connex, a Microsoft Partner focusing primarily on providing training for SQL Server and .NET Development. Although he has been focusing on training, he kept his hands in the code on numerous development contracts through the years. Finally, Bret has been involved in the So Cal development community helping to organize the So Cal and LA Code Camps, multiple SQL Saturday events, as well as presenting at user groups and various regional events.

Matt Harrington is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Before joining Microsoft in 2011, Matt was active in the local open source community. He discovered functional programming through Scala. At a Silicon Valley Code Camp in 2008, Matt had a break in his schedule and decided to attend a talk on F# by Tim Ng of Microsoft. At that time, he didn't even own a Windows computer and had only heard faint whispers about F#. By the end of Tim's talk, Matt was sold. F# really clicked with him, so he stopped what he was doing, switched his home machine from Solaris to Windows, and dove into F# and .NET. He soon learned that to really become an expert in .NET, you have to know C#, which he then picked up and enjoyed just as much. Matt tossed VB.NET in for good measure, which he found to be just as powerful as C# but with a more readable syntax.

Sam Stokes has been creating software solutions at the leading edge of technology since, well let’s just say a long time. Computer languages includes: Ada, C, C++, C#, Objective C (on the NEXT computer), Visual Basic, FORTRAN, F#, JavaScript, Embedded Systems, but strangely never Java. For databases he has designed architectures for: SQL Based servers, Lotus Notes, and proudly MS Access. At Microsoft Sam Stokes is a Technology Evangelists who works with students and professors to help them understand how to use modern software technology in the classroom and in the research labs. In a previous life he has owned a successful software consultancy developing Project Tracking systems. And prior to his successful consultancy timeframe Sam designed guidance systems for satellites and automatic landing systems for commercial airliners. In his spare time he teaches Beginning and Advanced Game Design to Computer Science students at California State University Colleges.