> Kathryn Grayson Nanz is a Senior Design & Developer Advocate, Front End Engineer, UI Designer, Author, Speaker, and Lifelong Learner.

In 2013, I graduated with a Fine Arts degree and took my first job as Junior Graphic Designer at a small, boutique ad agency in Washington, DC. While there, my Creative Director told me to never let anyone else find out that I knew how to code – he warned me that if they knew I could do it, I'd be stuck doing it forever and never get to focus on print design again. I ignored his warning; turns out, he was completely right, but I've never been happier.

I currently work as a Senior Design & Developer Advocate at Progress Software where I help people build beautiful and user-friendly interfaces, design and maintain component libraries, and stop back-end devs from writing any more CSS. I'm also a graduate student, in the process of earning a Master's degree in Software Systems Design and Engineering. I'm especially interested in React, UI design and design systems, accessibility, and creating applications and websites that center the human experience.