Hear from leaders shaping Rust at scale. Our keynotes explore the language’s growth, its impact across industries, and the challenges that will define it in the next chapter of technology.
Speakers
We’re honored to have such an impressive group of keynoters, speakers, and workshop hosts at RustConf 2026. Find our complete set of speakers on this page, listed by category and then in alphabetical order by last name.
You can also find our full speaker list and their bios on the schedule page.
Keynotes
Deb Nicholson
Executive Director
Python Software Foundation
She/Her
KEYNOTE
Fireside Chat - Stewarding Rust & Python
What does it take to steward two of the world’s most widely used programming languages — and what can Rust and Python learn from each other?
To close RustConf 2026, the executive leaders of the Rust Foundation and the Python Software Foundation sit down for a candid conversation on the challenges facing open source communities today: AI’s impact on language ecosystems, cross-ecosystem interoperability, security priorities, governance lessons, and how to lead global communities in a rapidly changing world.
Dr. Rebecca Rumbul
Executive Director & CEO
Rust Foundation
She/Her
KEYNOTE
Fireside Chat - Stewarding Rust & Python
What does it take to steward two of the world’s most widely used programming languages — and what can Rust and Python learn from each other?
To close RustConf 2026, the executive leaders of the Rust Foundation and the Python Software Foundation sit down for a candid conversation on the challenges facing open source communities today: AI’s impact on language ecosystems, cross-ecosystem interoperability, security priorities, governance lessons, and how to lead global communities in a rapidly changing world.
Jon Seager
VP of Engineering
Canonical
He/Him
KEYNOTE
Rust Adoption at Scale With Ubuntu
When Ubuntu 25.10 shipped with Rust-based rewrites of core system packages like coreutils and sudo, it marked the first milestone toward making memory-safe utilities the default in Ubuntu.
In his keynote, Jon Seager charts the journey behind that decision, including the motivation, tradeoffs and surprises along the way. Canonical has now shipped Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, the first long term support release to feature these utilities with our trademark 15-year support and security maintenance. Also covered is the upki project, a collaboration between Canonical and the Rustls project, all the ways you can develop with Rust on Ubuntu, and our plans for the future.
Bryan Cantrill
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Oxide Computer
He/Him
KEYNOTE
Rust, In Sickness & In Health
What does it actually mean to bet a company on a particular programming language? Seven years ago, Bryan Cantrill helped start Oxide Computer Company with Rust at the center of that bet, and spent the years since finding out the answer to this question.
In this talk, Bryan will share how his thinking about Rust has evolved, from the earliest infatuation to the honeymoon to the many ups and several downs of a long, deep relationship with the language, tested across bootloaders, an operating system, a hypervisor, a distributed storage system, a network operating system, compilers, and debuggers. Bryan will get into where he thinks Rust is strong, where it still has real gaps, and what he thinks the language and ecosystem need to prioritize as Rust moves further into systems’ future.
Sessions
RustConf session speakers bring technical depth and real-world experience to the stage. From large-scale production systems to cutting-edge research, these talks explore the ideas shaping Rust’s next decade.
Daniel Almeida
Consultant Software Engineer
Collabora
He/Him
Divya Chakarwarti
Software Engineer, Core Dev Rust Team
She/Her
Francesco Ciulla
Head of DevRel
Zerops
He/Him
Arthur Cohen
Compiler Engineer
Embecosm
He/Him
Lisa Crossman
Bioinformatics Consultant
SequenceAnalysis.co.uk
She/Her
Manuel Drehwald
PhD Student
University of Toronto
He/Him
Thomas Eckert
Software Engineer
Redpanda Data
He/Him
Melih Elibol
Senior Research Scientist
NVIDIA
He/Him
Mordecai Etukudo
Software Engineer
Rust Africa
He/Him
Julius Gustavsson
Expert, System Architect
Volvo Car Corporation
He/Him
Ada Hieta
Applied AI Engineer
Softlandia
She/Her
Martin Ombura Jr.
Senior Software Engineer
Scarlaria LLC
He/Him
Eric Karl
Principal Solutions Architect
Northwestern Medicine
He/Him
Jonas Kruckenberg
Senior Software Engineering Consultant
Mainmatter
He/Him
David Lawrence
Roboticist
Robotics and AI Institute
He/Him
SESSION
Christian Legnitto
Founder
VectorWare
He/Him
Tyler Mandry
Staff Software Engineer
He/Him
Bart Massey
Associate Professor of Computer Science
Portland State University
He/Him
Ian McCormack
PhD Candidate
Carnegie Mellon University
He/Him
Dr. Caroline Morton
Senior Software Consultant / Epidemiologist
Parakeet Consulting
She/Her
Joannah Nanjekye
Researcher
Carnegie Mellon University
She/Her
Pierre-Emmanuel Patry
Compiler Engineer
Embecosm
He/Him
Loïs Postula
Chief Information Officer
Foresight Spatial Labs
He/Him
Jacob Pratt
Senior Software Engineer
He/Him
SESSION
Daniel Prilik
Systems Software Engineer
Meta
He/Him
David Sankel
Principal Scientist
Adobe
He/Him
Robert Seacord
Standardization Lead
Woven by Toyota
He/Him
SESSION
Rakhi Sharma
Engineer
Igalia
She/Her
Jonathan Spira
Lead Programmer
NPC Studio
He/Him
SESSION
Devon Tietjen
Co-Founder, CEO & CTO
Eden
He/Him
Cindy Xiao
Security Researcher
Decoder Loop
She/Her or They/Them
Alex Zenla
CTO
Edera
She/Her
Tomáš Šedovič
Rust Program Manager
He/Him
Pete LeVasseur
Staff Software Engineer
Woven by Toyota
He/Him
Workshops
Dive deeper into the ideas shaping Rust’s future. Our workshop hosts guide extended, interactive sessions where experimentation and practical problem-solving take center stage. Add one of their workshops to your ticket during registration.
Alyssa Evans
Software Engineer
Ditto
She/Her
Luca Palmieri
Principal Engineering Consultant
Mainmatter
He/Him
WORKSHOP
Alexandru Radovici
Assistant Professor
Politehnica University of Bucharest
He/Him
Herbert Wolverson
Rust Trainer
Ardan Labs
He/Him
Lightning Talks
Our lightning talk speakers bring fresh perspectives and emerging ideas from across the Rust community. From first-time presenters to seasoned contributors, they offer a rapid look at the work taking shape right now.
Zach Brown
Senior Engineer
Anza
He/Him
LIGHTNING TALK
Enow Scott
Project Manager at Adorsys
Rust Africa Project Lead
He/Him
Ed Guloien
Senior Software Developer
Mozilla
He/Him
LIGHTNING TALK
Craig Hamilton
Staff Flight Software Engineer
Umbra Lab, Inc.
He/Him
LIGHTNING TALK
Ethan Hann
Independent Consultant
He/Him
LIGHTNING TALK
Ian McIntyre
Embedded Software Engineer
Freelance
He/Him
LIGHTNING TALK
Camille Owens
Cloud Engineer
Development Seed
She/Her
LIGHTNING TALK
Kaitlin Seng
Lead Software Engineer
Ginger Cybersecurity
She/Her
LIGHTNING TALK
Michael Tautschnig
Senior Applied Scientist
AWS
He/Him
Ron Williams
President
Redox OS Nonprofit
He/Him
LIGHTNING TALK
Camille Owens
Cloud Engineer
Development Seed
She/Her
LIGHTNING TALK
Kaitlin Seng
Lead Software Engineer
Ginger Cybersecurity
She/Her
LIGHTNING TALK
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