In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

Richard D Fiester Auditorium
5074 Old Highway North
Mariposa, California, 95338
United States

Adam Burns

Musician, Founder Beat Harvest

Adam Burns is a musician and educator based in Mariposa, California. Adam combines rock, folk, ska and eastern European influences to create music that is both energetic and richly melodic. He performs regularly around California with his band, Bootstrap Circus, and teaches music in El Portal and Mariposa. Adam grew up in rural England and moved to California in 2004. He worked as a Field Science Educator for NatureBridge in Yosemite for seven years before transferring his education skills to music. In 2010, Adam launched the Beat Harvest music education program with a mission to inspire people to make music and teach them the skills they need to do so. In his teaching, Adam focuses on unleashing creative potential and collaboration with other musicians. His goal is to teach his students not only to play their instrument, but also how to use music to express themselves and build community.

Amelia Rudolph

Founder, BANDALOOP

melia Rudolph is the founder and artistic director of the dance company BANDALOOP. She is a mom, a dancer/athlete, climber, choreographer, and community leader. Using climbing technology to turn the dance floor on its side, her company BANDALOOP re-imagines dance, activates public space, and inspires wonder and imagination in audiences around the world. Her dynamic and imagistic choreography, fueled by non-traditional relationships to gravity, explores natural and built environments, investigates human relationships and highlights community. Featured in 17 countries and allover the US, Rudolph’s work has received numerous commissions and awards. She is a dynamic performer, a public speaker and teaches professional development in the arts. Through the BANDALOOP Experience, she shares the company’s innovative approach with groups outside of dance to facilitate team building and creativity.

Beth Pratt

Director for the National Wildlife Federation, California

Beth Pratt, the California Director for the National Wildlife Federation, has worked in environmental leadership roles for over twenty years, and in two of the country’s largest national parks: Yosemite and Yellowstone. “I have the best job in the world,” she says, “I get to travel around California and spend time with condors, mountain lions, porpoises, pika, and foxes, and work with some amazing people who help wildlife thrive.” Beth serves on the board of the non-profits Outdoor Afro, Save the Frogs, and the education committee for Felidae Conservation Fund, and she has trained with Vice President Al Gore as a member of his Climate Reality Project Leadership Corps. Her work has been featured by The New Yorker, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, BBC World Service, LA Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Fast Company, NPR, and more. Her book, "When Mountain Lions are Neighbors: Wildlife in Today's California," will be published by Heyday books in 2016.

Bridget Fithian

Executive Director, Sierra Foothill Conservancy

Bridget grew up in the tiny Sierra foothill town of Mariposa where she developed her love of open spaces. In 2007 she discovered her local land trust, Sierra Foothill Conservancy, and found her calling in local land conservation. In 2015 Bridget was selected as Sierra Foothill Conservancy’s Executive Director. Working with seemingly divergent parties from environmentalists to third generation cattle ranchers, to public utility districts and housing developers, Bridget has helped conserve more than 10,000 acres of open spaces in the central Sierra. Recent projects have established Mariposa’s first publically accessible preserve- adjacent to local schools and protecting the town’s water resource, creating the largest private nature preserve in the Sierra Foothills, and connecting 25,000 acres of conserved lands in the San Joaquin River Corridor. Fithian is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Elizabeth Sauter

Pediatric Nurse, Climber

“14% of children born with a heart defect will not survive their first month of life and 30% will not survive their first year of life without treatment.” Trained as a nurse in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Stanford Children’s Hospital, Libby travels the world helping to create or advance existing pediatric heart surgery programs in low and middle-income countries. In between setting speed records on El Capitan and past summers spent working for Yosemite’s Search and Rescue team, she has focused the last three years on nursing in the Middle East, particularly war torn Libya. She currently lives on the road climbing as much as possible in between trips overseas.

Mourad Gabriel MS, PhD

Executive Director, Integral Ecology Research Center

Dr. Mourad Gabriel is an ecologist whose research focuses on investigating and understanding threats to wildlife populations of conservation concern from both infectious and non-infectious disease agents. His current research concentrates on the vast environmental impacts marijuana cultivation has on California’s unique natural resources. He completed both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Humboldt State University and his Doctorate degree in Comparative Pathology at the University of California Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Gabriel has authored numerous scientific publications and book chapters focusing on the ecology and population health of wildlife of conservation concern. He is the Executive Director of Integral Ecology Research Center, a non-profit scientific research organization headquartered in Northwestern California, which leads several interdisciplinary national and international research projects.

Rue Mapp

Founder, Outdoor Afro

Rue Mapp is the Founder of Outdoor Afro, a social community reconnecting African Americans with natural spaces through outdoor recreational activities. Through Outdoor Afro, Mapp shares opportunities to build a broader community and leadership in nature. Her important work has generated widespread national recognition and support. Originally beginning in 2009 as a blog, Rue has since captured the attention and imagination of millions through a multi-media approach, grounded in personal connections and community organizing. From its grassroots beginning, now Outdoor Afro enjoys national sponsorship and is recognized by major organizations for the importance of diversity in the outdoors, Mapp’s work has been featured in publications including The Wall Street Journal, Backpacker Magazine, Ebony Magazine and Sunset Magazine and many others.

Sarah Stock

Wildlife Biologist, Yosemite National Park

Sarah Stock is a Wildlife Biologist at Yosemite National Park where she has been overseeing the park's program for land-animal biodiversity since 2006. She studies wildlife ranging from songbird population dynamics to the ecology of bats. She earned her Master’s degree at the University of Idaho in 2001 where she focused on the migration ecology of forest owls. Before moving to Yosemite Valley with her family, she studied birds in locations ranging from Alaska to the South Pacific islands. Sarah has authored many technical reports and peer-reviewed publications on western landbird status, ecology, and management.

Steve Hart

Professor, UC Merced

Stephen C. Hart is a terrestrial microbial and ecosystem ecologist who works at the interface between the biological and earth sciences. He received a B.S. degree at the University of California, Berkeley in 1982 with majors in Forestry and Conservation of Natural Resources. He received a M.S. degree at Duke University in 1984 in Forest Ecology & Soils, and then returned to UC Berkeley and received a Ph.D. in 1990 in Soil Microbiology. Between 1989 and 1991, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Forest Biogeochemistry with the H.J. Andrews Long Term Ecosystem Research Site at Oregon State University. He was a faculty member in the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University (NAU) for 17 years. In 2008, Hart left NAU to become Professor of Ecology in the School of Natural Sciences and the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at the University of California, Merced, the first new American research university in the 21st century.