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Megha Joshi: Scientist, inventor, high school student

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Megha Joshi is a scientist, inventor and South Salem High School student.
Megha Joshi is a sci­en­tist, inven­tor and South Salem High School stu­dent.

Remem­ber the name Megha Joshi because this 15 year old is going to change the world.

The TEDxSalem speak­er loves to dis­cov­er new solu­tions, dif­fer­ent ways to solve age-old prob­lems. As a sev­enth grad­er, she designed a solar-pow­ered water fil­tra­tion sys­tem to help future vic­tims of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.

“Water is all around them,” she said about vic­tims of Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na, “but it’s dirty water. What if we came up with a fil­ter that could clean water eas­i­ly?”

Her design was one of the top 300 projects in a nation­al sci­ence fair. Two oth­er projects took top hon­ors at statewide com­pe­ti­tions since.

Her project “Save our Spines” answers the ques­tion of “why do teens have such bad pos­ture?” One answer: It’s the desks. The one-size-fits-all desk doesn’t work for bod­ies that range from 5 foot to 6 foot or more. Her redesign of the stu­dent desk earned her a $2,000 schol­ar­ship to Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty. She admits that schools aren’t like­ly to adopt the new desks because they cost more, but maybe some­day.

In the mean­time, she will keep com­ing up with solu­tions to prob­lems that cap­ture her imag­i­na­tion. Now she’s work­ing with researchers at OHSU Knight Can­cer Insti­tute to iden­ti­fy the gene that makes some cells resis­tant to can­cer treat­ment over time.

megha2In her free time, she loves to play the vio­lin in the Salem Youth Sym­pho­ny and South Salem High School’s Cham­ber Orches­tra and Sym­pho­ny.

What’s her advice to girls con­sid­er­ing sci­ence?

“If you’re even think­ing about it or you’re inter­est­ed,” she said, “you should do it.”

Don’t be afraid of fail­ing, Joshi said. She fails all the time, but she doesn’t give up.

“That’s what makes the end part 10 times bet­ter.”

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for stu­dents. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.

Karen Holman: Punk rock chemist to speak on new anti-cancer drug

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kh_firechemistry3

Karen Hol­man is a punk rock­er, radio DJ, and a chem­istry pro­fes­sor and researcher. She lives deeply in all three of those iden­ti­ties.

But at TEDxSalem, Hol­man’s sci­en­tist side will be on dis­play.

Hol­man was always inter­est­ed in sci­ence as a lit­tle girl, she said, and it was her non-end­ing ques­tion of “why?” that land­ed her in chem­istry.

“I want­ed to know what was hap­pen­ing to the mol­e­cules,” she said.

Hol­man, whose spe­cial­ty is in met­als, will share about the dis­cov­ery of met­al-based anti-can­cer drugs. She hopes to make the sci­ence behind this dis­cov­ery approach­able for audi­ences of all back­grounds, to learn about the bar­ri­ers med­ical sci­ence face in becom­ing acces­si­ble to patients, and become ener­gized about sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery and inno­va­tion.

kh_chemlecture1Hol­man’s sci­ence career began at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty, as an under­grad, and she also end­ed up at Willamette to estab­lish her teach­ing career.

 

It was through that jour­ney that she became a col­lege radio DJ and became inter­est­ed in alter­na­tive, met­al and punk rock music. While in Cal­i­for­nia for grad­u­ate school in the ’90s, Hol­man saw an all-girl punk band, which inspired her to play in bands of her own. You may rec­og­nize her as the gui­tarist for the City of Pieces, for exam­ple. But after all these years, she is just now in her first all-woman punk band called Hot Sheets.

Hol­man’s expe­ri­ence as a radio DJ also inspired her to even­tu­al­ly found KMUZ, Salem’s com­mu­ni­ty radio. She hosts two shows on it, and will soon start a third lat­er this month.

Jerry Braza: Sowing the seeds of mindfulness

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This picture was taken in Homer, Alaska where Braza is helping leaders create a more mindful community.
This pic­ture was tak­en in Homer, Alas­ka where Braza is help­ing lead­ers cre­ate a more mind­ful com­mu­ni­ty.

TEDxSalem speak­er Jer­ry Braza plants the seeds of mind­ful­ness one con­ver­sa­tion, one sem­i­nar and one com­mu­ni­ty at a time.

When he talks his words fall slow and steady. His eyes stay fixed on the per­son in front of him. There is nowhere else to be but here, right now.

In Homer, Alas­ka, Braza taught hun­dreds of edu­ca­tors, health-care work­ers, men­tal health providers and par­ents the ben­e­fits of mind­ful­ness and how to cre­ate that still­ness with­in. Once they heal them­selves, he said, they can heal the com­mu­ni­ty.

Braza is an ordained dhar­ma teacher in the lin­eage of Bud­dhist Mas­ter Thich Nhat Hanh, spread­ing mind­ful­ness at retreats, sem­i­nars, work­shops and class­es. But mind­ful­ness didn’t always come nat­u­ral­ly to the retired West­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor.

“I was always in a rush,” he said about his life 35 years ago.

“I always felt anx­ious. I felt like I was always late. I was with some­one, and I was not real­ly there.”

He remem­bers skip­ping pages when he read books to his kids at night because he felt like he didn’t have the time.

Braza start­ed to take class­es on med­i­ta­tion and mind­ful­ness. He trav­eled to India, Chi­na, Viet­nam and Thai­land to study. Then he mixed in his Catholic roots of con­tem­pla­tion and devel­oped a sec­u­lar mind­ful­ness prac­tice that he now shares.

One sim­ple way to prac­tice, he said, is to linger longer on some­thing beau­ti­ful. We often focus on neg­a­tive things. Instead gaze on some­thing of beau­ty such as leaves on a side­walk, the moon, a flower or some­one you love. Stay with that image for a full 10 breaths.mountain

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 …

Catch Braza at TEDxSalem this Jan­u­ary to find a lit­tle more peace in your life and your com­mu­ni­ty.

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for stu­dents. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.

Alia Braley: The power of non-violent action

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“When I was younger, know­ing that my grand­par­ents were involved in the Amer­i­can Civ­il Rights move­ment of the 1950s and 1960s was inspir­ing to me,” said Alia Bra­ley, who has been work­ing as a researcher and advo­cate of strate­gic non­vi­o­lent action for the past three years, cur­rent­ly with the Albert Ein­stein Insti­tu­tion.  alia-braley

For her TED Talk, Bra­ley will dis­cuss the mas­sive impact of strate­gic non­vi­o­lent action in the world today, from the pro-democ­ra­cy protests in Hong Kong in 2014 to the anti-cor­rup­tion protests of Guatemalans in late 2015, where pro­test­ers in both the cities and coun­try­side came togeth­er to orga­nize a gen­er­al strike that crip­pled the gov­ern­ment and led to the prompt res­ig­na­tion of sev­er­al lead­ers includ­ing the pres­i­dent.

To be clear, non­vi­o­lent action is not the same as paci­fism. It is a form of con­duct­ing con­flict that is often used for prag­mat­ic rea­sons — because it is pow­er­ful and it works.  It also should not be con­fused with civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, which has a pre­cise def­i­n­i­tion as a sub­set of the infi­nite tac­tics avail­able to non­vi­o­lent activists.

“Non­vi­o­lent action is basi­cal­ly the abil­i­ty of diverse peo­ple to active­ly engage in struc­tur­al change in their soci­ety on their own terms” she said.

The aca­d­e­m­ic study of non­vi­o­lent action is only just in its infan­cy accord­ing to Bra­ley, but the use of non­vi­o­lent action goes back to ancient times. His­to­ry holds many famous exam­ples of suc­cess, includ­ing the strug­gle for inde­pen­dence in India asso­ci­at­ed with Gand­hi, as well as less­er known exam­ples, like the Baltic resis­tance against Sovi­et inva­sion in the 1990’s.

Rig­or­ous study of non­vi­o­lent action is impor­tant, she said, in order to assess and improve its effec­tive­ness. Today, more soci­eties are using non­vi­o­lent action than ever before, but often with mixed results.  The cas­es often cit­ed include the rise of author­i­tar­i­an­ism in Egypt, and the desta­bi­liz­ing blood­shed and dis­place­ment caused by the Syr­i­an civ­il war.  How­ev­er, it should be not­ed, she says, that the trou­ble in Egypt and Syr­ia has arisen as a result of vio­lent actors that dis­rupt­ed the ini­tial suc­cess of non­vi­o­lent move­ments.

Through con­nect­ing with orga­ni­za­tions like the Albert Ein­stein Insti­tu­tion, non­vi­o­lent activists are able to access the resources and knowl­edge that may help them to plan effec­tive­ly and avoid some of the most com­mon pit­falls.

Despite the vio­lence preva­lent in today’s news, non­vi­o­lent action is a dri­ving force in domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al rela­tions, Bra­ley said.  For an exam­ple of a suc­cess­ful non­vi­o­lent move­ment with max­i­mal­ist goals, she sug­gests that peo­ple learn about the move­ment that over­threw Slo­bodon Milo­se­vic in the for­mer Yugoslavia as depict­ed in the doc­u­men­tary Bring­ing Down a Dic­ta­tor.

alia1“So many of the dev­as­tat­ing and heart­break­ing prob­lems in the world today come from polit­i­cal vio­lence and the threat of polit­i­cal vio­lence,” she said.  But although peo­ple know their needs, they often feel pow­er­less to cre­ate change.  “Learn­ing about how strate­gic non­vi­o­lent action works helps indi­vid­u­als and groups put their knowl­edge they already have about their soci­ety into action that can cre­ate real and last­ing change.”

 

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for stu­dents. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.

 

 

Gina Ochsner: Wielding the power of words for a (peaceful) revolution

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Gina Ochsner is a sto­ry­teller (just like us!).

The Salem native is an award-win­ning nov­el­ist and fic­tion writer. She’s the writer-in-res­i­dence at Cor­ban Uni­ver­si­ty, where she teach­es writ­ing and lit­er­a­ture and directs the annu­al Por­tals Writ­ing Con­fer­ence.

And as a speak­er at TEDxSalem, she’s going to tell you an incred­i­ble sto­ry about a series of events between 1987 and 1991 in Latvia, Esto­nia and Lithua­nia that became known as the Singing Rev­o­lu­tion.

ochsner_gina_credit-annie-beedy_catalog-author-photo“These peo­ple band­ed togeth­er to say to their Sovi­et occu­piers, ‘We’ve had enough, it’s time for you to go home,’ ” Ochsner explains. “They band­ed togeth­er and made a human chain over 400 miles long and held hands. It stretched from the cap­i­tal of Esto­nia to Lithua­nia. They sang songs and recit­ed poet­ry and this made a dif­fer­ence. With­in 18 months, the Sovi­et Union com­plete­ly pulled out and they were among the first to declare their inde­pen­dence.”

Ochsner learned about the chain of singers while research­ing her lat­est nov­el, released just four weeks ago, called The Hid­den Let­ters of Velta B. The book is about a fam­i­ly in Latvia, a boy who hears all, and the pow­er of sto­ries, words and secrets.

“I was­n’t plan­ning on writ­ing about Latvia,” she says. “But I got to know a Lat­vian woman who lives here in town, and she was telling me her fam­i­ly sto­ry and I start­ed doing research there and real­ized this world that has opened up to me that I nev­er knew exist­ed. I was so struck by the rich­ness of the cul­turgina-bwe and the love for song and dance and poet­ry, it just over­whelms me.”

These are all themes that Ochsner plans to explore in her TED talk.

“It’s inter­est­ing to think about rev­o­lu­tion and how big change hap­pens with some­thing as small as words and how we use them,” she says. “I think peo­ple some­times believe they have no voice or pow­er and that’s sim­ply not true. These were ordi­nary peo­ple who par­tic­i­pat­ed in these events. They were just hum­ble, ordi­nary peo­ple who got togeth­er and said, when we are togeth­er, our voic­es are strong.”

 

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.

Rebecca Maitland Courtney: The Arta-Potty “movement”

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Rebecca Maitland CourtneyRebec­ca Mait­land Court­ney is a big believ­er in the heal­ing pow­er of paint­ing.

“Paint­ings come from pain,” said Court­ney, 56, Cre­ative Direc­tor of Roger Yost Gal­leries and Prop­er­ty Man­ag­er of the Reed Opera House in Salem. Paint­ing “makes life a lit­tle more bear­able.”

It’s what has helped her cope with prob­lems through­out her life both large and small. So when Court­ney saw a prob­lem plagu­ing the his­toric down­town shop­ping venue, the prob­lem of human waste being left in the streets by the home­less, she turned to the solu­tion she knows best.

“It’s a time where the cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty can be a bless­ing to the over­all com­mu­ni­ty,” she said.

And thus the Arta-Pot­ty was born.

For her TED talk, Court­ney will talk about how she helped cre­ate this ele­gant fit­ting of form and func­tion, this uniron­ic pair­ing of paint­ing with poop — in essence a Por­ta-Pot­ty with vibrant local art­work dis­played on their sur­faces — that is meet­ing a press­ing need while help­ing to revi­tal­ize Salem’s down­town with artis­tic panache.

The Arta-Pot­ty is a phe­nom­e­non that has tran­scend­ed its orig­i­nal use to become a “hap­pen­ing.” Enough of a hap­pen­ing to mer­it its own Face­book page; enough of a draw to host art exhi­bi­tions and music per­for­mances; enough of an inno­va­tion to elic­it inquiries from oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ties far and wide.

And it came from a sim­ple epiphany.

Toward the end of 2014 Court­ney noticed what she said was a sig­nif­i­cant increase in home­less peo­ple in the down­town busi­ness area sur­round­ing the Reed Opera House. With the influx of home­less, relat­ed prob­lems also rose, includ­ing what she said was an increase in human waste in the alley­ways and park­ing lots as well as an increase in inci­dents of pub­lic inde­cen­cy and prop­er­ty crimes.

 

The Arta PottyTra­di­tion­al approach­es to the prob­lem seemed both non­sen­si­cal and coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. Accord­ing to Court­ney, police would peri­od­i­cal­ly roust home­less camps in near­by Minto-Brown park, result­ing in the dis­placed home­less sim­ply migrat­ing down­town in search of shel­ter before being roust­ed once again. It made no sense to Court­ney, watch­ing the events unfold from her office.

“Until the big­ger sub­ject [of solv­ing home­less­ness] is dis­cussed, they will con­tin­ue to send home­less on pil­grim­ages,” she said.

Col­lab­o­rat­ing on a solu­tion with social wel­fare lead­ers like Ver­e­na Wes­sel of the Salem Home­less Coali­tion, and Pamel­la Phillips Wat­son, Janet Park­er and Emi­ly Goodall from the area reli­gious com­mu­ni­ty, the group soon real­ized that a large part of the prob­lem stemmed from peo­ple sim­ply hav­ing nowhere to go to the bath­room. The human waste, the pub­lic inde­cen­cy, the feel­ing of being unsafe – home­less men and women with no oth­er options were forced to expose and relieve them­selves in the street. Accord­ing to Court­ney it was also sti­fling the busi­ness envi­ron­ment, as passers­by became increas­ing­ly skit­tish about shop­ping or eat­ing in an area with such prob­lems, and the area increas­ing­ly looked run-down and dilap­i­dat­ed.

Today, thanks to vol­un­teer and local busi­ness efforts mar­shalled by the so-called “Arta-Pot­ty Five,” there are five Arta-Pot­ties with­in a sev­en-block area of high-den­si­ty pedes­tri­an traf­fic, with plans to expand even more. Accord­ing to Court­ney at least one occa­sion­al­ly plays host to an art exhib­it in which home­less men and women are invit­ed to min­gle with the greater com­mu­ni­ty.

The Arta-Pot­ty cause came around at the right time for Court­ney, a self-described “emp­ty nester.”

“At this point in my life, you’re not afraid to make a mis­take,” she said. “It’s kind of free­ing in a way.”

But it has also served to bring a deep­er sense of con­nec­tion to her com­mu­ni­ty, Court­ney said.

“Zero-degrees of sep­a­ra­tion,” she said. “It made me real­ize how close we actu­al­ly are to the highs and lows of soci­ety, the world of the fall­en and the world of incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty.”

The leaders spearheading the Arta-Potty movement. From left to right: Pamella Phillips Watson, Janet Parker, Emily Goodall, Verena Wessel, and Courtney.
The lead­ers spear­head­ing the Arta-Pot­ty move­ment. From left to right: Pamel­la Phillips Wat­son, Janet Park­er, Emi­ly Goodall, Ver­e­na Wes­sel, and Court­ney.

 

 

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.