Lea Verou () is a Greek-American computer scientist, front end

web developer A web developer is a programmer who develops World Wide Web applications using a client–server model. The applications typically use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the client, and any general-purpose programming language in the server. is used ...

, speaker and author, originally from

Lesbos Lesbos or Lesvos ( ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of , with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, eighth largest ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. Verou is currently a research assistant at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), an elected participant in the

World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...

(W3C)

Technical Architecture Group The W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) is a special working group within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created in 2001 to: * document and build consensus around principles of Web architecture and to interpret and clarify these princi ...

(TAG), and an invited expert in the W3C CSS Working Group. She is the author of the book ''CSS Secrets: Better Solutions to Everyday Web Design Problems'' ().

Education

Verou earned her

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

from

Athens University of Economics and Business Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB; , ''Oikonomiko Panepistimio Athinon'', abbrev. ΟΠΑ, OPA) is a public university based in Athens, Greece, specializing in the fields of Economics, Business Administration, and Information Tech ...

. She had previously attended

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ( AUTh; ), often called the University of Thessaloniki, is the second oldest tertiary education institution in Greece. Named after the philosopher Aristotle, who was born in Stageira, about east of Thessa ...

studying

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and computer science. She later earned a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

degree in computer science from MIT. Since 2014, she has been a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

(PhD) candidate at MIT in electrical engineering and computer science. Her background encompasses both technical development and visual design.

Career

Verou started her career as a freelancer in 2005 while she was in university. In 2008, she co-founded a Greek web development company called Fresset Ltd, which managed a number of Greek community websites that she and her co-founder had created. The company was sold in 2013. In 2012, Verou joined W3C as a Developer Advocate.

Open source work

During the course of her studies and career, Verou has started over thirty

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

projects, including ''PrismJS'', a popular syntax highlighter, and ''Mavo'', her research project at MIT.

Conference speaking

Verou has spoken at over a hundred

conference A conference is a meeting, often lasting a few days, which is organized on a particular subject, or to bring together people who have a common interest. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always d ...

s, including

Smashing Magazine ''Smashing Magazine'' is an online publication primarily catering to web developers and web designers worldwide. Launched in 2006 by Sven Lennartz and Vitaly Friedman, both then part of the German-based Smashing Media AG, the magazine focuse ...

's conference ''SmashingConf'',

A List Apart ''A List Apart'' is a webzine that explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices. History ''A List Apart'' began in 1997 as a mailing list for web design Web design e ...

's conference ''An Event Apart'', South by Southwest (SXSW), and jQuery's conference. Her talks are known for their distinctive style involving

live coding Live coding, sometimes referred to as on-the-fly programming,Wang G. & Cook P. (2004"On-the-fly Programming: Using Code as an Expressive Musical Instrument" In ''Proceedings of the 2004 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expr ...

through a custom presentation framework that she built to optimize the experience for the audience.

Bibliography and publications

Her first book, ''CSS Secrets: Better Solutions to Everyday Web Design Problems'' was published by

O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media, Inc. (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that provides technical and professional skills development courses via an online learning platform. O'Reilly also publishes b ...

in 2015. It sold thousands of copies and was translated into 8 languages. In 2020, it was named "The Best CSS Book" by the

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

. Prior to that, Verou had co-authored a chapter in the book ''Smashing Book #3: Redesign the Web'' in 2012. Since 2011, she has written dozens of articles, including bylines in .net Magazine,

, CSS-Tricks,

, and Web Almanac. In 2017, Verou co-authored her first CSS

Specification A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard. There are different types of technical or engineering specificati ...

with Tab Atkins Jr., and Elika J. Etemad, and has since co-authored four others. She has also co-authored four peer-reviewed scientific papers as part of her research at MIT, published in ACM UIST and ACM CSCW.

Teaching

Verou's teaching career began when she was still an undergraduate in

, where she co-organized a 4th year

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

course Course may refer to: Directions or navigation * Course (navigation), the path of travel * Course (orienteering), a series of control points visited by orienteers during a competition, marked with red/white flags in the terrain, and corresponding ...

about

web development Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web applications, ...

together with Prof. Vasilis Vassalos. In spring 2018, she co-taught User Interface Design & Implementation at

(MIT), with David Karger and Amy X. Zhang. In spring 2020, together with her advisor, David Karger, she co-created and co-taught a new course at MIT that combined human-computer interaction (HCI) with web programming called ''6.S082 Design for the Web: Languages and User interfaces''. The course is being taught again in spring 2022.

References

External links

* *
Lea Verou's GitHub page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Verou, Lea 1986 births Living people People from Lesbos Aristotle University of Thessaloniki alumni Athens University of Economics and Business alumni Computer programmers Greek women computer scientists Greek computer programmers Free software programmers Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory people Web designers Web developers Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni