Lauren Wood, PhD

Work Experience

2002 - Present: Textuality Services, Inc., Vancouver, Canada

Independent Consultant

• Consulting on
  • product management issues
  • internet standards, particularly those related to XML
  • publishing
  • technical marketing
• Elected Member, W3C Advisory Board (the only unaffiliated member)
• Speaker and Chair at the CSW XML Summer School

2001 - Present:

Chair, XML Conference Series

• Responsible for the overall direction and content of the conference
• Lead the Planning Committee in choosing and scheduling the talks
• Manage a volunteer group of over 100 reviewers in different areas of expertise
• Write, edit, and approve marketing materials such as press releases and web site content
• Give welcoming and closing addresses and chair all keynote sessions
• Designed a neutral paper submission and review process, including proceedings

The conference has grown in stature and importance since I started chairing it. It has survived the technology downturn to become the largest independent conference in its field.

1998 - 2002: SoftQuad Software Inc. Vancouver, Canada

Director of Product Technology

• SoftQuad's Advisory Committee representative to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
• Managed strategic technical relationships with industry leaders, such as Microsoft, IBM and Sun at the W3C
• SoftQuad's chief representative to OASIS and XML.org
• Analyzed industry technology trends, potential competitive threats and partnering opportunities
• High-level technical liaison and support to strategic customers and alliance partners
• Co-designer of SoftQuad's XML products
• Frequent presenter at international technology conferences

1997 - 2000:

Chair of the W3C Document Object Model Working Group

• Managed the engineering process of a major Web technology with direct participation by industry leaders, including Microsoft, IBM, Sun and Oracle
• Spearheaded the resulting specification through W3C to make it an international Web standard
• Evangelized the resulting standard at conferences and trade shows with the result that every major software company in the field implemented the standard

1995 - 1998: SoftQuad Inc. Vancouver, Canada

Technical Product Manager

• Designed and managed the programming effort of SoftQuad's HoTMetaL PRO
• Led the localization of HoTMetaL PRO into French and German
• Designed and managed the implementation of accessibility features in HoTMetaL PRO
• Represented SoftQuad on technical committees of the World Wide Web Consortium, including the original HTML Working Group
• Presented papers and tutorials at several SGML/XML conferences

1992 - 1995: STEP GmbH Rimpar, Germany

Consultant and Project Manager

• Coordinated the conversion of the Aircraft Maintenance Manual to the ATA DTD at Bombardier Regional Aircraft Division, Toronto, Canada
• Constructed a prototype SGML implementation for the Gmelin Institute, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
• Modeled documents and wrote DTDs and FOSIs for publishers including the Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG, Mannheim, Germany
• Designed and delivered training courses on SGML, editors and FOSIs
• Implemented Motif interfaces in C for the DocMan document management system developed for the Deutsche Lufthansa AG
• Delivered several papers at international SGML conferences

1988 - 1990: Hahn-Meitner Institute Berlin, Germany

Post-Doctoral Fellow

• Carried out all the theoretical calculations for an experimental nuclear physics group
• Took part in the experiments
• Wrote and maintained computer programs in FORTRAN for physics calculations
• Presented papers at international conferences and workshops

1982 - 1987: University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia

Tutor

• Tutor in theoretical and laboratory work for first to third year students in physics and astronomy