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TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

Salem Convention Center

Musician J.J. Gregg to play sitar at TEDxSalem Jan. 4th

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Play­ing the sitar is not some­thing you real­ly pick up on a whim. At least, that’s the expe­ri­ence of J.J. Gregg, who will be per­form­ing at TEDxSalem on Jan­u­ary 4th.

“The sitar is a dif­fi­cult instru­ment to learn, but it’s very reward­ing over the long haul,” said Gregg. “Progress can be quite slow. It’s like walk­ing from Salem to Seat­tle. Well, maybe Salem to San Diego. It’s absolute­ly pos­si­ble, but it’s a long-term com­mit­ment rather than a week­end moun­tain climb.”

Gregg’s ultra-marathon jour­ney to mas­ter­ing the sitar began with a love of music with intri­cate or com­plex beats. He often lis­tened to favorite albums repeat­ed­ly from every angle on dif­fer­ent speak­ers and dif­fer­ent times of day.

“I’ve prob­a­bly lis­tened to ‘Sgt. Pepper’s [Lone­ly Hearts Club Band]’ at least 200 times, and more recent­ly the album ‘Amer­i­can Don’ by Don Caballero,” he said.

This pas­sion led him to the real­iza­tion that he want­ed to be a good musi­cian but couldn’t quite fig­ure out how to get there on his own. A cou­ple weeks after this epiphany, he arrived in India on a study abroad pro­gram and short­ly there­after met his now guru, Ustad Usman Khan. He start­ed tak­ing sitar lessons with him twice a week for five months.

“Over many return trips to study sitar in India,” he said, “I slow­ly devel­oped a love and devo­tion toward the sitar – it’s now the only instru­ment I real­ly play.”

What is your favorite part about per­form­ing?

One of my favorite things about per­form­ing is impro­vis­ing, and the chance to sur­prise myself musi­cal­ly. Every audi­ence and per­for­mance is dif­fer­ent, depend­ing on size, time of day, venue and the ener­gy of the audi­ence. I love the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take my audi­ence on a jour­ney. Often the sounds I use calm people’s ten­sions and allow them to explore thoughts, ideas and pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences while lis­ten­ing to the music.

Do you play oth­er instru­ments?

I took piano lessons for nine years and played the french horn for sev­en years, and start­ed an exper­i­men­tal rock band with my best friend after Kurt Cobain’s death. In that group, I sang and at dif­fer­ent times played bass, drums, gui­tar and oth­er dif­fer­ent things that made inter­est­ing nois­es. I also spent a lot of time record­ing our music and releas­ing things most­ly on cas­settes and then lat­er CD-Rs, so you could say that I have always been pas­sion­ate about per­form­ing and pro­duc­ing music.

How does the sitar dif­fer from a per­former’s and a lis­ten­er’s stand­point?

The sitar is dif­fer­ent from a gui­tar in that it’s pri­ma­ry pur­pose is to play melodies. It also pro­vides sup­port­ing rhythm for those melodies. A gui­tar, while it often plays melodies too, is a whole world of har­mon­ic pos­si­bil­i­ties in chords. The sitar is real­ly in just one key.

The sitar as an instru­ment evolved along with South Asian clas­si­cal music. That broad tra­di­tion empha­sizes melody and rhythm, with har­mo­ny cre­at­ed from note to note as part of the melody rather than through the chord changes found in much of West­ern music. So, from my performer’s per­spec­tive, play­ing South Asian clas­si­cal music on sitar feels like a per­fect match. With­in this tra­di­tion, there’s great scope for impro­vi­sa­tion.

What can you tell TEDxSalem atten­dees about your upcom­ing per­for­mance? 

I hope atten­dees can enjoy my per­for­mance as a time to relax, process oth­er ideas from the con­fer­ence, or be trans­port­ed into a dif­fer­ent frame of mind.

How long have you been in Salem, and what do you like about liv­ing and work­ing here?

I live in Salem and have for about five years. There are lots of great things about Salem: We have awe­some trees on our streets and in our parks. You can gar­den through the win­ter, and I like my neigh­bors!

If peo­ple are inspired to learn them­selves, how can they find more infor­ma­tion about the sitar?

I teach sitar lessons here in Salem, so that’s a great place to start. I think every­one has the capac­i­ty to learn to sing or play the sitar or any oth­er instru­ment. First, you need a strong desire to learn your cho­sen instru­ment. Then it’s real­ly a mat­ter of reg­u­lar, delib­er­ate prac­tice; fam­i­ly sup­port to make your prac­tice pos­si­ble; and an expe­ri­enced teacher to guide you.

If you’re inter­est­ed in tak­ing sitar lessons, Gregg can be reached at charukeshi.roopak@gmail.com. To hear his music, go to jjgregg.bandcamp.com or lis­ten to his guru Ustad Usman Khan’s album “Yaman/Charukeshi” who recent­ly re-released on New Earth Records as “Pure Yoga” on iTunes and Spo­ti­fy.

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com

Melissa Pollman: Rare disease awareness

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Entre­pre­neur. Par­ent. Activist. Meet Melis­sa Poll­man. Co-own­er of ConKraft Con­struc­tion, Cen­tral Homes Prop­er­ty man­age­ment and Stor­age 4 Less, she’s mar­ried (to Dean) with four kids (Audrey, Madi­son, Cole and Haley), plus two dogs, a cat, two Pygmy goats and a bunch of fish. She earned her MBA from Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty’s Atkin­son Grad­u­ate School of Man­age­ment while work­ing full time and rais­ing a fam­i­ly. She loves boat­ing in the sum­mer and ski­ing in the win­ter, and most of all, spend­ing time with her fam­i­ly. She is a founder of Haley’s Heroes, a foun­da­tion rais­ing funds and aware­ness to help find a cure for Bat­ten Dis­ease.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? About 18 months ago I was invit­ed to watch my neigh­bor, Becky McBride, give a TEDx [like] talk as part of her nurs­ing degree. She spoke on pedi­atric pal­lia­tive care and was inspired to do so by our sto­ry of Haley and Haley’s Heroes Foun­da­tion.

What inspired you to do a TED talk? When faced with immea­sur­able grief you will do any­thing! I would nev­er have thought to do a TED talk before Haley’s diag­no­sis but now I will speak any­where and every­where peo­ple will lis­ten to spread aware­ness. It may not save Haley but at least it’s some­thing I can do when I’m pow­er­less to cure my daugh­ter. Fears of pub­lic speak­ing and being uncom­fort­able are noth­ing com­pared to the fear of los­ing a child. If my words can help one per­son, if I can add hope to a life, then maybe this jour­ney we are on won’t be for noth­ing. Haley will be a lega­cy and sto­ry that lives on and cre­ates hope in hope­less sit­u­a­tions.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? One of the symp­toms of Bat­ten Dis­ease is loss of vision. Haley’s loss of vision put us on this jour­ney. Her joy for life and spir­it inspired us to cre­ate a plan or vision to save her. The phrase “how to have vision when you can’t see” comes to mind. 

What do you feel most grate­ful for in your life?  My fam­i­ly.  I’m blessed to have a hus­band that is also my best friend. My chil­dren are extreme­ly close despite the age dif­fer­ences. We are a close-knit fam­i­ly. My heart is full when we are all togeth­er.

How has your life been dif­fer­ent than what you’d imag­ined? I envi­sioned a fam­i­ly and all that goes along with it… watch­ing your kids grow up… watch­ing them get mar­ried… becom­ing a grandparent…etc. Receiv­ing the diag­no­sis that Haley has a fatal dis­ease blew that pic­ture up. I live with con­stant grief while bat­tling to stay present and grate­ful for the time we have. 

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? As a teen after I jumped off a bridge into a riv­er up at north fork. It was real­ly high up and I land­ed wrong. I had bruis­es all up and down the back of my legs. It was first and last time I ever did some­thing like that.

Do you have any com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties? I like to run races with friends. I have run Hood to Coast for the past five years and actu­al­ly find it fun! 

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Expert in cur­ing Bat­ten Dis­ease!

Favorite book? I love to read mur­der mys­ter­ies- par­tic­u­lar­ly with a hero­ine! I real­ly don’t know why but it’s all I read … except for the TED book.

Ran­dom fact: I am left-hand­ed but my kids are all right-hand­ed.

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com

Marisa A. Zapata: Rethinking homelessness

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Marisa A. Zap­a­ta is a researcher, edu­ca­tor and plan­ner. She is the Direc­tor of Home­less­ness Research & Action Col­lab­o­ra­tive and Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Land-use Plan­ning at Port­land State Uni­ver­si­ty. She holds a doc­tor­ate in Region­al Plan­ning, a mas­ter’s in Urban Plan­ning and a bachelor’s in Anthro­pol­o­gy. When not work­ing, you may find her play­ing flute, read­ing a book, tak­ing a long walk or play­ing a board game. In Jan­u­ary, Dr. Zap­a­ta will take to the TEDxSalem stage to address how we can solve home­less­ness by rethink­ing who has a right to hous­ing.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? My first TED expe­ri­ence was prob­a­bly “ille­gal” because it was a TED “style” talk but not offi­cial­ly through TED. One of my friends from col­lege was doing a talk about health care issues that she was study­ing as a med­ical doc­tor. It was won­der­ful to see her, a per­son I had known for awhile, being on a stage and shar­ing her knowl­edge. I learned a lot from the talk!

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? My cur­rent fave is by Gab­by Rivera who talked about cre­at­ing the first queer Lati­na super­hero. I didn’t grow up read­ing graph­ic nov­els, though my dad talked about his favorite super­hero — Spi­der­man. Like many things I have only real­ized as an adult, my lack of inter­est in a par­tic­u­lar thing was part­ly dri­ven by not see­ing peo­ple like me. I know a lot of peo­ple say rep­re­sen­ta­tion mat­ters, but it real­ly goes fur­ther than an image or a lan­guage. It’s also about ideas and con­ver­sa­tion styles and char­ac­ters who are like your fam­i­ly mem­bers. For me, super­heroes are about imag­ing dif­fer­ent types of futures. A super­verse with white men and hyper­sex­u­al­ized white women could nev­er be a future for me. But a Lati­na? That’s a super I can believe in. I also loved Gabby’s deliv­ery. Like Gab­by, I grew up learn­ing to tell sto­ries and for me, humor was a big part of that. See­ing her laugh on stage is a great reminder that humor can be such an impor­tant part of talks on seri­ous top­ics.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? I love this year’s theme. Vision can mean so many dif­fer­ent things, but I think all of those things involved how we share our thoughts, ideas, fears, and hopes. Whether through lit­er­al shared sight or through lan­guage, we cul­ti­vate how we live in com­mu­ni­ty with one anoth­er. For my work, I think about how to envi­sion just futures, and cre­ate path­ways to move us in those direc­tions while prepar­ing for uncer­tain­ty. A lot of this work is about fore­sight — try­ing to think about how our futures might play out based on our presents. I think this is espe­cial­ly impor­tant when think­ing about home­less­ness. We have what can feel like an over­whelm­ing set of tasks in front of us, and list of pos­si­ble options. Envi­sion­ing futures allows us to struc­ture the work and the options.

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. My health pre­vents me from work­ing out as hard or often as I want. I’d love to be doing one hour of spin­ning or jog­ging or bik­ing to work, but my phys­i­cal health doesn’t match that. I’ve come to appre­ci­ate a long walk, but also, I just want to go jump on a tram­po­line for an hour!

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? I rap­pelled down a 28-sto­ry build­ing for a Big Brother/Big Sis­ter fundrais­er with my Lit­tle Sis from the pro­gram. It was for “fun.” It wasn’t real­ly all that fun.

Favorite books? And why. 

Bless Me, Ulti­ma by Rudol­fo Anaya. The sto­ry of a young boy caught between two cul­tures as a young Lati­no liv­ing in the South­west res­onat­ed with me as a cul­tur­al­ly mixed Mex­i­can Amer­i­can from Texas. This book was the first time I read some­thing where mag­i­cal real­ism was inte­grat­ed into the sto­ry, and one of the first times I had seen my cul­ture described in a fic­tion­al sto­ry.

Invis­i­ble Cities by Ita­lo Calvi­no. It’s hard to explain too much about the book with­out giv­ing it away! Maybe I can leave it with — it’s my world view. We all may come from sim­i­lar places and see and expe­ri­ence our com­mu­ni­ties in rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent ways.

Go-to karaoke song? Fan­cy by Reba McEn­tire

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? Chunky. All the way.

A ran­dom fact: A fire ant bite could kill me! 

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com

Student scientist Mihir Joshi has a solution to save the ocean

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The youngest speak­er to take to the TEDxSalem stage this com­ing year is Mihir Joshi, a 13-year-old stu­dent at South Salem High School. Mihir, who enjoys play­ing video games, prob­lem-solv­ing and run­ning cross-coun­try, at one time, was able to solve a Rubiks Cube in under 45 sec­onds. Always look­ing for solu­tions, this curi­ous teen will take to the TEDxSalem stage to share how he learned to pre­dict the change of Marine Pro­tect­ed Areas and what you can do to help save the ocean.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? I par­tic­i­pat­ed and spoke at the first-ever TEDxYouth@Salem event in Novem­ber 2017. (Check out Mihir’s talk here)

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? “This is What Hap­pens When you Reply to Spam Emails” by James Veitch. I love this TEDxTalk because of its amaz­ing use of humor.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? To me, Vision means to visu­al­ize some­thing that doesn’t exist today and strive to make it a real­i­ty because of your pas­sion and hard work.

What do you feel most grate­ful for in your life? Being able to grow up in a pos­i­tive and sup­port­ive house­hold with amaz­ing par­ents and a great sis­ter.

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. I won home­com­ing court this year in my high school.     

What song best describes your life? “Haven’t Met You Yet” By Michael Bublé. I chose this song because I’m always look­ing for the next thing out there and I believe the best is yet to come.

Top 3 movies of the moment?

  1.     3 Idiots (Bol­ly­wood movie)
  2.     Guardians of the Galaxy 1
  3.     Ter­mi­na­tor 1

Top 3 songs or artists?

  1.     AJR
  2.     Jon Bel­lion
  3.     Khalid

Where would you go in a time machine? I would go back in time to watch Neil Arm­strong take his first step on the moon.          

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? How could any­one ever like chunky peanut but­ter! Smooth is the only option.  

Favorite col­or? Red

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com

Michelle LaFontaine brings Bollywood dance to TEDxSalem VII

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When Michelle LaFontaine and her troupe Sun­dari Bol­ly­wood take to the TEDxSalem stage in Jan­u­ary, expect an inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence.

“Plan to move to the music,” said LaFontaine of the East Indi­an-inspired dance per­for­mance. “The music is so upbeat and fun, one can’t help them­selves!”

LaFontaine made the move from bel­ly-danc­ing to Bol­ly­wood dance after hear­ing about an open audi­tion when she lived in Seat­tle in 2011. She had a sched­ul­ing con­flict, but the direc­tor invit­ed her to try out a class the next week.

“I showed up, jumped in head first as I tend to do,” LaFontaine said. “She was impressed with my abil­i­ty to pick up chore­og­ra­phy quick­ly and asked that I be a part of her team. So I start­ed learn­ing.”

Learn­ing soon turned to per­form­ing, which in 2014 turned to teach­ing.

“Dance is an incred­i­ble way to express one­self through move­ment and gain both body aware­ness and con­fi­dence,” she said. “It’s also an incred­i­ble form of exer­cise and helps main­tain youth in the body and brain.”

She now teach­es week­ly class­es in Salem and hosts month­ly shows for those who decide they’d like to per­form.

“I want to encour­age every­one to explore some form of dance, in par­tic­u­lar, women,” she said. “I believe the boost­ing of our­selves is of utmost impor­tance!”

LaFontaine is excit­ed to bring the joy and expres­sion of Bol­ly­wood to even more of Salem through TEDx. The city has been home “for about 12 years, minus the four years I was in Seat­tle.”

“I enjoy the com­mu­ni­ty, espe­cial­ly the diver­si­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty,” she said. “I love work­ing in Salem as a small busi­ness own­er and strive to sup­port my local busi­ness­es.”

She’s also involved in the Indi­an com­mu­ni­ty via the board for INDUS, a non­prof­it whose vision is “to pro­mote and strength­en friend­ship and under­stand­ing of cul­tures between the peo­ples of Indi­an Sub-con­ti­nent and Unit­ed States.”

“I get the plea­sure of help­ing pre­pare the events we hold and per­form for the com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple I tru­ly adore,” she said.

So when you see Sun­dari, be ready to move.

“My favorite part about per­form­ing is see­ing the smiles on my audience’s faces and con­nect­ing with them,” LaFontaine said. “They often can’t help but tap their foot to the music and clap their hands, and their involve­ment makes per­form­ing even more fun for me and my group!”

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com

Theresa McCormick: Tomorrow’s fuel may be under your kitchen sink

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Sci­en­tist There­sa McCormick has a few ideas about alter­na­tive fuels, includ­ing one that you may find in your house already. 

There­sa is an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry at Port­land State Uni­ver­si­ty who holds a BSc Chem­istry from Queen’s Uni­ver­si­ty (2004), a PhD Chem­istry from Queen’s Uni­ver­si­ty (2008), with Post­doc from Uni­ver­si­ty of Rochester (2009–2010) and Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to (2011–2013). Orig­i­nal­ly from Cana­da, her favorite hob­by is curl­ing (more on that below), and now lives in Port­land with her hus­band, Omar El Akkad, and their daugh­ter. She once per­formed in an immer­sive rein­ter­pre­ta­tion of Julius Cesar that took over the entire chem­istry build­ing at her uni­ver­si­ty. Curi­ous? Us too…read on and learn more about Dr. McCormick then join us in Jan­u­ary for her idea worth spread­ing.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? My broth­er intro­duced me to TED, I don’t remem­ber what video he sent to me first, but he was devour­ing TED talks and send­ing me sev­er­al a day that he loved. 

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? Isabel Allende, her talk is so empow­er­ing, every once and a while I need to hear amaz­ing women talk about their lives. After watch­ing her talk, I start­ed read­ing her books, which are great, and where I learned why the Gold­en Gate Bridge is called the Gold­en Gate Bridge. 

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? To me, vision means see­ing things for both what they are and what they could be. When I think about see­ing things for what they are I think about see­ing the whole pic­ture, what the prob­lem is, and how to solve the prob­lem, and what new prob­lems that solu­tion will make. And when I think about what things could be I imag­ine how the world could be with the ide­al solu­tion to prob­lems. 

How has your life been dif­fer­ent than what you’d imag­ined? My life is dif­fer­ent from what I imag­ined in almost every way. I was raised on a farm out­side a very small town in rur­al Ontario. Most women I knew grew-up to become farmer’s wives. I knew I didn’t want to do that. I loved math and sci­ence, so I thought I would become a med­ical doc­tor, and work in my home town, and my farmer hus­band would look after the farm. When I went away to uni­ver­si­ty I found out that if you liked math and sci­ence you could become a sci­en­tist (I pre­vi­ous­ly thought all sci­en­tists were dead white men). That start­ed me down the path to become a chemist, and as is com­mon in aca­d­e­mics when I final­ly found a job as a pro­fes­sor I was very far from the farm I grew up-on. I nev­er thought I would leave Cana­da and move to Ore­gon (I didn’t real­ly know where it was until I inter­viewed at PSU). I nev­er thought I would be a chemist, teach­ing and research­ing, mak­ing dis­cov­er­ies and try­ing to solve the big world prob­lems.

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. Most peo­ple are pret­ty sur­prised to find out I was the cap­tain of the wrestling team in high school. I joined the team the year after they first allowed women to wres­tle. I had an amaz­ing coach who sup­port­ed the women as much as the men on the team. It was a great expe­ri­ence for me. Trav­el­ing for tour­na­ments was the first time I was on a plane. I learned a lot about how to lead a team that has been invalu­able in lead­ing a research group. I learned how to throw some­one, not quite as use­ful most of the time, but good to remem­ber. 

What is some­thing unex­pect­ed that has changed about you in the last few years? My daugh­ter came into my life two and a half years ago, which changed every­thing. Before her, my work was one of the most impor­tant things in my life, but now my fam­i­ly takes top-notch. Dahlia brings a new per­spec­tive, focus and joy to life to life.  

Do you have any com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties? I love curl­ing. I am a mem­ber of the Ever­green Curl­ing Club in Beaver­ton and have curled on the same team since I came to Ore­gon six years ago. I play lead, which means I throw the first two stones for my team. It’s a great com­mu­ni­ty and a fun sport.

If you could live in the set­ting of any book or movie, with­out nec­es­sar­i­ly being involved in the sto­ry, which would you choose? Anna Karen­i­na – I fell in love with 19th cen­tu­ry Rus­sia. I loved the farm­ing scenes, I want to go to the operas and par­ties. I read it because I felt like I need­ed to read it to be a well-round­ed adult, but I loved it. If you haven’t read it go read it. 

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? I went sky div­ing once. It was a late night in the lab and the whole group decid­ed it would be fun to go sky­div­ing. We all agreed to go togeth­er, but then every­one else backed out so I con­vinced my soon-to-be hus­band to go with me. I loved it and would do it again.

Would you rather have a rewind but­ton or a pause but­ton on your life? Pause, as long as it lets every­one else stop and I can still do things and don’t age while things are paused. 

Favorite book(s)? And why.
Amer­i­can War: it’s very good and every­one should have at least a dozen copies.

Time Trav­el­ers Wife: I love any­thing with time trav­el, so it was already off to a good start, but the char­ac­ters are great. Most great books I can’t put down, but this one I refused to pick up when I only had one chap­ter left because I didn’t want it to end.

Oryx and Crake, Mad­dAd­dam, and Year of the Flood: it is an immense­ly immer­sive imag­i­na­tion of a world where peo­ple didn’t take care of the earth.  

Make one change in the world? I would get rid of all car­bon emis­sions and have only sus­tain­able ener­gy. And while I’m at it, just cool the world down a bit. 

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? Smooth

Great­est fear? Bears and bees 

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com