Jen Simmons
Born 1969 · Age 56
American graphic designer, web developer, educator and speaker; member of the W3C CSS Working Group. Prominent advocate of modern CSS (notably CSS Grid). Former developer advocate at Mozilla; currently a developer advocate at Apple.
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Life & Career Timeline
Earned BA in Sociology, Gordon College
Completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology at Gordon College.
Began working on websites
Started professional work on websites (design and development), marking the start of her web career.
Earned MFA in Film and Media Arts, Temple University
Graduated from Temple University with an MFA in Film and Media Arts.
Joined Twitter
Began using Twitter (account active since 2007).
Coined 'fail whale' on Twitter
Posted the tweet that coined the term 'fail whale' for Twitter's outage illustration (tweet dated 2007-09-02).
Created the Bartik theme for Drupal (approx.)
Credited as the creator of the Bartik theme, which later became a Drupal core default theme (exact creation year not specified on source; approx. before Drupal 7).
Bartik became default theme in Drupal 7
Bartik (created by Jen Simmons) was included as a core/default theme in Drupal 7.
Joined W3C Responsive Images Community Group
Joined the W3C Responsive Images Community Group to work on standardizing responsive image use cases and requirements.
Spoke at CSS Dev Conf 2014
Presented and was on the schedule for CSS Dev Conf 2014 (speaker engagement).
Presented at An Event Apart
Presented at the An Event Apart conference (photo/caption evidence from 2015).
The Web Ahead won Podcast of the Year (Net Awards)
Jen's podcast 'The Web Ahead' was awarded Podcast of the Year at the 2015 Net Awards.
Joined Mozilla as Designer & Developer Advocate
Became a designer and developer advocate at Mozilla, working on web platform features and developer tools.
Joined the W3C CSS Working Group (CSS WG)
Became a member of the W3C CSS Working Group while at Mozilla; continued membership after moving to Apple.
Designed Firefox Grid Inspector
Led design work on Firefox's Grid Inspector developer tool (documented in articles about debugging CSS Grid with Firefox).
Started 'Layout Land' YouTube channel (approx.)
Runs the 'Layout Land' YouTube channel focused on modern web layout techniques (start year not specified in source; approximate).
Reached 100,000+ Twitter followers (reported)
Reported to have more than 100,000 Twitter followers (Twitter account active since 2007; follower count referenced in sources retrieved in 2019).
Spoke at SmashingConf SF 2019
Listed as a speaker at SmashingConf SF 2019 (conference speaking engagement).
Joined Apple as Developer Advocate (Web Developer Experience)
Moved from Mozilla to Apple to work as a developer advocate on the Web Developer Experience team (WebKit/Safari).
Involvement with CSS Grid Layout Module Level 2
Worked on and helped communicate CSS Grid Layout Level 2 (continuing advocacy and specification work as a member of CSS WG).
Editor on CSS Box Sizing Module Level 4 (draft)
Served as an editor on the CSS Box Sizing Module Level 4 draft (documented in W3C/draft resources).
Editor on CSS Grid Layout Level 3 (draft)
Listed as an editor on drafts of CSS Grid Layout Module Level 3.
Contributed to CSS Cascading & Inheritance drafts (Levels 5 & 6)
Contributed to the CSS Cascading and Inheritance specification work (levels 5 and 6) as part of the CSS WG activities.
Contributed to CSS Shapes Module Level 1 and Containment Module Level 3
Helped prepare and communicate work on CSS Shapes Module Level 1 and CSS Containment Module Level 3 (spec contributions noted in W3C references).
Continued CSS WG membership while at Apple
Maintained her CSS Working Group membership after moving to Apple, continuing spec work and advocacy.
The Web Ahead — cumulative podcast milestone (site stats)
The Web Ahead site lists ~117 episodes and about 3.1 million downloads (site stats shown on The Web Ahead pages; retrieval dates varied).
Ongoing advocacy & public speaking
Continues to speak at major web conferences (SXSW, DrupalCon, SmashingConf, An Event Apart) and create educational content for web developers.
Active contributor to modern CSS deployment and education
Ongoing public-facing developer advocacy, tooling (e.g., Grid Inspector), specification editing and educational content (YouTube, podcast, talks).
Key Achievement Ages
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