Dawn is the Open Source Community Strategy Lead within VMware's Open Source Program Office. She recently joined the board of OpenUK, an organization committed to develop and sustain UK leadership in Open Technology. Dawn is on the Governing Board and is a maintainer for the Linux Foundation’s CHAOSS project and is on the Board of Advisors for Bitergia. She has 20+ years of experience at companies like Intel and Puppet with expertise in community building, strategy, open source software, metrics, and more. She is passionate about bringing people together through a combination of online communities and real-world events along with analyzing the data associated with participation in developer and open source communities. Dawn holds a PhD from the University of Greenwich along with an MBA and a BS in Computer Science. She has spoken at dozens of industry events, including many Linux Foundation events, OSCON, SXSW, FOSDEM and more.

Dawn Foster is on the CHAOSS Governing Board, a maintainer of the Diversity and Inclusion WG, Common Metrics WG, and a regular panelist on the CHAOSScast.