Speaker Bios
Rachel Fenichel
Rachel is the manager of the Blockly team. Before taking over management she worked on core parts of Blockly like dragging, gesture handling, and variables.
When not wrestling with releases, Rachel likes biking, cooking, and making things with her hands.
Abby Schmiedt
Abby is a software developer on the Blocky team. Her primary work for Blocky has been on themes, keyboard navigation, and the toolbox.
In her free time, Abby enjoys trying to fix her lack of rhythm with drum lessons.
Sam El-Husseini
Sam is a Software Engineer on the Blockly team, and has touched almost every part of Blockly. Sam's work has been focused on modernizing Blockly, and improving the developer experience for the team and the developer community.
For those that have been around long enough, you may know Sam from his previous work on MakeCode, or perhaps even as @microsoftsam!
Sailing, biking, and baking have kept him sane during the pandemic, and he's looking forward to a sailing trip in Greece's Ionian Sea with his wife.
Monica Kozbial
Monica is a Software Engineer on the Blockly team. Her more recent contributions have been in scrollbars, events, and the expansion of testing coverage and tooling.
In her free time, Monica likes to explore a variety of creative pursuits including singing and beatboxing.
Maribeth Bottorff
Maribeth is a software engineer on Blockly who joined the team in April 2020. She has worked on various Blockly features such as context menus and the Continuous Toolbox plugin. Prior to joining Blockly, she has been at Google for 4 years building things like Google News and Reserve with Google.
Maribeth recently learned to crochet, has spent 300 hours in Stardew Valley, and has a dog named Ada who has enjoyed the work from home life more than anyone else.