speaking

I speak at test­ing con­fer­ences world­wide about the messy, human parts of soft­ware qual­i­ty, the things that don’t fit neat­ly into test plans or automa­tion frame­works. My talks explore how cog­ni­tive bias­es shape our test­ing deci­sions, how sys­tems think­ing helps us find bugs that mat­ter, and how to lead qual­i­ty work with­out for­mal author­i­ty. I also speak about AI in test­ing, train­ing new testers, and why real-world edge cas­es are more inter­est­ing than the ones we plan for.

I’ve keynot­ed at Agile Test­ing Days (Berlin and Chica­go), Test­Coast (Gothen­burg), Test­ing Por­tu­gal (Lis­bon), Test­ing Unit­ed (Vien­na), and Roman­ian Test­ing Con­fer­ence (Cluj-Napoca), and I reg­u­lar­ly facil­i­tate work­shops on prac­ti­cal test­ing top­ics.

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topics I speak on

empa­thy for real life
Empa­thy for users on the worst day of their lives. How to make bad soft­ware suck less by con­sid­er­ing the peo­ple who use it when every­thing is going wrong — because for some­one, some­where, your edge case is their Tues­day.
pre­sent­ed at: ATD USA, Mini-CAST, Roman­ian Test­ing Con­fer­ence, Test­ing Por­tu­gal, ATD

lead­er­ship as an indi­vid­ual con­trib­u­tor
You don’t need a title to lead. This talk focus­es on how to get things done, influ­ence with­out author­i­ty, and use adap­tive lead­er­ship con­cepts to dri­ve change from wher­ev­er you sit in the orga­ni­za­tion.
pre­sent­ed at: ATD

the ques­tions we ask
What testers actu­al­ly do, name­ly, ask the right ques­tions at the right time, shift left, shift right, and advo­cate for qual­i­ty through­out the devel­op­ment life­cy­cle. And if your com­pa­ny decides to go with­out testers, here’s how to make sure the work still hap­pens.
pre­sent­ed at: Xpan­sion QA Sum­mit

AI in test­ing
Prac­ti­cal prompt engi­neer­ing for testers, how to use AI tools effec­tive­ly in your test­ing work, from gen­er­at­ing test data to explor­ing edge cas­es to writ­ing bet­ter doc­u­men­ta­tion.
pre­sent­ed at: ATD, PNSQC, Test­ing Por­tu­gal

train­ing new testers
Teach­ing peo­ple to test means meet­ing them where they are, not where you want them to be. This talk is about com­pas­sion in train­ing, under­stand­ing dif­fer­ent learn­ing styles, and shap­ing testers who can think crit­i­cal­ly from day one.
pre­sent­ed at: PNSQC

sys­tems think­ing
An intro­duc­tion to sys­tems think­ing and why it mat­ters for testers. How under­stand­ing feed­back loops, emer­gent behav­ior, and inter­con­nec­tions helps you find bugs that mat­ter and test more strate­gi­cal­ly.
pre­sent­ed at: CAST

AI in the world
The broad­er impli­ca­tions of AI beyond test­ing. I explore both the promise (per­son­al assis­tants, med­ical appli­ca­tions) and the risks (bias, mis­use, over­re­liance) of AI sys­tems as they become more embed­ded in our lives.
pre­sent­ed at: Test­ing Unit­ed, Test­Coast

cog­ni­tive bias
How our brains trick us while we’re test­ing. I cov­er spe­cif­ic bias­es like anchor­ing and avail­abil­i­ty bias, the dif­fer­ence between lat­er­al and ver­ti­cal think­ing, and how rec­og­niz­ing our bias­es is the first step to bet­ter test­ing deci­sions.
pre­sent­ed at: CAST

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testimonials

“Smash­ing and inspir­ing expe­ri­ence report. I enjoyed the extend­ed metaphor at its heart — and will take away a long-term learn­ing in ‘Dis­ci­plined lis­ten­ing looks mag­ic’ ”

“I enjoyed this keynote, great sto­ry weaved into it, good con­tent that res­onat­ed well. ‘Qual­i­ty is not just about pre­vent­ing bugs. it’s about pro­tect­ing trust.’ ”

“One of my two favourite keynotes this year. Great speak­er and stage pres­ence, impor­tant points made tan­gi­ble with the music analo­gies.”

“I loved Rachel’s stage pres­ence and way of deliv­ery! True keynote speak­er. She dropped lots of insights and wis­dom, com­bined with real sto­ries. I real­ly like how the trans­for­ma­tion at her com­pa­ny reveal tan­gi­ble advice for every­one who wants to affect change.”

“Shared her expe­ri­ences and com­mu­ni­cat­ed the big take­aways as she went. Lots of peo­ple can relate to the chal­lenges she faced and she gave prac­ti­cal, achiev­able solu­tions to them. I liked the orches­tra anal­o­gy.”

“Speak­er is real­ly pleas­ant to lis­ten to and can keep the engage­ment for the whole hour, which is nice.”

“Super Keynote, loved the com­par­i­son between music and test­ing”

“Amaz­ing talk! Super rel­e­vant. I was able to relate to most of the described con­tent that needs to be han­dled.”

“Speak­er gave a real­ly per­son­al per­spec­tive on being a trainer/leader in the test­ing space.”

“Awe­some pre­sen­ta­tion! Bring Rachel back again! Very clear pre­sen­ta­tion”

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keynotes

Agile Test­ing Days 2025 (Berlin, Ger­many)
Orches­trat­ing Chaos Into a Sym­pho­ny

Test­Coast 2025 (Gothen­burg, Swe­den)
AI: Utopia or Dystopia? (with Lena Wiberg)

Test­ing Por­tu­gal 2024 (Lis­bon, Por­tu­gal)
Real Life Is Not an Edge Case

Test­ing Unit­ed 2024 (Vien­na, Aus­tria)
AI: The Good, the Bad, and the Bias

Roman­ian Test­ing Con­fer­ence 2024 (Cluj-Napoca, Roma­nia)
Real Life Is Not an Edge Case

Mini-CAST 2021 (vir­tu­al)
Real Life Is Not an Edge Case (record­ing) (not real­ly my best work)

Agile Test­ing Days USA 2019 (Chica­go, Illi­nois)
Real Life Is Not an Edge Case (slides)

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talks

CAST 2025 (Salt Lake City, Utah)
sys­tems think­ing applied to test­ing (record­ing)

Agile Test­ing Days 2024 (Berlin, Ger­many)
“The Owl Prob­lem” (musi­cal per­for­mance)

Agile Test­ing Days 2024 (Berlin, Ger­many)
lead­er­ship as an indi­vid­ual con­trib­u­tor

PNSQC 2024 (Port­land, Ore­gon)
train­ing new soft­ware testers (record­ing)

Xpan­sion QA Sum­mit 2021 (Salt Lake City, Utah)
the ques­tions we ask

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workshops

Test­ing Por­tu­gal 2024 (Lis­bon, Por­tu­gal)
using AI in test­ing

PNSQC 2024 (Port­land, Ore­gon)
using AI in test­ing (with Carl Kibler)

Agile Test­ing Days 2023 (Berlin, Ger­many)
using AI in test­ing (with Lisa Crispin)

CAST 2019 (Cocoa Beach, Flori­da)
cog­ni­tive bias­es in test­ing (with Lisa Crispin)

CAST 2018 (Cocoa Beach, Flori­da)
mobile test­ing (with Carl Kibler)

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program committees

Agile Test­ing Days 2025 (Berlin, Ger­many)

CAST 2025 (Salt Lake City, Utah)

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podcasts

Test­ing Peers (March 2026)
women in test­ing (for Inter­na­tion­al Wom­en’s Day)

Test­ing Peers (Feb­ru­ary 2026)
orga­ni­za­tion­al change

Test­ing Peers (Decem­ber 2025)
Twelve Bugs of Christ­mas

Test­ing Peers (Novem­ber 2025)
get­ting start­ed in qual­i­ty

Browser­Stack Talks (Octo­ber 2025)
shap­ing careers, com­mu­ni­ty, AI

Lead­ing With Qual­i­ty (July 2025)
how Seek­Well does qual­i­ty (behind a pay­wall)

Test­ing Peers (July 2025)
acces­si­bil­i­ty

Test­ing Peers (June 2025)
mak­ing work vis­i­ble

RTC Shift Hap­pens (Jan­u­ary 2025)
smat­ter­ing of stuff

The Test­ing Show (August 2024)
Crowd­strike

The Tester’s Table (July 2024)
what testers need to be rel­e­vant

Pepe’s Bar (June 2024)
the Owl Prob­lem musi­cal teas­er

The Test­ing Show (Sep­tem­ber 2021)
QA Sum­mit post game wrap-up

The Test­ing Show (Sep­tem­ber 2021)
QA Sum­mit pre-game show

The Test­ing Show (March 2021)
inter­sec­tion of qual­i­ty and test­ing

The Test­ing Show (August 2020)
cog­ni­tive bias

The Test­ing Show (August 2019)
women in tech

The Test­ing Show (April 2019)
stress cas­es and empa­thy

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Inter­est­ed in hav­ing me speak at your con­fer­ence, on your pod­cast, or par­tic­i­pat­ing in your pro­gram selec­tion?
Con­nect with me on LinkedIn to start the con­ver­sa­tion.

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photos