A wide range of topics will be highlighted at our first TEDxWindham

We're thrilled to welcome local, regional, and national speakers on stage to share the incredibly creative, innovative and provocative ideas they're spreading in their fields.

To view the speaker list and learn more about them, please visit TEDxWindham.com!

Searles School & Chapel
35 Range Road
Windham, New Hampshire, 03087
United States

Alex Valentine

Alex Valentine graduated from Boston University’s College of Engineering and works as a staff engineer at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering in Boston. Alex has had more than his share of health-related struggles - in high school, he was diagnosed with a rare, chronic auto-inflammatory disease, leading to many visits to Boston-based specialists. Alex was gaining an exceptional appreciation for medical technology and the clinical experience – and facing the choice between reacting and adapting. This experience compelled him to adapt and pursue a career in biomedical research, ultimately joining the Lewis Research Group at Harvard University. As a patient and a biomedical researcher, Alex holds a profound interest in this work and its potential impact on the medical and pharmaceutical industries. He is passionate about the growing field of combined medicine, engineering, and biology represented in this work to bring the research from bench to bedside.

Gina Anderson

After twenty years as a human factors engineer, Gina Anderson is now taking her knowledge of how people interact with technology and applying it to her work as a fine artist. She finds that understanding the human visual system significantly influences both her art creation process as well as the visual details she uses in order to best convey her inspiration for a painting. Gina also actively studies and participates in practices to develop her intuition, and is interested in exploring how companion animals may benefit from viewing artwork. Check out the rest of our videos here! http://www.tedxwindham.com/videos

Jaimie Cloud

Jaimie is the founder of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education in New York City, and pioneer in the field of Education for Sustainability (EfS). She writes and publishes extensively, and consults, coaches and teaches in schools around the country and across the world. She has developed exemplary curriculum courses of study, and has produced a set of EfS Standards and Performance Indicators that schools are using to innovate their own curricula to educate for sustainability. Jaimie serves as Chair of Communities for Learning, Inc., member of the Advisory Committee of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, advisory board member of The Future We Want, and Editorial Board member of the International Journal of Education for Sustainable Development. She has also spoken @TEDxBlue and @TEDxNYED .

James Mapes

A graduate of California State University with a Master of Arts degree in theatre and speech, James gained training as an actor and experience as a theatrical producer. He worked in repertory theater, off-Broadway and directed two theater companies, amassing dozens of TV and movie credits. James has appeared on CNN, The Today Show, Good Morning America and Fox Family Channel. In the 70’s, James became interested in the power of the subconscious mind. He researched psychology, philosophy, and hypnotherapy Neuro-Linguistic Programming and gained expertise as a clinical hypnotist (weight loss, smoking, elimination of fears and pain reduction for cancer patients). James is the founder of Quantum Leap Thinking, expert on the psychology of “applied imagination”, and best-selling author of Quantum Leap Thinking: An Owner’s Guide to the Mind and The Workbook: The Magic of Quantum Leap Thinking. His newest book is Imagine That! Igniting Your Brain for Creativity and Peak Performance.

Jared Cassedy

Jared Cassedy, 2015 GRAMMY Music Educator Award winner, explains how he found his Carnegie Hall – and how you can find yours. Every day, Jared makes a significant and lasting contribution to the field of music education and demonstrates a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in the schools. Jared is the Director of Bands for the high school in Windham, New Hampshire. He has also been appointed the Director of Fine Arts for the Windham School District and Director of the New Hampshire Youth Wind Ensemble.

Nicole Lawrence

Nicole graduated Windham High School in 2015, determined to succeed. She’s now off to College to pursue creating documentaries that will encourage people to better understand and be exposed to different perspectives and experiences outside of their comfort zones. Nicole also aims to earn her PhD and become a college professor. Nicole has always set difficult goals for herself and has never backed down from a challenge or speaking her mind.

Patrick Kaplo

Patrick Kaplo takes a fresh look at one of the causes to this problem – and shares an idea for fixing it that we can all suggest right now in our local schools. Patrick Kaplo’s life experience has deeply influenced his teaching practices. He has taught several science courses – physics, engineering, and environmental science – using hovercrafts, submersibles and medieval siege machines, which his students construct and study. Now serving as Physics instructor at Windham High School, these are just a few examples of the non-traditional projects inspired by his time as a technician on a nuclear Navy cruiser, prior to becoming a teacher. For his students, the laws that govern the physical world have never been more exciting! Kaplo initiated the “Women in Engineering” group and an after-school club called “Smart Chicks”, where young women can be surrounded by those with similar interests and aspirations. He is also a Fulbright Scholar and a recipient of the Milken Educator Award.

Rian Bedard

Rian Bedard shows the audience how to take that waste and turn it into the most amazing soil that will then grow the most amazing vegetables at farms and homes and schools. The Owner of Mr. Fox Composting, Rian is passionate in his belief that food waste shouldn’t have to go in plastic bags and be thrown into landfills. The future of our planet is dependent on the majority of us changing small habits and he believes that composting our food is a small habit that can change the world. Rian serves as a volunteer Chef for Cooking Matters, part of the No Kid Hungry campaign to end childhood hunger in America. Cooking Matters is part of the Share Our Strength foundation where Rian also serves as the Sustainability Chair. Here, he makes sure events are as close to zero waste as possible through sourcing products that are compostable and creating solutions for sorting waste.

Tim Mask

Tim Mask is a Partner at @MarisWestBaker advertising agency in Jackson Mississippi, specializing in strategic brand planning and development. He organized the first TEDx event ever in Mississippi - which by all accounts has had an economic, cultural and marketable impact. The theme of TEDxJackson was “Fertile Ground” - a reference to all the potential that Mississippi holds. Tim is the founder of the Mississippi Brain Drain Commission, with the shared goal of developing an environment conducive to retaining intellectual capital, boosting the local economy, and producing an increased quality of life for all residents. Tim is also actively involved in the management and direction of @ffmississippi initiative (and its signature project, Kids Code Mississippi, http://www.kidscodems.org), @MSInnovationEco project, @CodeRockGuru, Project #JXN, Organizer @TEDxJackson, and is the founder of the Public Health Marketing Group.

Tom Wessels

Tom has conducted landscape level workshops throughout the United States for over 30 years. An accomplished author, his books include: Reading the Forested Landscape, The Granite Landscape, Untamed Vermont, The Myth of Progress: Toward a Sustainable Future, and Forest Forensics: A Field Guide to reading the Forested Landscape. Tom Wessels is chair of The Center for Whole Communities (www.wholecommunities.org), fostering inclusive communities strongly rooted in place where all people regardless of income, race, or background have access to and a healthy relationship with land. Tom is former chair of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation. He serves as an ecological consultant to the Rain Forest Alliance's SmartWood Green Certification Program, helping draft green certification assessment guidelines for forest operations in the northeastern United States and adjacent Canada.

Woody Bigos

Woody Bigos shares his story of founding Simple Life Recycling with the simple idea of turning waste into opportunity. He takes manufacturers’ scrap metal that is saturated with used cutting fluid then mechanically separates the fluids from the metal chips and recycles both. Fluids are reused by the manufacturer at their original full potential, and the now-clean metal scraps are compressed into briquettes and go back to the mill to become solid metal again. Bigos estimates that manufacturers throw away as much as 90 percent of their cutting fluids. This has been a problem for years and is unsustainable. Recycling them can reduce their fluid costs by 20 to 50 percent. Additionally, cleaner and higher-quality scrap metal fetches a higher price. Woody credits his employees: “Success is about people. Who you do it with is far more important than what you do.”