axe-con presenter in 2025
Melanie Sumner began building things for the web in 1997, and after all these years, it’s still her favorite thing to do. As the Product Accessibility Lead at HashiCorp, she develops accessibility strategies and offers guidance to the design system and product teams, working collaboratively to deliver inclusive, standards-compliant products.
In addition to her role at HashiCorp, Melanie is an invited expert for the W3C’s ARIA working group and co-editor of the Accessible Name and Description Computation specification, playing an active part in advancing web accessibility standards.
When she needs a break, Melanie enjoys brainstorming new collective nouns for the web (collective-nouns.dev) or unwinding with a game of Stardew Valley.