Theme: The Cornerstone Event

The Princeton Public Library has a large, beautiful cornerstone that was etched and designed by famed conceptual artist Robert Barry. Being that this was our first full event under our license and that we have hopes that there will be further events, we decided on cornerstone as a theme and to have our speakers base their talks around one of the words on the library's cornerstone. The cornerstone of the library cornerstone bears these words: possible, seek, doubt, question, becoming, wonder, explore, beyond, meaning change, hope, risk, and real.

Our theme was broad as those words could mean many things to many people. This allowed us to delight in diversity when inviting speakers. We had a young woman who left a career in engineering to become a professional juggler, an evolutionary psychologist, a humanitarian, a journalist, a pro tennis coach, an executive chef. They spoke on wide ranging topics, but they were all tied together by the words on our cornerstone.

Princeton Public Library / Nassau Inn
65 Witherspoon Street
10 Palmer Square
Princeton, New Jersey, 08542
United States

Todd Reichart

For more than 20 years, Todd has been a passionate advocate for shaping communication to the needs and qualities of targeted audiences, working with clients to find and develop the appropriate media for their particular message A pioneer of software interface design, interactive TV design, website design, and digital video, Todd’s work as an actor, director, and on-camera personality brings a keen sense of audience expectations and response to his work in both new and old media. His combination of technological know-how and empathy for the humanity of the audience has been a consistently distinguishing quality of his work.

Chris Albrecht

Chris Albrecht grew up in East Brunswick. Before joining the Momos, who own such well-regarded Princeton restaurants as Mediterra and Teresa Caffe, he spent more than a decade working with Colicchio. While still at the Culinary Institute of America in 1995, Albrecht began at New York’s Gramercy Tavern, which Colicchio and Meyer cofounded. In 2000, he moved to Colicchio’s Craft, then to Las Vegas in 2001 as head chef at Craftsteak, then to New York’s Craftsteak in 2005. Along the way, he internalized Meyer’s hospitality concept, which places top priority on creating a caring environment that begins with the staff and branches out. “Hospitality comes from within,” explains Albrecht, 38. “Within yourself and the group you work with. If you aren’t happy or the group you work with isn’t happy, you can’t impart happiness to your guests.”

Ethan Casey

Ethan Casey is the author of two critically acclaimed narrative travel books about Pakistan, “Alive and Well in Pakistan: A Human Journey in a Dangerous Time” (2004) and “Overtaken By Events: A Pakistan Road Trip” (2010). He is writing “Bearing the Bruise: A Lifetime in Haiti,” for publication in 2011.He speaks frequently to university and school classes, Pakistani-American and other organizations, religious congregations, and civic groups. In his books, articles and blogs, he uses his position as an American traveler, journalist and author with 15 years’ exposure to Pakistan to help foster historical and geographical perspective, human connections, and conversation between Americans and Pakistanis. He also is concerned to help improve Americans’ awareness of both the historic and the contemporary situation in Haiti, a country he first visited as a teenager in 1982. Ethan jokingly describes himself as a recovering journalist, but it would be more accurate to say he is a journalist who now chooses to pursue both his vocation and his livelihood outside the increasingly unstable and unsupportive traditional institutions of periodical media and book publishing

Maria Eusebe

Marie Eusebe is Founder and CEO of Community2Community (C2C), a non-profit organization, which was created to address the ever-present need in Haiti for clean water, healthcare, housing and schools. But this is only the beginning. The group’s goals is to equip the people of Haiti with the tools for self-sufficiency. “We believe it can happen,” she said. “It starts with community.”

Robert Kurzban

Robert Kurzban is currently an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Pennsylvania. He founded PLEEP, the Penn Laboratory for Experimental Evolutionary Psychology, in 2003. He has published dozens of journal articles on a wide array of topics, including morality, cooperation, friendship, mate choice, supernatural beliefs, modularity, self-control, and other topics. He received his doctorate at the University of California Santa Barbara at the Center for Evolutionary Psychology in 1998, and received postdoctoral training at Caltech in the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, UCLA Anthropology, and the University of Arizona’s Economic Science Laboratory with Vernon Smith. In 2008, he won the inaugural Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the new journal, Frontiers in Evolutionary Psychology, and co-Editor-in-Chief of the flagship journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Evolution and Human Behavior. He loves dogs, running, and cooking. His favorite color is blue.

Todd Shea

Todd Shea is the Chief Operating Officer of SHINE Humanity, a US-registered nonprofit that specializes in disaster relief and long-term sustainable healthcare initiatives in developing countries. He began life as a vocalist, songwriter and guitarist. He was in New York City on September 11th, 2001 to perform at a world famous live music establishment, CBGB’s Gallery. Instead, he ended up working at the site of the fallen World Trade Center for almost a week, assisting first responders by delivering anything they needed to keep them going. Realizing that he had an affinity for acquiring and coordinating needed items efficiently in a chaotic and disastrous situation, Todd put his music career on an indefinite hiatus to work in Sri Lanka after the Tsunami, and in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. In October 2005, Todd was compelled to go to Pakistan immediately after the earthquake as a logistics coordinator for a Pakistan-American medical response team. Todd founded Comprehensive Disaster Response Services (CDRS) in the Spring of 2006 and serves as its Executive Director. Todd currently works and resides in Chikar (in a remote and mountainous region near the Line of Control in Kashmir), providing primary care and an innovative community-based healthcare empowerment project to a population of 200,000 people who would otherwise be without adequate healthcare services.In April 2009, SHINE Humanity was registered and Todd joined as the COO. Todd and SHINE Humanity deployed in Haiti in January 2010 and are working in Pakistan to provide relief aid to victims of the floods through mobile medical units, livelihood initiatives, and food and non-food assistance. The agency hopes to transition into long- term rehabilitation programs focussed on mother/child care in the areas served

Jen Slaw

Performing since 1991, Jen Slaw was the recipient of the 2002 International Jugglers’ Association’s (IJA) Three Ball Award for creativity and innovation in three ball juggling, and was a featured performer at the 2007 IJA Annual Convention. Her style is influenced by her diverse backgrounds in art, dance, and structural engineering, resulting in a creative, and feminine, presentation. Jen is a nationally touring performer and has entertained audiences of all ages for a variety of corporate, educational and private clients. Two of her favorite juggling moments include teaching Captain “Sully” Sullenberger to juggle and passing clubs with actor Patrick Dempsey. In 2010, Jen was named Executive Director of Juggling Life Inc., a New Jersey non-profit with a mission to engage, inspire, and emotionally heal ill and disadvantaged children through unique juggling and circus arts workshops and entertaining performance art shows. Young volunteers are trained to become workshop leaders. Jen has appeared on Good Morning America to promote the charity’s work.

Dale Caldwell

Dale G. Caldwell is a CEO, speaker, trainer, author and philanthropist who has become one of the world’s leading experts on the power of influence. He developed the innovative new leadership concept of Intelligent Influence, which utilizes the Caldwell Influence FrameworkT; the Intelligent Influence Equations; and, the Caldwell Spheres of Influence to explain the foundation of exceptional success in every endeavor requiring human interaction.

Ed Tseng

A leading authority on mental skills in sports and life, an award-winning tennis coach and a sought-after speaker, Ed has spent his life researching solutions to these challenges. He is the author of the book, “Game. Set. Life.” which has been on Amazon’s Top 10 in Sports Psychology and featured at the US Open Tennis Championships. Tseng is also co-author of the forthcoming “Success Simplified” with Stephen Covey (“Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) and “The Pinstripe Principles – Mental Toughness Lessons From The World’s Greatest Team.”

Andromeda Yelton

A former Latin teacher and recent library science graduate (with a background in mathematics), Andromeda is interested in people, technology, information, and how they intersect in strange new alchemies. I aim to be boundaryspanner