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).

Santa Catalina School
1500 Mark Thomas Drive
Monterey, California, 93940
United States

Aimee Mountford

Communication Consultant

It is a pleasure to introduce our first speaker, Aimee Mountford. Aimee has built her career as a professional communications expert from her humble beginnings as a qualified CPA, working for Deloitte as an auditor, then to the tech industry transforming through finance to investor relations, and then into corporate communications where she led teams for two of the largest tech companies,Cisco Systems and latterly Apple,in 2017 She started Bad Language, her communication consulting firm to share her experience with up and coming company executives for building speeches or coaching on methodologies to make good speakers great.

Alexis Bunten

Co-Director, Bioneers

Alexis Bunten, PhD, (Unangan/Yup’ik) from Bristol Bay Alaska co-directs the Bioneers Indigeneity Program. She has served as a media-maker, consultant and applied researcher for Indigenous, social and environmental programming for over 20 years. After receiving a BA in Art History at Dartmouth College, Alexis returned to Alaska, where she worked at the Sealaska Heritage Institute, and the Alaska Native Heritage Center in cultural programming. Subsequently, Alexis earned a PhD in Cultural Anthropology at UCLA. She has taught at UCLA, and Humboldt State University. She lives in Monterey with her partner, daughter, 3 dogs, a cat and a lizard.

Julie Kenner

Dermatologist

Dr. Kenner holds both PhD and MD degrees. Dr. Kenner was in the Army for 9 years and through the military, was among the first in the US to use telemedicine regularly as a tool to service patients remotely. She has formed several successful dermatology clinical practices in the last 20+ years, and has made it a habit of being on the leading edge of technology and improving her trade and service to patients. Several years ago, Dr. Kenner left the traditional insurance dermatology model, and began creating better “whole person” solutions to manage common skin conditions and help her patients heal “on the outside as well as inside”. The bones of this next generation of the SkinHappy System have been tested in an incubator clinic for the last several years in Monterey, CA, and has been duplicated for a wider audience in a direct-to-consumer online teledermatology platform.

Lauren Selman

Producer

Lauren Selman is an award-winning producer and Emmy-nominated production manager. She has worked on The Oscars, FIFA World Cup, The Olympics and the Media Access Awards. She’s worked with global media companies like FOX Broadcasting, Disney, Warner Bros, Netflix, Riot Games and Blizzard Entertainment. She's produced countless live events and a number of short and feature films which have screened at Sundance, SXSW, Pan African Film Festival, Paris International Film Festival and more. Lauren got her degrees in Theater and Performance Studies and Conservation Resource Management at the University of California, Berkeley. From theater to live broadcast events, documentaries to narrative films, she works in a range of formats and is passionate about producing projects that make us think differently and celebrate important moments in life. She is a dedicated activist, lifelong athlete and dog mama to her Shepard-Husky, Jane Fonda.

Margaret Spencer

student

Margret Spencer is a senior boarding student at Santa Catalina. She lives in Santa Cruz, California and has boarded at Catalina since Freshman year. She is an active member of our community, being the head of our schools French club and Leader of the dining room committee. She is additionally captained this year's basketball team, was a yearbook section head and an admissions ambassador. Margaret has spent many years studying nutrition and as of now is publishing a paper on the topic.

Matthew Chang

Climate Activist + Student

A 16-year-old climate education champion, Matthew Chang leads Climate Garden, a global movement of over two hundred schools and a thousand students, and was recognized by the Orange County Register as one of its 125 Most Influential People of 2022 and by the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce as a 40 Under 40 listmaker. Matthew serves on the City of Irvine Green Ribbon Environmental Committee as its first student member-at-large and is deeply involved with local community leaders like Congresswoman Katie Porter and the Irvine City Council to empower other youth activists and promote climate reform. Matthew is the host of Sustainable Future on Spotify, broadcasting weekly interviews with changemakers to an audience spanning four continents.

Sara Wu

Student

My name is Sara Wu and I am a junior high school student at Santa Catalina School. I grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia, where the socio-economic disparity is very apparent. By being involved in Lentera Anak Pelangi, a foundation that focuses on reducing the morbidity and mortality of underprivileged children and adolescents with HIV, I have been able to observe firsthand the stigma and discrimination they suffer, as well as how their economic status limits their access to health care and education. I hope to share my experiences with the Santa Catalina community, drawing attention to the condition of adolescents in other parts of the world.

Tommaso Di Bartolo

Entrepreneur

Tommaso di Bartolo is a Serial Entrepreneur and Startup Investor, Author, Advisor, and Faculty at the University of California Berkeley. Currently a faculty member at UC Berkeley running a class on entrepreneurship and serves the role of guest lecturer at Stanford University.Based in Silicon Valley, Tommaso speaks 7 languages, is the author of "How to Growth Hack your Startup", and "Navigating the Metaverse" published by Wiley