Theme: Waves of the Future

TEDxUNE "Waves of the Future" will showcase brilliant minds from the New England area who's ideas foster focus on trends of the future.

11 Hills Beach Road
Biddeford, Maine, 04005
United States

David Levi

David Levi, an educator-turned-chef, has chosen Portland as the site for Vinland, described as “Maine’s first 100% local food, zero waste, fine-dining restaurant.” The ambitious project was inspired by Levi’s experiences as a stagiare (intern) at Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark and Faviken Magasinet in Northern Sweden, currently, two of the most talked-about restaurants in the world. He also prepared for his new venture by staging at celebrated butchers and salumi producers Antica Macelleria Cecchini and Antica Macelleria Falorni in Tuscany, and at Jean Georges Vongerichten’s Perry St. restaurant in New York City. We talked with the chef about his plans for Vinland.

Heather Lavoie

Heather Lavoie serves as President of Geneia Innovations and Chief Operating Officer for the organization. Prior to joining Geneia, her career spanned 25 years in health care, leading start-ups, health plans, and provider organizations as well as initiatives to identify and replicate best practices in health care use and delivery. Heather co-founded and served as Vice President of Product Development, Delivery and Engineering for Choicelinx Corporation, a CIGNA Health Care subsidiary. Heather is a graduate of Notre Dame College and received a Masters of Business Administration from Southern New Hampshire University. She is a sought-after national speaker on health care issues.

Ianna Hondros-McCarthy

Ianna is studying Osteopathic medicine because it's focus is on recognizing that everyone is different while sharing the same components that we can relate to and affect within one another. With undergraduate degrees in English and Psychology, as well as a Master's in Peace and Conflict Studies, Ianna is working towards building a life dedicated to communication, understanding, and finding harmony. Outside academia, she has lived with Buddhist monks in Thailand and India, spent time in silent meditative retreats, and has written a book about traveling in Thailand and coming home to integrate mindfulness within her life as a student, athlete, friend, and person struggling with existentialism. Currently at UNECOM, she leads meditation sittings for her peers.

Margaret Riley

Dr. Margaret (Peg) Riley, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She received her Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1991 and joined the faculty at Yale University, where she was granted tenure and remained for 15 years while developing an internationally renowned research program in antimicrobial drug discovery. She has published over 100 articles and edited five books in her research area. In 2008, Dr. Riley created the Massachusetts Academy of Sciences, a non-profit organization whose mission is to increase levels of civic science literacy. She served as its President for six years and engaged in science outreach and education reform efforts aimed at engaging middle and high school students in independent research experiences and providing their teachers with professional development opportunities in inquiry-based teaching methods.

Matt Bibeau

Matt Bibeau is a director and instructor at the Institute of Permaculture Education for Children, a 501(c)3 that provides credited teacher trainings, as well as with Mother Earth School, a nature-based Pre-K through grade school that operates on forested urban farms in Portland, OR. A native to Massachusetts, Matt attended the University of New England, and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Maine before moving to the West Cost for work with the National Park Service and the National Forest Service. Earning an MS in Sustainability Education from Portland State University, Matt began a 10-year journey of helping bringing garden programs to schools, school programs to urban farms, and grassroots community initiatives to the efforts of each to help them become more accessible and participatory.

Owen Grumbling

Dr. Owen Grumbling is Professor of Environmental Literature and formerly Chair of the Department of Environmental Studies at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine. He co-edited and co-authored a major critical anthology of nature writing, The Literature of Nature: The British and American Traditions (Plexus, 1989), and has published in a variety of journals and books on the topics of nature writing and the teaching of literature, science, and environmental studies. For thirty years he has served as chief conservation officer of Wells, Maine, developing a program and funding mechanism for systematic land and habitat preservation. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, the leading environmental advocacy group in the state, acting as Secretary of the Board for four years. On Earth Day 2009 he received the award of the NE Environmental Protection Agency for Lifetime Service to the Environment and Human Health.

Tom Perls

Tom Perls MD, MPH, FACP is Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and the Founder and Director of the New England Centenarian Study, the largest study of centenarians in the world. Dr. Perls is a senior physician in Geriatrics and cares for patients at Boston Medical Center, the primary teaching hospital for the Boston University School of Medicine. In addition, he is a principal investigator of the National Institute on Aging’s Long Life Family Study, a study of 550 families that demonstrate extraordinary clustering for exceptional longevity. Dr. Perls has authored over 110 papers on the characteristics and determinants of living beyond a hundred years and on anti-aging quackery, particularly the medical and legal misuse of growth hormone, testosterone and other drugs for “anti-aging”. He has testified before Congress about anti-aging quackery and is author of an educational website, the “Living to 100” life expectancy calculator.