Theme: Sustainability: Honoring the Privilege of Being Alive

The TEDxABQ salon team and local change-makers are gathering to honor the privilege of being alive and to discuss the future of sustainable practices in Albuquerque. Are you looking for new ideas to implement in your own life, inspiration, or to meet new interesting people? Please join us in discovering the future of sustainability in Albuquerque.

Albuquerque Museum
2000 Mountain Rd NW
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87104
United States

Gregory A. Cajete

Native American Educator

Gregory Cajete is the Director of Native American Studies and an Associate Professor in the Division of Language, Literacy and Socio cultural Studies in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico. As a Native American educator, he is dedicated to honoring the foundations of indigenous knowledge in education. Dr. Cajete is a Tewa Indian from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. He has served as a New Mexico Humanities scholar in ethno botany of Northern New Mexico and as a member of the New Mexico Arts Commission. Dr. Cajete worked at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico for 21 years as Dean of the Center for Research and Cultural Exchange, Chair of Native American Studies and Professor of ethno science.

Jorge Garcia

Community Advocate

Jorge Garcia is the President and Founder of the Center for Social Sustainable Systems (CESOSS), a community based research and learning center located in the Atrisco community in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jorge's studies and work has focused on projects that support the social, cultural, political and economic development of marginalized communities. For over two decades, Jorge Garcia has collaborated on issues related to community development and the development of the knowledge society. His main involvement has been with the Latin American region supporting the development of research and education in microelectronics, as well as creating specific social development/technology projects in Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, New Mexico, and Brazil. He is directly associated with many community initiatives, including an international effort to safeguard Traditional Knowledge and the development of an international network of indigenous timekeepers.

Karen Temple-Beamish

Environmental Educator

Karen Temple-Beamish has taught 8th grade Earth Systems Science and high school Environmental Biology at Albuquerque Academy for 18 years. As her school’s Sustainability Coordinator, Karen leads her community to decrease their ecological footprint. In 2011, Karen pioneered one of New Mexico’s first on-site, full scale food-waste composting programs. In 2014, Karen co-created the new Desert Oasis Teaching Garden. Karen believes that through experiential, real-world problem solving that she can better prepare her students and community to be agents of change. Karen earned a B.S. in Biology from the University of New Mexico and a M.S. in Environmental Science from Indiana University.

Katie Curran

Filmmaker

Katie Curran has worked as writer, assistant producer, editor and camera for documentaries from PBS, NOVA, Power Paths and ML Lincoln Films. She interned for the Emmy award-winning Investigative Team at ABC News in Chicago and has freelanced for print and National Public Radio. Curran taught media skills and filmmaking at Haiti Reporters in Port-au-Prince and has worked as an activist and organizer for social, cultural and environmental justice, especially on issues regarding women, war, Native resistance, immigration and police brutality. Curran backpacked alone across the United States and throughout the world for over five years to collect footage for her directorial debut on food justice, "Greening the Revolution".

Leila Salim

Designer, Entrepreneur, & Community Activist

Leila Salim is a designer, entrepreneur, and community activist. She studied Architecture and Environmental Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her passions include green building, greywater, do-it-yourself, skill-sharing, urbanism, and community development. Leila co-founded and directs the Albuquerque Old School, a hub of community experts who offer classes in “frugal, traditional, and sustainable living,” where she teaches adobe and water harvesting workshops. She helps to organize the Transition movement in Albuquerque which gave her the new term "reskilling" to explain what Old School is all about. She is a member of ABQ Hours, a local timebank where members exchange the sort of services she discusses in her talk, and she also volunteers with several other local, urban, sustainability initiatives.