Theme: Within & Without

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

Chautauqua
900 Baseline Road
Boulder, Colorado, 80302
United States

Blair Imani

Writer, Mental Health Advocate, and Historian

Blair Imani is writer, mental health advocate, and historian living at the intersections of Black, Queer, and Muslim identity. In addition to being a public speaker, Blair is the author of Modern HERstory: Stories of Women and Nonbinary People Rewriting History (2018) and Lifting As We Climb: The Great Migration & the Black American Dream which hits shelves in January 2020. She is also the official ambassador of Muslims for Progressive Values, one of the oldest progressive Muslim organizations to support the LGBTQ+ community.

Dr. Julie Albright

Digital Sociologist

Dr. Albright is a digital sociologist who has spent her career exploring the digital transformation of society. She is a sought-after keynote speaker, having given talks for both C level executives and professional audiences for SAP, IBM Global, CS Week, the American Society of Petroleum Engineers, AESP, the Dept. of Defense, and Data Center Dynamics, among others. She is a Lecturer at the Viterbi School of Engineering and the Applied Psychology Dept at the University of Southern California and is on the Board of Directors of Infrastructure Masons. She has appeared as an expert on many national television programs including the Today Show, CNN, NBC Nightly News, Nat Geo, CBS, Dr. Phil, and NPR. She has also been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time Magazine and Newsweek and many others.

Jan Broberg

Actress, Singer & Dancer

Jan Broberg is an actress, singer and dancer who has appeared in more than two dozen feature films, numerous television series, and countless stage productions. She currently serves as the Executive Director of Center for the Arts at Kayenta, located in Ivins, Utah. She is the subject of both a book and a film that chronicled her horrific kidnapping at the age of 12, and again at 14. “Abducted in Plain Sight” premiered on Netflix in January 2019. Her story has been documented on a number of media outlets and programs including “The View”, Dr. Phil, Vulture, Vanity Fair, and Dr. Oz. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children honored her and her mother with the ‘Hope’ award. Jan is a proud mother and an LGBT ally working in the arts. She continues to be a tireless activist for survivors of sexual assault. She is now using her growing platform to educate families on protecting their own children.

Joe Neguse

Congressman

Congressman Joe Neguse represents Colorado’s 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was elected to his first term in November 2018, becoming the first African-American member of Congress in Colorado history. He serves as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, House Natural Resources Committee and the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Rep. Neguse was elected by his colleagues to serve as Co-Freshman Representative to Leadership in the 116th Congress, and in that capacity serves as a member of the House Democratic Leadership Team. He also serves as one of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Vice Chairs and Liaison to New Members.

Julieee Logan

Sparkly Human GIF

Who is Julieee Logan? You text GIFs bc of me. I’ve snuck onto an Indonesian spy plane & spent a World Cup with Team USA. I founded/sold a company in my 20s. Spent a weekend in a “Real World” style Nike Running campaign. Was called the “queen glitter bomb” in Wired, but these days I prefer sparkly human GIF ◡̈ I spent the last few years rebranding low-fi loops on the internet into a global cultural phenomenon. The GIFs I’ve created have been seen more than a billion times and used by everyone from my mom to Janelle Monae (who just used one of my stickers on IG and hello, I’m dead now). I make .jpgs .gifs and .movs for myself, my friends, and clients like these: julieeelogan.com/clients. You can find me on the social media as @julieeelogan.

Juniper Fitzgerald

Mother, Author, & Former Sex Worker

Juniper Fitzgerald is a mother, author, and former sex worker; she has been active in the sex workers’ labor rights movement for fifteen years. She is also the author of the first children’s book with a sex-working parent, How Mamas Love Their Babies, and a forthcoming auto-theory, both by the Feminist Press. She holds a PhD in sociology.

Kid Astronaut

Musician

Born Jon Shockness on May 23rd, 1990 in Denver, Colorado, Kid Astronaut is a visionary, a musician and a creator. One day, while touring with his band (a crew of time-travelers and musicians) their spaceship hit a portal and landed in an alternate past timeline set back in the year 2015. Their futuristic tech destroyed the band decided they needed to assimilate to the past as well as blend into their new reality, keeping the truth about their time travels...and themselves a secret. Until now. Follow Kid Astronaut on IG/TWITTER - @kidastronavt

Lane Moore

Stand-Up Comedian, Writer, Actor, and Musician

Lane Moore is an award-winning stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and musician living in New York City. Her monthly comedy show Tinder LIVE! was named on The New York Times’ Critic’s Picks, and CBS called it one of the five best comedy shows in NYC. BUST Magazine named her band It Was Romance the Best Band of 2015 and Billboard named it one of "16 female-fronted brands you should know". In 2017, she created the popular blog Hotties of MTV’s “Next,” which was quickly praised by The AV Club, Distractify, and Cosmopolitan who called Moore a “genius” and the page “perfect.” Moore was also featured on an episode of Comedy Central’s @midnight with her segment, which Chris Hardwick called “amazing.”

Ned Breslin

President and CEO of the Tennyson Center for Children

Ned Breslin is President and CEO of the Tennyson Center for Children in Denver, Colorado after spending 27 years focused on international water and sanitation and living for 16 of those years in southern Africa with his wife and two children. Ned and his team at Water For People launched an ambitious sector systems play that led to dramatic changes in programming, outcomes and funding flows globally. Ned is a 2011 recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship for his leadership on this work. Ned pivoted to child welfare where he, his teams and partners are engaged in another ambitious systems play designed to unleash the strengths and beauty of children and families caught in child welfare and, in the process, reimagine pathways through child welfare by upending current funding paradigms that consistently buy poor outcomes.

Sarabeth Berk

Hybrid Professional

Sarabeth Berk considers herself a hybrid professional who combines her artist/researcher/educator/designer identities to be more than her job title. Sarabeth obtained her PhD in curriculum studies and instruction, and leads innovation strategy in nonprofits, K-12, and higher education. When she isn’t transforming or disrupting the status quo, she listens to a zillion podcasts, solves word puzzles, and lets her curiosity run wild.

Scott Taylor

Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder

Scott Taylor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder where he leads the Taylor Lab on hybridization, speciation, and natural history (https://www.colorado.edu/lab/taylor/). He joined the faculty after completing a Ph.D. in ecological genetics from Queen’s University and pursuing postdoctoral training at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Research in his group is focused on using natural hybrid zones and recent radiations to understand the genetic bases of traits involved in reproductive isolation, population divergence, and speciation, and the impacts of anthropogenic change, including climate change, on species distributions, interactions, and evolution. His lab primarily studies birds.

Stacey Putka

Founding Member & Program Director of Defy Ventures Colorado

Stacey Putka is a fierce believer in challenging perceptions and the power of transformation. Growing up in an entrepreneurial household, with a father who took full advantage of his second chance in life after recovering from addiction, Stacey is inspired to facilitate transformation in the lives of others. As a Defy Ventures Colorado (DVC) founding member and current Program Director Stacey spearheads Defy’s teaching and coaching philosophy, curriculum development, marketing, and community relations. Prior to DVC Stacey worked as a mental health and substance abuse therapist, social worker, and group living counselor with various organizations. Stacey received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Colorado State University and a Master’s in Social Work from the University of Denver.

Trace Bundy

Guitar Virtuoso

Internationally-acclaimed guitar virtuoso Trace Bundy shares his musical artistry with us this year. Fan-dubbed “The Acoustic Ninja,” his music must be seen to be believed, using harmonics, looping, and multiple capos to confound even the most accomplished music lovers as to how one person can do all that with just two hands and ten fingers. Trace’s witty banter and stage presence delivers an unforgettable live concert experience. Trace is based in Boulder, but his unique career has brought him across the world, with concerts in 28 countries and counting -- from high-tech performance halls in South Korea and Italy, to remote villages in Zimbabwe and Guatemala. His video clips have circulated virally, with over 43 million YouTube views to date.

Zach Barack

Actor & Musician

Zach Barack is a young transgender actor and musician who comes from the northern suburbs of Chicago. In Summer 2019, he will make history as the first transgender actor to co-star in a Marvel film. Zach lights up the big screen as a member of the cast of Spider-Man: Far from Home. In addition to acting, Zach is a comedian and song-writer, who is in the process of studying the music industry at the University of Southern California.

Zachory Berta-Thompson

Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences

Every star in the sky is a Sun, just like our own, and astronomers recently determined that most of those stars have planets. Some of these “exoplanets” eclipse their stars as seen from Earth, causing momentary dips in the stars’ brightness. Zach Berta-Thompson uses small telescopes to search for new exoplanets by watching for these dips (he helped find a few!), and he uses big telescopes to study these exoplanets’ atmospheres (particularly, the color of their sunsets). He is a professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder.