Theme: Beauty of the Fall

As human beings, we walk blindly into the world, striving to satisfy our needs, passions, and dreams although our fulfillment is not guaranteed. However, failure is a purifying process that strips away the inessential, revealing our inner selves and utmost potential.

Ahmanson Auditorium
1700 S Lida Street
Pasadena, California, 91103
United States

AB Cassidy

Comedian, Writer, and Actor

"AB Cassidy is a comedian, writer, and actor hailing from the South Shore of Massachusetts. Now an LA based comic, she has opened for some major headliners like Carlos Mencia, Tig Notaro, and Bill Burr. She also just toured as the feature for Jeff Garcia. And she hosts a monthly comedy show at the iconic jazz bar, The Mint. Aside from stand up, you can catch her on the new season of NBC's, ""This Is Us"" or on Audience Networks, ""Loudermilk."" She also stars in the new Jenna Laurenzo film, ""Lez Bomb"" alongside Bruce Dern, Kevin Pollack and Cloris Leachman. AB has also starred in numerous award winning web series like the ScreenHits original series, ""Treading Yesterday."" You can also tune in every Tuesday to hear her talk Queer life with co-host, Daniel Franzese, on Revry Studios original podcast, Butch and the Bear. "

Akuyoe Graham

Awardwinning Playwright, Actor, and Educator

Born in Ghana, Akuyoe Graham is an actor, writer and spiritual counselor. She is the founder of Spirit Awakening Foundation, an arts organization that mentors incarcerated children, at-risk, foster and runaway youth. Akuyoe tours nationally with her critically acclaimed one-woman play "Spirit Awakening" and can be seen in numerous commercials, independent films and television shows. She is the author of “The Little Book of Transformation/” and the play "Spirit Awakening."

Alan Castel

Professor of Psychology at UCLA

Alan Castel is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He studies memory and aging and the degree to which people are aware of their memory ability (a form of metamemory). He is particularly interested in how younger and older adults can selectively remember important information and errorful learning. His work has been featured in the New York Times and Time Magazine.

Bruce Heavin

Co-Founder of Lynda.com, ArtCenter Board of Trustees

"Bruce Heavin is an artist, strategist, and entrepreneur. As the former Chief Creative Officer & co-founder of lynda.com, his vision was integral to the company’s success a leader in online training. With an extensive background in photography, and motion graphics, Bruce created illustrations for national publications as well as clients including Adobe, MSNBC, and E! Entertainment Television. Bruce graduated from ArtCenter College of Design and currently serves on their Board of Trustees."

Charlie Hodges

Professional Dancer; Product Design Student at ArtCenter

Charlie Neshyba hodges danced professionally for nearly 2 decades, predominantly with Sacramento Ballet, Twyla Tharp and LA Dance Project. He transferred from Columbia University to graduate summa cum laude from the University of Washington. Charlie has always been interested in the transitions between thoughts, emotions and reality. As a Mary Gate's Research Scholar, he explored how dancers translate ideas into movement; and now as a product design student at ArtCenter, how everyday objects catalyze inquiry and emotion.

Dr. Story Musgrave

Astronaut, Physician, Scientist, Teacher, Mentor, and much more

Story is a parachutist with over 800 freefalls. With 7 graduate degrees in math, computers, chemistry, medicine, physiology, literature and psychology, he has been awarded 20 honorary doctorates and was a part-time trauma surgeon during his 30 year astronaut career. Story was an NASA astronaut for over 30 years and flew on six spaceflights. He performed the first shuttle spacewalk on Challenger's first flight, was a pilot on an astronomy mission, conducted two classified DOD missions, was the lead spacewalker on the Hubble Telescope repair mission and on his last flight, he operated an electronic chip manufacturing satellite on Columbia. He is also a landscape architect, a concept artist with Walt Disney Imagineering, an innovator with Applied Minds Inc. and a professor of design at Art Center College of Design. Story also performs multimedia presentations on topics such as vision, leadership, motivation, safety, quality, innovation, creativity, design, simplicity, beauty and ecology.

Jasmine Henderson

Professional Soccer Player, World Record Holder, Motivational Speaker, and Author

Former professional soccer player, author, speaker, world record holder and mom, Jasmine Henderson, is empowering! Her life as a mom and career in soccer, playing Division 1 in college, professionally in Brazil and setting a world record on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, has allowed her to gain a high level of leadership skills that transcend into all areas of life. Jasmine speaks throughout the U.S., is writing her next book and developing her own show.

Mary Sue Milliken

Chef, Restraunteur, Author, TV Personality

Mary Sue Milliken is a renowned chef, cookbook author, and media personality. A James Beard Award winner and current Board member of the James Beard Foundation, she is most notably recognized as a preeminent ambassador of modern Mexican cuisine with her Border Grill Restaurants in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, LAX Airport, and The Huntington. She is passionate about food policy, working alongside the LA Food Policy Council, Oxfam, Monterey Bay Aquarium and others to help shape sustainable food systems.

Noah Minuskin

Tattoo Artist, Business Owner, ArtCenter Illustration Alum

Artist Noah Minuskin is internationally recognized for his fine line black and grey tattoo work. Influenced by the Renaissance masters, his work bridges classical storytelling with modern aesthetics. A graduate of ArtCenter, Noah is the founder of Hous Studios in Los Angeles, a creative and tattoo studio seeking to elevate the medium by bridging the gap between art, design and tattoo.

Sara Ortloff Khoury

Director of User Experience Design at Google

As director of user experience design for Google Cloud, Sara leads research & design teams that deliver products and services to help people and businesses thrive. Her product development approach focuses on building empathy through directly observed insights and driving innovation through experimentation, iterative design and testing. Before joining Google in 2015, Sara led high performance user experience design teams at bay area start-ups, agencies, global consumer retail and banking companies.

Shirin Hashem

Fashion Marketing & Special Events Director

I am currently a Consultant helping Fashion Designers and Startups at different stages of their business from conception to birth. I have created a Fashion week platform(Fashion Community Week and Sustainable Fashion Week) for Emerging talents and those coming from under represented background. The platform have launched Fashion talents from Europe, Africa, Asia, Middle East, North and South America. This platform focuses on offering business and marketing platform and a marketplace for Fashion industry community to connect. Fashion Community Week offers a '3 month' bootcamp training for graduate students, training them on how to operate a start up, resulting in building an entire Fashion week from scratch. I am passionate about women empowerment and currently serve as the advisory board for several women organization and women run businesses.

Tracey Drain

Systems Engineer at JPL

Tracy Drain is a Systems Engineer at JPL. She has worked on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (a science and relay orbiter at Mars), the Kepler mission (an Exoplanet hunter) and the Juno mission (in orbit around Jupiter). She is currently the Deputy Chief Engineer for Juno, which is sending back exciting new data from our solar system’s largest planet. Tracy relishes being on the forefront of space exploration, and loves sharing her passion for STEM.