Theme: What's Your Im[PACT]?

TEDxPiscataquaRiver is a community-organized event where big ideas and challenges that affect our community are openly discussed. By bringing together community representatives and showcasing local, regional and national voices, we hope to reflect the rich community of the Seacoast of New Hampshire and broaden its perspective by sharing ideas that will spark new, meaningful and continuing conversations.

Our mission is to ignite positive community action by creating a one-of-a-kind, memorable experience, to connect and bring diverse disciplines and backgrounds together around new ideas. These ideas will serve to unleash the thoughtful dialogue and passionate energy that is needed to promote the creative thinking and community-based problem solving that will improve the quality of life on the Seacoast and beyond.

Goals:
— to provoke conversation among community leaders and members about the issues our community is facing, and enable those conversations to spread as far as possible;
— to expose attendees to new perspectives and innovative ideas and inspire them to think differently about the many topics discussed;
— to create a compelling call to action for each person attending and watching the event to make a real commitment to enact positive change in their community.

101 Chapel Street
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 03801
United States

7 Stages Shakespeare Company

Seven Stages Shakespeare Company (7SSC) is a professional ensemble of creative artists committed to illuminating William Shakespeare's work and continuing influence through artistically excellent and financially accessible productions and programs created to engage, enliven, and enlighten both company and community. Since its founding in summer 2012 by Dan Beaulieu and Christine Penney, 7SSC has launched three new artistic programs, attracted corporate partners for its diverse and expansive audience reach, and gained both regional and national recognition. 7SSC received two People's Choice Spotlight on the Arts awards for Favorite Play for Shakespeare in Prescott Park productions "A Midsummer Night's Dream" summer 2011 and "Romeo + Juliet" summer 2013, and was featured in an article in the national publication American Theatre Magazine in March 2015 for it's ShakesBEERience series, which expanded from Portsmouth, NH to San Jose, CA in 2013.

Colors in Motion

Bringing beauty and centered calm to our busy lives, Colors in Motion presents a collaborative performance-art experience designed to slow the body and engage the whole brain. Abstract painting and photography, digitally composited and ever moving, engages electro-acoustic sound-art to create a multi-media experience packed with subtlety and nuance. Award-winning composer Joshua Hummel teams with Colors in Motion to present Light Beings: a diverse sound-palette of timbres, textures and voices fused with distinct in-camera, single exposure light photography. The result is a stunning art experience, at once both stimulating and centering – Art that Moves. Contributing artists include: Joshua Hummel, composer; Louis Henri Pingitore, photographer; Christopher Graefe and Linda DeHart, digital artists

Neoteric Dance Collaborative

Neoteric Dance Collaborative (NEO) is a professional contemporary dance company living and working in the Seacoast region of southern New Hampshire. The definition of “neoteric” is of modern times. We create dance for modern times by trying to change the way that audiences experience dance in our region. We achieve this by collaborating with local businesses, community organizations and artists across many mediums to produce innovative events that encourage active audience participation over passive observation. Our roster of collaborators includes: Back Alley Productions, jazz musicians Matt Langley and Jonny Peiffer, visual artist Roger Goldenberg, Teatotaller Teahouse, Seacoast Rep, Sexual Assault Support Services, A Safe Place NH, photographers Monica Bushor and Matt Lavigne and Seven Stages Shakespeare Company. For more about NEO visit /neotericdance across social media platforms and http://www.neotericdance.org.

Aimee Molloy

Aimee Molloy is the author of However Long the Night, a biography of Molly Melching, whose work bringing education to girls and women in Senegal, West Africa has brought about one of the most important human rights movements of our time. Aimee has also collaborated on several books, including with John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry, and Elizabeth Edwards. She is the co-author, with Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari, of the New York Times bestseller Rosewater, recently made into a major motion picture by The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. Aimee holds a BA from Duke University and a Masters from New York University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.

Dr. Sandra Rehan

Sandra Rehan is Assistant Professor of Genome Enabled Biology in the Faculty of Neuroscience and Behavior and Department of Biological Sciences at the University of New Hampshire, and is a researcher with the NH Agricultural Experiment Station. Rehan is interested in the origin of social behavior and combines comparative genomics, life history evolution, behavioral ecology, population genetics and molecular phylogenetics to answer questions on the ecological constraints and genetic underpinnings selecting for social behavior. She leads the UNH Bee Lab with aims to uncover the behavioral and genetic basis of social group formation in early insect societies. Rehan’s work has been featured on the Discovery Channel, NBC News, Wired UK, BBC News, the Weather Network, CBC News, and NHPR. Rehan originates from Ontario, Canada where she studied native bees for the past decade.

Ellyn Touchette

Ellyn Touchette is a poet, organizer, & biology student from Portland, Maine. She curates a weekly poetry reading & has represented Portland at several national poetry competitions. Her writing has been featured in literary magazines such as The Emerson Review, Black Heart Magazine, & Drunk in a Midnight Choir. She is the winner of the 2015 UMS student poetry contest.

Martha Stone

Martha Stone joined the staff of Cross Roads House, a 96 bed homeless shelter, in 2004 as the Development Director and was promoted to Executive Director in 2013. In her role as the development director she oversaw and executed a successful $5 million capital campaign to design and construct a new shelter facility. As the largest shelter in the NH Seacoast region, Cross Roads House provides emergency and transitional shelter and services for individual adults and families. Martha is responsible for overseeing shelter operations, programming, marketing, fundraising, and financial management of the non-profit organization. Martha received her BA in Communications from Boston College. In early 2015, she completed eleven years of service as a school board member for the town of Greenland, NH where she resides with her husband and two children, both of whom are currently away at college. She can be contacted at martha@crossroadshouse.org.

Matthew Loper

Matthew is the Executive Director of Kids4Peace Boston and has worked in the field of Experiential Education in a variety of capacities for nearly ten years. He enjoys connecting with those who value vulnerability over bravado and desire to make the world a kinder place. Prior to his work in the outdoor and inter-religious fields, Matthew received a BS in Education and Social Policy from Northwestern University. Scarred at a young age by an intolerant religious community but deeply drawn to the ways in which we understand our purpose, Matthew has flirted with, rejected, and embraced religion more times than he can count. His commitment to the inter-religious community of Kids4Peace stems from the profound healing he has felt and witnessed by those willing to know and respect the most sacred parts of another's identity. When not on the TEDx stage, you can usually find Matthew running, dancing, or day-dreaming. He is honored by this first opportunity to engage with the TEDx community.

Meredith Bennett

Meredith Bennett is currently starting up production for CBS’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert which will debut on September 8, 2015. Until recently Meredith worked at The Colbert Report as a Co-Executive Producer from the show’s inception in 2005 through its end in December 2014. Meredith is a recipient of two George Foster Peabody Awards for excellence in broadcast journalism, two Emmys for Outstanding Variety Series as well as eight Producers Guild Awards. Prior to The Colbert Report she worked on a variety of shows including The Rosie O'Donnell Show, VH1 Storytellers, MTV's Unplugged concert series, The Food Network and NBC's The Jane Pauley Show. Meredith graduated from Yale University with a BA in American History. In her spare time she participates in marathons and triathlons around the country and lives with her husband and two young sons in Ridgewood, NJ.

Reagan Ruedig

Reagan Ruedig is an architectural historian at Preservation Company and has studied and worked in the preservation and architectural sector for almost a decade. She received her Master's Degree in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007 and then moved to Boston to work with Building Conservation Associates. There, Reagan worked in the greater Boston area as a conservator, monitoring restorations and renovations of historic buildings, creating specifications for the treatment of masonry and wood, and performing historic paint analysis of exterior and interior surfaces. In New Hampshire, she has worked with Preservation Company researching and completing National Register eligibility studies for projects all over the state. A resident of Portsmouth for five years, Reagan is also a trustee at the Portsmouth Historical Society and serves on the Historic District Commission.

Sam Hayward

Sam Hayward is the founding chef and a partner of Fore Street in Portland, Maine. He attended music conservatories studying double-bass and voice, and spent several years as a traveling and recording musician before discovering his passion for cooking and his love of Maine. His first professional cooking position was as the chef of the Shoals Marine Laboratory on a remote Maine island in 1974. In 1976 he left the laboratory for further training in New Orleans and New York City before returning to Maine permanently in 1977. In 1996, with partners Dana Street and Victor Lean, Sam helped create Fore Street on the edge of Portland’s Old Port district. Sam was named Best Chef-Northeast by the James Beard Foundation in 2004. In 2011 the Chefs Collaborative named him Sustainer of the Year. Sam lives in rural Bowdoinham with his wife Jan. He serves on several non-profit boards, including the Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.

Sara Curry

Sara pursued a career in Plant and Soil Science after completing her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Vermont with a focus on Sustainable Agriculture. Her career plans were derailed by a debilitating back injury. After finding yoga to rehabilitate her injury, Sara’s career path took a 180 degree turn into the field of yoga therapy. She received 500-hour teacher certification in the healing discipline of Bikram Yoga in 2003 and has spent every year since striving to bring the therapeutic potential of yoga to as many people as possible. She is the owner of Bikram Yoga in Portsmouth and the creator of the Bikram’s Biggest Losers and Bikram’s Biggest Quitters programs to help fight obesity and addiction in our community. Sara is also the Vice President of SATYA-Seacoast Area Teachers of Yoga in Action, a local, non-profit that brings food and fuel assistance and yoga outreach to our neighbors in need on the Seacoast.

TJ Evarts

TJ Evarts is the 19 year old CEO/CTO of Inventioneers Etc., LLC, a tech startup company he founded in 2012 to bring his invention, SMARTwheel, to market. SMARTwheel is the first intelligent steering wheel cover that helps prevent distracted driving. Evarts has always been an inventor, filing his first provisional patent application with the USPTO in 2006 when he was 11, and filing three more provisional applications for new inventions through 2009. His utility patent for SMARTwheel was issued in 2013 when he was only 18, before he even graduated from high school. Evarts is very passionate about technology and entrepreneurship recently realized his dream to exhibit his invention at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January 2015 in Las Vegas. Driven by his commitment to young inventors, he established a 501c3 non-profit to promote STEM and IP education for elementary and middle school students.

Von Diaz

Von Diaz is a writer and multimedia producer who focuses on Latino food and culture, immigration, and LGBTQ issues. Born in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico and raised in Atlanta, GA, she is also a self-taught cook who takes a multimedia approach to exploring the intersections between food, culture, ethnicity, and identity. In 2012 she launched the Cocina Criolla Project, which delves into classic Puerto Rican cooking and highlights new ways of approaching an underexplored cuisine. Her project has been featured in Newsweek Magazine, WNYC’s Last Chance Foods, and NPR’s The Splendid Table. In addition to cooking and writing about food, she is also an Initiatives Producer at StoryCorps—a national oral history project that produces weekly broadcasts for NPR. Previously, she was Editor for Feet in 2 Worlds—an immigrant public radio project, and the Communications and Marketing Manager for El Museo del Barrio—a Puerto Rican museum and cultural institution.