Theme: Vision

Join us for Salem's officially licensed TEDx event on Saturday, January 4, 2020, at the Salem Convention Center.

12 speakers, 7+ performances, snacks and drinks all day, full lunch, swag and lots of surprises all included with the cost of your ticket!

Salem Convention Center
200 Commercial St SE
Salem, Oregon, 97301
United States

Bassam Tarazi

Bassam Tarazi was born in Connecticut to immigrant parents from Palestine & Holland. He's an author, entrepreneur, speaker and strategist. He's a schooled mechanical engineer, broadened his skills in business strategy in New York, and currently helps companies navigate through change. He or his work has been featured in Backpacker, Forbes, Young Entrepreneur, and he’s the author of three books, including The Accountability Effect and Borders, Bandits, And Baby Wipes. An explora-preneur at heart, he's also traveled to 73 countries and all 7 continents, having had such grand experiences as getting to Everest Base Camp and the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, living on an Alaskan glacier for 8 days, and being hunted by a pig-tailed macaque in the jungles of Borneo (Long stories. We’ll need a campfire for those.) He, his lovely wife Sam, and their dog Oliver live in Portland, Oregon.

Beyond Limits Aerial Dance

Beyond Limits Aerial Dance is dedicated to bringing aerial dance to our community that is visually intriguing, socially relevant, and meaningful. We are leading the way in aerial dance with innovative movement by lifting classically trained dancers into the air on custom apparatus. Our pieces evoke integrity, community, and engage our audience in a profound manner. www.beyondlimitsaerialdance.com

Danielle Baca-Chayse

A lifelong Salemite, Danielle Baca-Chayse lives a life steeped in creativity, from organizing community events, such as the Salem Zombie Walk and Salem’s Rocky Horror Picture Show, to reimagining art on skin in her career as a tattoo artist. A dedicated community advocate, you will often find Danielle supporting local activities, from volunteering behind the scenes to sharing them with her family. And her connection with TEDxSalem is steeped in history, too. She’s been actively sharing her creativity with our audience for a number of years, although you may not have always recognized her disguised in costumes. mycanvastattoo.com

Dr. Justin Feinstein

Dr. Justin Feinstein is a Clinical Neuropsychologist and Director of the Float Clinic and Research Center at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research. His laboratory investigates the effects of Floatation-REST (Reduced Environmental Stimulation Therapy) on both the body and the brain, while also exploring its potential as a therapeutic treatment for promoting mental health and healing in patients who suffer from anxiety and stress-related disorders. Dr. Feinstein joined the faculty of the Laureate Institute for Brain Research and the Oxley College of Health Sciences at the University of Tulsa in 2013, after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Iowa, and his postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. He earned his undergraduate degree in cognitive neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, and completed his clinical internship at the San Diego VA hospital with a focus on the treatment of veterans with PTSD. https://www.clinicalfloatation.com/

Dr. Kaeli Swift

Kaeli received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2018, where she studied American crow thanatology. She is currently a lecturer in the UW's School of Environmental and Forest Sciences where she teaches ornithology, conservation, and wildlife ecology. You can read her popular science articles on her blog, corvidresearch.blog. You can also find her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at the @corvidresearch handle.

Dr.Zohra Campbell, D.C.

Dr. Zohra is a chiropractic physician, yoga therapist, a yoga teacher, and founder and director of Indigo Wellness Center in downtown Salem. She offers tools for healing and unwinding patterns and habits that hold us back from optimal healing and wellness. www.indigowellnesscenter.com

Hailey Hardcastle

Hailey Hardcastle is a freshman at the University of Oregon and a student mental health advocate. This year she was named one of Teen Vogues 21 under 21 most influential young people for her work on passing House Bill 2191, which allows students to take mental health days off from school. Hardcastle works with other teens nationwide to promote student advocacy and come up with creative solutions to teenage mental challenges.

J.J. Gregg

J.J. Gregg's lyrical and meditative sitar playing relaxes and rejuvenates listeners. J.J. enjoys performing for all audiences from intimate house concerts and classroom demonstrations to auditoriums and community spaces. His performances take each audience member on a personal musical journey. For the past nineteen years, J.J. has studied sitar and South Asian Classical Music with internationally renowned sitar player Ustad Usman Khan in Pune, India. J.J. has performed in India, Japan, Thailand, and throughout the U.S. J.J.’s newest album dropped December 31st 2019. Recorded live at Indigo Yoga Studio in October 2019, ‘in delicate balance’ is music performed for and dedicated to the Salem community. ‘in delicate balance’ follows his recent album, 'opening up.' J.J. Gregg lives in Salem where he teaches private and group sitar lessons. J.J. combines his love of teaching and performing in his Musical Meditation workshops, which he offers regularly at the Yoga Library in Salem. jjgregg.bandcamp.com soundcloud.com/jjgregg/tracks

Jolie Brownell

Jolie Brownell is a 20-year-old, award-winning Writer, Speaker, and Author of "Me Too" - a collection of quotes, messages, and poems on four main topics: Body Acceptance, Confidence, Goal Setting, and Healthy Relationships. In the past few years, Jolie has spoken to hundreds of women/girls in Portland OR on loving themselves, believing in themselves, and going after their dreams. She has also received the FoundHER's Award in NYC for her work with local Portland girls through her Me Too Girl workshops and partnerships with Girls Inc., I AM THAT GIRL, Produced By Her, ChickTech, and other girl-empowering organizations. Jolie is also a second-year student at Loyola Marymount University, where she is currently double majoring in Women and Gender Studies and Sociology. www.joliebrownell.com

Marisa A. Zapata

Dr. Marisa A. Zapata is an associate professor of land-use planning at Portland State University and director of PSU’s Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative, an interdisciplinary research center dedicated to reducing and preventing homelessness with an emphasis on communities of color. As an educator, scholar, and planner, Dr. Zapata is committed to achieving spatially based social justice by preparing planners to act in the face of uncertain and inequitable futures. She believes how we use land reflects our social and cultural values. She was recently named one of Portland’s unelected leaders by Portland Mercury for her role in using research to help understand homelessness. The center’s recent report “Governance, Costs, and Revenue Raising to Address and Prevent Homelessness,” revealed that as many as 38,000 people experienced homelessness in the Portland tri-county area in 2017, which transformed the conversation about solutions. For more information about her work or the center, go to www.pdx.edu/homelessness Report: “Governance, Costs, and Revenue Raising to Address and Prevent Homelessness” bit.ly/pdxhomelessness

Melissa Pollman

Melissa's most important job is being a wife and mother of four fabulous children. She also owns and operates several small businesses with her husband. She has lived in Salem since she was five, and both her husband she graduated from Sprague High School. She received her undergraduate degree at Oregon State University and her MBA at Willamette University. She is also the founder and director of Haley’s Heroes | A Batten Foundation, a role she didn't envision for her life. Finding a treatment or cure for Batten, however, has become her life's mission. https://haleysheroesfoundation.org/

Mihir Joshi

Mihir is a 9th grader at South Salem High School and he loves learning about science. Mihir enjoys computer programming, environmental science, and physics. Some of his accomplishments are becoming a finalist at the national BROADCOM Masters' science program and winning second place in the engineering category, another one of his achievements is winning first at Statewide science fair during his 6th and 7th-grade years. For fun, Mihir plays the cello, piano, and also runs Cross Country.

Mike Studer

Mike Studer, PT, MHS, NCS, CEEAA, CWT, CSST is a physical therapist certified as a neurological clinical specialist. He has been a PT for nearly 30 years, conducting research, writing papers and book chapters on topics ranging from stroke rehabilitation, cognition, Parkinson's Disease, dual tasking, and much more. He has presented by invitation to 48 states, 4 provinces in Canada, 9 countries, and 3 continents. His full-time clinical practice is located in Salem, Oregon at Northwest Rehabilitation Associates. As an avid marathoner, and health nut/longevity nerd, Mike can be easily engaged on his thoughts about exercise, nutrition, sleep, and learning! www.mikestuder.com

Nicole Malinoff

Nicole Malinoff is a congenital amputee, disability advocate, dancer, performer, and teacher. She began studying dance in 2007 and teaching in 2015. Through her personal experience and observations, she has gained insight on effective, as well as ineffective attempts at inclusion practices in dance, and has discovered ways to apply those practices in everyday life. She lives in Eugene, Oregon and teaches weekly classes.

Nina Baliga

Technology engineer

Nina is the Managing Partner for Breaking the Bias, a program and micro-learning platform that helps companies and individuals create tools, methods, and strategies to build more inclusive workplaces. As a child of immigrants, Nina has always been passionate about social justice and improving the lives of marginalized people. She began her career in the non-profit world working to empower underrepresented communities, then went on to get an MBA before she decided to teach herself front-end web development and user experience design. In 2017, she and her team became finalists at the Go Code Colorado hackathon, and co-founded diversity, a women-founded startup focused on creating an equitable and inclusive tech industry. With nearly twenty years of experience in non-profit and for-profit organizations, she is a serial entrepreneur combining her community organizing, business, leadership, and app development skills.

Theresa McCormick

Theresa McCormick is a chemistry professor at Portland State University where she studies how to capture the sun’s energy and convert it into useable fuel. She received her PhD in 2008 from Queen’s University in Kinston, Ontario, Canada. Her PhD work focused on molecules that can be used in OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diodes). She did two postdoctoral fellowships, one at the University of Rochester (studying solar hydrogen production) and one at the University of Toronto (developing new materials for plastic solar cells). Theresa grew up in rural Ontario, Canada with her parents and two brothers. She lives south of Portland with her husband and two-year-old daughter. She is co-founder of a new start-up, AirOmatix that is developing technology to remove and store oxygen. research page: pdx.edu/mccormick-lab airomatix.net: start-up webpage