Alan Myrvold, Test Engineer (Kirkland, WA)
Alan is currently a test engineer on the Google Cloud team.
Previously, he helped test Google advertising platform products,
including Google Display Network Ad Planner and DoubleClick Bid Manager.
Prior to joining Google in 2011, Alan worked at Microsoft, Entrust and Cognos,
focusing on security, automation and performance testing.
His personal opinions on testing can be found at
http://testapprentice.com.
Alan earned a bachelor's and master's in mathematics (statistics)
from the University of Waterloo.
Ankit Mehta, Social Test Lead (Mountain View, CA)
Ankit joined Google in Dec 2003 lured by free food and an opportunity to play a role in
how Testing evolves @ Google. Over the 10+ year career at Google he has worked in many product areas and
currently leads test efforts for the Social Product Area @ Google;
which consists of projects like Google+, Photos, Hangouts, Blogger, News, etc. Ankit is particularly
interested in pushing the limits on the balance between Velocity and Quality.
Anthony Vallone, Software Engineering Manager (Seattle, WA), Personal Site
Anthony joined Google in 2009 and has worked on various projects in Cloud Platforms
(focus on
Google Cloud Storage),
Infrastructure (focus on
Chubby),
and Google Chrome. Most recently, he is working on a new, advanced performance testing framework
that will eventually be open-sourced. He designs/builds test automation frameworks and
leads teams doing the same. He uses 20% time for technical writing by creating
documentation for cloud products
and leading the Google Testing Blog.
Before Google, Anthony worked as a software engineer in scientific computing at Lockheed Martin and financial computing at the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. He has a BS in Physics (dual minors in Mathematics and Computer Science) from Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA). Anthony enjoys playing guitar, renovating old homes, finding treasures in thrift stores, vegetarian cooking, gardening, biking, and drinking cheap red wine with friends.
Ari Shamash, Troublemaker (New York, NY)
Based in New York, Ari Shamash is part of the Test Engineering group at Google,
focused on building developer productivity and quality automation tools for Ads,
where he passionately works on improving product quality through better, faster, more complete,
and more automated testing.
Prior to joining Google in 2010, Ari spent 11 years at Sun Microsystems,
in the Java, Utility Computing / Cloud, and Developer Tools arenas.
Prior to Sun, Ari was involved in a couple of startups in the NYC area.
Ari was granted an undergraduate and graduate degree in Computer Science from Columbia University,
with a focus on User Interface Design for Mobile Computers.
Brian Vance, Tech Lead & Manager (New York, NY)
Brian Vance joined Google in 2007 and has worked on Google-wide test infrastructure projects,
Google Compute Engine, and multiple Display Ads projects.
He currently leads database test teams for
Spanner,
Dremel, &
BigQuery, building test tools and frameworks.
Brian is passionate about improving engineering productivity
through automation, tools, and cross-team collaboration.
Chaitali Narla, Tech Lead (Kirkland, WA)
Chaitali is a Software Engineer in Test and joined Google in 2009.
She currently leads projects building test frameworks and productivity tools for Chrome teams in SEA/KIR
Previously, she has worked on frontend and backend projects in Google+.
Chaitali has a Masters in Computer Engineering from the University of Florida.
She enjoys teaching and has helped prepare courses for new-hires and interns at Google.
In her free time she enjoys papercrafting and blogging about her papercrafts.
David Aristizabal, Test Engineer (New York, NY)
David joined Google in 2011 and works on Display Ads as a Software Engineer in Test (SET),
developing automation frameworks for testing mobile ads. Prior to Google, David was a
Principal Test Engineer at Microchip Technology where he worked on test automation for
PIC Microcontrollers. He has a bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering from
McGill University, Montreal. David enjoys mentoring students who participate in
FIRST Robotics Competitions, snowboarding and macro photography.
Deanna Chen & Gail Hernandez, Administrative Assistants (Mountain View, CA)
Deanna has joined Google in 2009, and is the veteran on the GTAC team,
having been involved in organizing each and every GTAC since then (in addition to her day job).
Deanna's strong focus on execution has kept the GTAC committee moving forward, on time and on budget!
Since Gail joined Google in 2010, in addition to her day job, she has worked tirelessly on organizing each GTAC. Gail's attention to details and willingness to do whatever it takes have been critical in ensuring the success of these conferences. Gail's creativity has been an inspiration, as she has designed the GTAC logos for each conference!
Gail is literally the G in GTAC and Deanna always gets the A in GTAC.
Matt Lowrie, Test Engineer (Boulder, CO)
Matt originally joined Google in 2006 as a Test Engineer for Google SketchUp. Since 2010,
he has been a Test Engineer for Google Groups, working on frontend automation.
Before coming to Google, Matt worked as a software QA engineer at several startups which were
developing platforms for streaming 3D content on the web. He still stays connected with his
3D roots by spending 20% time on visual analysis testing tools for the 3D buildings
layer in Google Maps and Earth. He graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo with a BFA
in Art and Design. For fun, Matt plays guitar and drums for
The Variables, the Boulder office in-house band.
Shadi Abdul Khalek, Software Engineer in Test (Kirkland, WA)
Shadi joined the Chrome Video Stack team at Google in 2011.
Since then he has been working on tools and infrastructure for HTML5
<video> and <audio> performance and quality measurement.
Lately he has been working on automated tools for Encrypted Media Extensions
(EME) testing in Chrome.
Shadi received his Ph.D. in Software Engineering from the
University of Texas at Austin in 2011.
His dissertation was focused on automated software testing,
specifically systematic testing of relational applications.
He enjoys playing ping pong, skiing, and watching sitcom shows.
Sonal Shah, Tech Lead & Manager (New York, NY)
Sonal joined Google in March 2008. Since then she has been part of various
Display Ads teams in New York and is currently engaged with DoubleClick Ad Exchange.
Prior to joining Google, Sonal spent 7 years at various internet advertising companies
including DoubleClick, writing test automation and building testing frameworks.
At Google, Sonal leads teams that build Google wide test infrastructure for Java
frontends and real time auction based ad serving backends. Sonal has a BE in
Electronics and Telecommunications from University of Pune, India and loves
spending time playing tennis and freezing moments in time with her camera.
Trish Khoo, Test Engineer (Mountain View, CA)
Trish leads the test team for Google My Business, based in Mountain View, California.
Prior to joining Google, Trish was a Test Manager for NBNCo, Campaign Monitor and Salmat.
She was also a .NET Developer and a Test Lead for Microsoft. Trish often speaks at
technical conferences and maintains a podcast and a blog about software testing.
Yvette Nameth, Test Engineer (Seattle, WA)
Yvette Nameth is a Test Engineer in the Google Seattle office working on Google Maps.
She specifically works on testing the process and quality map tile rendering and styling.
Since joining Google in 2007, Yvette has also contributed to AdWords, internal testing tools,
and Google for Education. Prior to Google, Yvette was a Software Engineer at Amazon and a
Computer Science teacher at an all-girls high school. She’s a graduate of
Dartmouth College with a BA in Computer Science.