Theme: The Ripple Effect

TEDxLFHS was a TEDxYouth event designed to highlight LFHS students, teachers and innovative thinkers that have ideas worth spreading. Our 2019 theme was The Ripple Effect, and the event placed a strong emphasis on empowering young people in Lake Forest, area schools, and around the world. TEDxLFHS 2019 was held on March 13th, 2019 in the David Miller Theater.

Lake Forest High School
1285 North McKinley Road
Lake Forest, Illinois, 60045
United States

Ashley Updike

Student

Ashley Updike is a junior at LFHS. She is passionate about swimming, ceramics and the environment. She has been an active member of the Environmental Club throughout her high school career. What started as a curiosity has blossomed into a passion for the environment and alternative approaches communities can take to protect the planet. Over the last few years, Ashley has done research on the effects of every day actions, such as idling, on the environment. She excited for this opportunity to bring environmental issues to the forefront and to influence a shift to greener alternatives and a more planet friendly lifestyle.

Bella Watters

Student

Bella Watters is a senior at LFHS. Besides being a self-proclaimed cellist extraordinaire and travel enthusiast, she is also an avid member of the water polo team and a lover of all things space and science. As an exchange student to the Netherlands, she spent her junior year living 100% Dutch and hopes her talk inspires you to live life without regard for a comfort zone! Tot snel!

Callan Shanahan

Student

Callan Shanahan is a sophomore who loves music and swimming. When she isn’t rehearsing or swimming laps, she is working with Fill a Heart 4 Kids, an organization that helps foster children and homeless youth in the Chicagoland area. As a co-chair of the Fill a Heart 4 Kids Junior Board, she helps with fundraising projects and works with residents of group homes to determine what resources they feel kids like them need to foster their well being. Callan strives to help homeless youth through simple acts of kindness and feels that this is a pivotal step to making a difference.

Caroline Zeeman

Student

Lake Forest High School Junior Caroline Zeeman has taken New Media as one of her elective courses for all 6 semesters of High School so far. Through this course, Caroline has learned about many aspects of media: literacy, creation, analyzation, etc. She hopes to continue these studies once she graduates. Caroline TA's for three classes this year, including New Media, Wellness for Life, and Geometry, and is a part of Student to Student: a club that helps welcome and include new students. Outside of school, Caroline has danced for 12 years, is an avid concert goer and is always working on her Spotify playlists. She aims to spread positivity everywhere she goes, and is always willing to help out in any way.

Charlotte Yehle

Student

Charlotte is a junior at Lake Forest High School, where she enjoys swimming and playing lacrosse, being a member of STS and TEDx Club. Outside of school, Charlotte is involved with The Church of St Mary's COR program and CROYA. Charlotte spends her summers at Camp Ogichi Daa Kwe on the border of Canada. There she goes on Kayaking and backpacking trips that truly test her endurance especially with Osteogenesis Imperfecta. However, Charlotte takes these challenges and conquers them with fortitude and a smile on her face.

Derek Hanel

Navy Instructor

Derek is first and foremost a husband to his amazing wife Sara and father to his daughter Riley. His journey began by attending Gardner-Webb University seeking a degree in Religious Studies in pursuit of being a Minister. However, events on 9/11 happening during his Junior year sent him in a completely different direction. After attaining a BA in Religious Studies, he enlisted into the Navy on a path to become a Navy SEAL. In 2005, he graduated SEAL training and went on to serve until 2011. Derek is continuing his service by working as a Navy Instructor in Great Lakes, IL.

Joel Chmara

Professor/Poet

Joel Chmara is a professor at the College of Lake County. He has toured throughout the U.S. and Europe, bringing his brand of joel-foolery to poetry and comedy shows alike. He’s featured on HBO’s Def Poetry, been in the National Poetry Slam finals, co-wrote and co-starred in a Big 10 Basketball commercial, and was once paid not to perform for Michelle Obama (totally true).

Katherine Slover

Student

Kat Slover is a senior at LFHS who has been an avid participant in the environmental club and commission, as well as the swimming and water polo teams. She has a huge passion for spreading awareness about conservation of different aspects of the environment. She not only hopes to spread awareness through her TEDx talk, but also hopes to inform listeners about steps they can take to help the environment!

Katie Pierce

Katie Pierce is a proud senior at Lake Forest High School. Besides being Editor-in-Chief of The Forest Scout student news site, Katie is a drum major of the LFHS band, and spends most of her summer on bike trails as a camp counselor. She also founded and manages her own jazz ensemble, The Swing Sonatas, made up of LFHS musicians. Katie strongly prefers tea instead of coffee, and jazz in place of rap.

Keegan Thoranin

Student

Keegan Thoranin is a senior at LFHS who can usually be summoned using a good book, a cup of tea, and a nature documentary. He may be on his way to majoring in Animal Sciences at UIUC, but he wants to make a pit stop at TEDxLFHS for the first time to share his passion about being aware of and respecting the diversity of the world! He’s working towards being a veterinarian by day and an artist by night, and hopes that all the trans kids who read this know that they are stronger than they may think.

Kenny Peterson-Ross

Student

Some of Kenny Peterson-Ross's favorite things to do in his free time are to play video games and watch television. He plays and watches them just for fun or for ideas. He also likes talking with his friends because it's so easy to start conversations. One of his biggest passions, however, is creative writing. He loves writing down ideas that come to him. He likes telling his friends about these stories because he gets honest feedback and critiques about his work which he can use to a make his stories better.

Kiera Burns

Student

Kiera Burns is a junior at Lake Forest High School and is thrilled to speak about feminism at TEDxLFHS. She participates in theatre at LFHS and was most recently in 1984. She is a member of Young People's Company at Piven Theatre Workshop. She sings in the Foresters choir and participates in New Media, where she makes short films. She has been dancing at Lake Forest Dance Academy since preschool. In her (extremely rare) free time she likes to read, learn about politics and current events, watch sports with her family, and play with her dog Finn.

Lowkey Treble

Lake Forest High School a cappella group.

Ryan Eleveld

Student

Ryan Eleveld is patently delighted to finally speak at TEDxLFHS! As a member of Tech Crew, TEDx is one of his favourite events of the year. During his waking hours, Ryan enjoys (secretly) writing, solving math problems, learning science...and (mostly) plotting world domination. As a lifelong learner & educator, you might've seen Ryan squirreled away in the Commons figuring out how to do something for Science Olympiad, or moonlighting as a Math & Science TA. Ryan is excited to share some of the finer points of math, and hopefully impart some of his love for it along the way.

Sylvia Kollasch

Musician and Lake Forest High School student.

Yana Savitsky

Student

Yana Savitsky is a sophomore at Lake Forest High School. Taking rigorous academic courses at the AP and honors level, she is constantly flooded with strenuous assignments. Outside of academics, however, Yana has a passion for storytelling and helping others, whether it is visually, through the lens of a camera in New Media, or speaking out for social change and volunteering. Nonetheless, Yana seeks to efficiently and effectively complete her coursework, and even excel in it through maximizing her time with the Pomodoro Method, conveniently the topic of her TED talk.