Theme: Crossroads

This year’s TEDxWestChester features speakers whose lives and projects are at the crossroads of change. They are influencers and innovators improving lives locally in our Chester County and Philadelphia neighborhoods. Their experiences have shaped their ideas – and – their ideas are shaping the future.

View our website:
http://www.tedxwestchester.com/speakers-2/

View our Flickr Photo Album:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmocPDRL

Watch Our TEDx talks from this You Tube Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsC5VwrBl_Hj1g0zYGRxxxSSiBkj4ELI1

Uptown Knauer Performing Arts Center
226 North Walnut Street
West Chester, Pennsylvania, 19380
United States

Kate Schutt

Singer Songwriter and Producer

Kate Schutt is an award-winning songwriter, singer, guitarist and producer whose voice NPR calls “glassily clear and glossily sweet.” She studied the influence of jazz on modern poetry at Harvard, and studied jazz guitar at Berklee College of Music. Currently, Kate is working with legendary producer/arranger Rob Mounsey on a new album inspired by her mother’s diagnosis and death from ovarian cancer. She spent four years as her mom’s primary caregiver, along the way writing songs about life, loss and (to use Christopher Hitchen’s potent phrase) “living dyingly.” After nearly a decade living and making music in Canada, she now calls New York City home.

Priya Mammen

Director of Public Health Programs and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University.

Priya Mammen, MD, MPH, is a Director of Public Health Programs and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. She currently facilitates ED-based public health initiatives within Jefferson Health, such as safe opioid prescribing guidelines, overdose prevention and education, integrative services for patients experiencing homelessness, and HIV and Hepatitis C screening as Director of Public Health Programs. She was appointed to the Mayor’s Task Force to Combat the Opioid Epidemic in Philadelphia. Dr Mammen was inducted as a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 2015 and was elected to the Executive Committee of the Section of Public Health and Preventative Medicine in 2017.

Shea Rhodes

Attorney, former Assistant District Attorney to Philadelphia Community

Shea M. Rhodes, Esq., has dedicated her career to combating violence against women, protecting the rights of those who are oppressed or exploited, and championing human rights. She is the statewide legal expert on Pennsylvania laws related to sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. As Director and Co-Founder of the Villanova Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE Institute), Shea works with and on behalf of victims and survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Prior to forming the CSE Institute in 2014, she served the Philadelphia community as an Assistant District Attorney for nearly ten years.

Virginia Kerslake

Soil Scientist & grassroots organizer

Virginia Marcille-Kerslake is founder of the grassroots coalition West Whiteland Residents for Pipeline Safety, as well as a founding member of its umbrella coalition, DelChesco United for Pipeline Safety. Its mission is to protect the health, safety and welfare of communities faced with the Sunoco Pipeline/Energy Transfer Partners’ Mariner East pipeline project. Prior to this role, Ginny managed an analytical services laboratory specializing in soil analysis at the University of Guelph in Canada. In 2004, she moved to Chester County with her husband and two sons. She also has a side business Side Stitch by Ginny, where she incorporates her passion and talent for selecting fabrics by creating functional items for customers.