TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

announcement

Meet the first 6 speakers of TEDxSalem VI

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Drum­roll please…TEDxSalem is proud to announce the first six of our speak­er line­up for TEDxSalem VI “re.” Over the next few months we will be delv­ing into the sto­ries behind our speak­ers, so keep an eye on our blog to learn more about who will be shar­ing their “ideas worth spread­ing” at TEDxSalem VI on Jan­u­ary 5, 2019.

Jen­ny­Lynn Diet­rich, an Ore­gon Deaf­Blind Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance Net­work (ODBCAN) Facil­i­ta­tor,  will give us an inner look at the Deaf­Blind com­mu­ni­ty in “Deaf­Blind: We’re Blind but not Blind.”

Michael Rousell, of South­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty, will take us on a jour­ney into how your brain secret­ly changes your beliefs dur­ing moments of sur­prise.

Car­la Brauer, own­er of Der­mesti­dar­i­um, will speak about how recon­nect­ing with her food changed her life and led her to a career bring­ing new life to the dead as a bone clean­er.

Under­tak­er Eliz­a­beth Fournier from Cor­ner­stone Funer­al will explore “The Ulti­mate Act of Envi­ron­men­tal Vol­un­teerism.”

Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Melis­sa Michaux exam­ines “Restora­tive Jus­tice in prison is nec­es­sary to trans­form pris­on­ers for safer com­mu­ni­ties.”

Michelle Jones of the Wayfind­ing Acad­e­my will speak on the high­er edu­ca­tion sys­tem, and new mod­els pro­vid­ing alter­na­tive ways of look­ing at the pur­pose of col­lege and its role in help­ing cul­ti­vate ded­i­cat­ed cit­i­zens who know their pur­pose in soci­ety.

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets on sale soon. 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.com.

Make the most of your TEDxSalem experience

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We’re less than two weeks away from TEDxSalem V “Through the Look­ing Glass.” Don’t have tick­ets yet? Don’t wor­ry, you can still get them here.

Do we all have our tick­ets now? Good! Now read these ten tips on how to get the most out of your TED expe­ri­ence Jan. 6 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

10. Take notes! Bring a small note­book or down­load a notes app for your smart­phone. You def­i­nitely want to remem­ber those moments that made you smile, made you think or just jumped out at you. Take a moment dur­ing the event and at the end of the day to jot down the insights you gained.

9. Be present in the moment. We love that you want to Tweet and Insta­gram about your amaz­ing TEDxSalem expe­ri­ence. But don’t get so wrapped up in your phone that you miss a poignant moment dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion or a TED talk!

8. Be open-mind­ed. Some of the ideas worth shar­ing may be shock­ing. Some might be a lit­tle con­tro­ver­sial or entire­ly new to you. Don’t write off a TED talk even if you find your­self bristling at it. Be open to new ideas!

7. First in the door, last out the build­ing. Get there ear­ly. You can find your seat, chat up the per­son next to you, get com­fort­able and see what oth­er good­ies await through­out the day. Last year, par­tic­i­pants had the oppor­tu­nity to pur­chase books writ­ten by our speak­ers or get some awe­some TEDxSalem swag. Stay the whole day and leave late. Lis­ten to every sin­gle talk. Do the break­out ses­sions. Ask a mil­lion ques­tions. By the end of the day, you won’t want to leave!

6. Bring some­thing to share. It can be some­thing tan­gi­ble like your busi­ness card or some­thing that’s not like a thought-pro­vok­ing ques­tion or a great book you’ve read recent­ly.

5. Do your research! We love a good sur­prise, and we hope some of the top­ics and thoughts will be delight­fully sur­pris­ing. But there’s some­thing to be said for get­ting excit­ed about your favorite speak­er ahead of time! Take a moment to read the TEDXSalem blog for more infor­ma­tion about each speak­er. Revis­it last year’s speak­ers to get in the spir­it of TED! Or vis­it the offi­cial TED blog for more engag­ing TED talks and choose a few favorites.

4. Net­work, net­work, net­work! TEDxSalem is not a pas­sive or iso­lated expe­ri­ence. You are at the beau­ti­ful Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter with hun­dreds of peo­ple just as excit­ed about new ideas as you are! Talk to every­one. Intro­duce your­self. Don’t ask what they do for a liv­ing — ask what they’re pas­sion­ate about. Make friends, get con­tacts, dis­cuss the TED talks with them. Force your­self a lit­tle out of your com­fort zone and chat up a stranger. (Did the intro­vert in you just cringe? It’s ok. TEDxSalem is for intro­verts, too.)

3. Our vol­un­teers are a resource! They are the heart, soul and back­bone of TEDxSalem, and they are there to make your expe­ri­ence extra­or­di­nary. If you need any­thing at all, don’t hes­i­tate to ask them!

2. Be sure to par­tic­i­pate in the break­out ses­sions. One high­light of TEDxSalem is our speak­ers, but there’s so much more that goes on through­out the day. If you real­ly want to make the most of your time, don’t shy away from sit­ting in on the break­out ses­sions and shar­ing your own ideas. It’s all about mak­ing you think.

1. Immerse your­self in the spir­it of TED! TED is a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion devot­ed to spread­ing ideas, usu­ally in the form of short, pow­er­ful talks. It began in 1984 as a con­fer­ence where tech­nol­ogy, enter­tain­ment and design con­verged (hence the name) and now cov­ers almost all top­ics, includ­ing sci­ence, busi­ness and glob­al issues. Keep all of this in mind as you approach Jan. 6. The day is devot­ed to shar­ing ideas!

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. 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.com.

Brad Burge has an ‘idea worth spreading’ for a solution to help with PTSD

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Brad BurgeTEDxSalem is proud to announce anoth­er sur­prise speak­er for our Jan­u­ary 6, 2018, event “Through the Look­ing Glass.”

A few months ago, Brad Burge returned from Burn­ing Man, the tem­po­rary city of artists and cre­ators in the Neva­da desert. He was there vol­un­teer­ing for the Zen­do Project, a group that sup­ports peo­ple who are hav­ing dif­fi­cult episodes with psy­che­delics or oth­er drugs.

Brad is Direc­tor of Strate­gic Com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Asso­ci­a­tion for Psy­che­del­ic Stud­ies (MAPS), an asso­ci­a­tion that rethinks the role of psy­che­del­ic drugs in our soci­ety. The Zen­do Project falls in line with the first part of MAPS’ mis­sion: edu­cate and reduce harm.

“We don’t call it a bad trip,” Brad said, “because every psy­che­del­ic event brings up infor­ma­tion that needs to be dealt with. The Zen­do Project has found that they can pro­vide sup­port in a way that offers the best out­come pos­si­ble.”

Tra­di­tion­al respons­es of police or med­ical per­son­nel, while well mean­ing, he said, can make a bad trip worse. Those respons­es don’t allow a per­son to fin­ish pro­cess­ing the thoughts and mem­o­ries that have come up. At Zen­do Project, in con­cert with law enforce­ment and med­ical staff, they sit with the per­son, offer sup­port and lis­ten until they are safe to return to their friends. Brad reports that the ser­vice is so suc­cess­ful that Burn­ing Man is plan­ning for a sec­ond Zen­do Project facil­i­ty next year.

The sec­ond part of MAPS’ mis­sion is to pro­vide research into new ways of treat­ing psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders with psy­che­del­ic drugs. Rather than being counter-cul­ture, MAPS works with­in the sys­tem to explore the legit­i­mate ben­e­fits psy­che­del­ic drugs may have in treat­ing men­tal health.

Brad describes the results they are see­ing in their work with PTSD as “real­ly promis­ing.” So promis­ing that the FDA grant­ed them break­through ther­a­py des­ig­na­tion, which means pre­lim­i­nary clin­i­cal evi­dence indi­cates that the drug may demon­strate sub­stan­tial improve­ment over exist­ing ther­a­pies. They are now mov­ing into phase III of clin­i­cal tri­als.

Brad’s per­son­al sto­ry brought him to MAPS while he was work­ing on his doc­tor­ate at UC San Diego. After study­ing both psy­chol­o­gy and com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Stan­ford, Brad’s mas­ter’s research on psy­che­delics inter­sect­ed with his own jour­ney of men­tal ill­ness.

He had been on lithi­um for near­ly 11 years when he had his first expe­ri­ence on a psy­che­del­ic drug. Brad’s train­ing and edu­ca­tion on the evils of psy­che­delics stood in sharp con­trast to his expe­ri­ence.

“For my whole life I had been raised to believe that men­tal health phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals work like keys in a lock… that I was some­how bro­ken and need­ed to be fixed… For the first time in my life I felt like I could be a whole per­son… I felt like I had been miss­ing out on oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow.”

Brad’s per­son­al expe­ri­ence of the impact that ther­a­peu­ti­cal­ly guid­ed psy­che­delics could have has moti­vat­ed him to edu­cate peo­ple about the pol­i­tics of drugs in our soci­ety and to pro­mote the legal research of the ben­e­fits that these drugs can have.

Come to TEDxSalem and hear the rest of Brad’s sto­ry as he offers us a glimpse into an unex­pect­ed future for psy­chi­a­try in Amer­i­ca.

Speak­er: Brad Burge

Pets: “My part­ner has a pet, a beau­ti­ful lit­tle cat, Maho, that is very talk­a­tive, and I have effec­tive­ly adopt­ed her.”

Favorite Movie: “Sci-fi always works. I am super into imag­in­ing what the future holds.”

Favorite Book: “Dune”

Favorite Music: Grate­ful Dead or glitchy tech­no. Brad also con­firms lis­ten­ing to Alaba­ma 3 “for sure.”

Favorite Food: Sala­mi. “Because it keeps for a long time out of the fridge.”

Favorite Drink: Guaya­ki Yer­ba Mate

Hob­bies: Big time back­pack­er: “I just got back from a 45-mile hike through Sequoia and King’s Canyon in Cal­i­for­nia Sier­ra. I hope to find some back­pack­ing or hik­ing while I am in Port­land.”

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. 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.com.

Evelin Dacker: Let’s talk about sex, bay-bee!

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Dr. Evelin Dack­er wants to talk about sex, and she’s not afraid of your hang-ups because she is in it for your health.

“I feel like if peo­ple are going to black­list me because I’m talk­ing about sex, that’s OK,” says Evelin, “because some­body has to do it.”

Evelin, pro­nounced “Ev-uh-LEEN,” is a doc­tor of fam­i­ly med­i­cine and the own­er of VIDA Inte­gra­tive Med­i­cine and Behav­ioral Health. Born in Cal­i­for­nia and raised in New York, Dack­er attend­ed school at Case West­ern Reserve Uni­ver­si­ty in Cleve­land, Ohio. She moved to Salem 21 years ago, when she came to work for NW Human Ser­vices at the West Salem Clin­ic doing com­mu­ni­ty med­i­cine (Fam­i­ly Med­i­cine and Obstet­rics).

Sex is a large part of holis­tic human health, says the 52-year-old, but very few are will­ing to even acknowl­edge it. Dack­er is though, and she’s ready to get your atten­tion.

“I’m a loud­mouth,” she says. “I’m not scared to have a con­ver­sa­tion with peo­ple about it.”

The sta­tus quo is not get­ting it done, she says. With­out frank and open dia­logue, the risk of dis­ease and abuse only increase. That’s why talk­ing about sex with her patients is part of her inte­gra­tive care.

This isn’t the first time she’s been out­spo­ken, either. It’s part of her per­son­al­i­ty. Dack­er was a mem­ber of the Cher­ry City Der­by Girls (now Cher­ry City Roller Der­by) from 2009–2011, where she was apt­ly called “Dr. Smack’r.”

And now, cre­at­ing a “sex-pos­i­tive cul­ture” is her mis­sion.

“Even if I just stop one or two peo­ple” from suf­fer­ing, she says, “then I’ve done my job.”

Speak­er: Evelin Dack­er

Name Pro­nounced: “Ev-uh-LEEN”

Favorite Movie: Heat, and also The Shel­ter­ing Sky; dra­mas that pro­voke thought. “I like to go deep with things.”

Favorite Book: The Unbear­able Light­ness of Being, by Milan Kun­dera

Favorite Music: 1980s new wave, alter­na­tive and jazz; also EDM, Bol­ly­wood and Latin danc­ing music.

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. 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.com.

TEDxYouth@Salem: The kids are alright

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Among her many after­school activ­i­ties, Megha Joshi plays vio­lin in a stu­dent orches­tra. It’s the col­lab­o­ra­tion she enjoys the most about per­form­ing.

“Play­ing with a col­lec­tive group of peo­ple to cre­ate an amaz­ing sound is an irre­place­able and reward­ing expe­ri­ence,” she said.

Now she’s help­ing orches­trate her own TEDx event.

On Novem­ber 11, TEDxYouth@Salem will kick off its inau­gur­al event at the Elsi­nore The­atre in down­town Salem. This event will be run by teens, from the speak­ers to the event orga­niz­ers.

A vet­er­an of TEDxSalem, Joshi’s own expe­ri­ence last year at “Rev­o­lu­tions” inspired her to approach TEDxSalem co-cura­tors Bri­an Hart and Car­lee Wright ear­li­er this year about devel­op­ing a TEDx event for teens.

“A lot of my friends start­ed to ask me how they could get the same oppor­tu­ni­ty,” she said.

“After the amaz­ing expe­ri­ence of giv­ing [a TED talk] as well as being an audi­ence mem­ber, I real­ized that this event had to be shared,” she said.

The pri­ma­ry goal, said Joshi, is to inspire youth to get out into the com­mu­ni­ty and make a dif­fer­ence; “to take action on their ideas.”

“By build­ing this event from the ground up by youth for youth, I hope to real­ly get in touch with the teenage com­mu­ni­ty,” she said.

Joshi is no stranger to extend­ing her­self — In addi­tion to school­work and youth orches­tra, she also works part-time study­ing nan­otech­nol­o­gy and bio­med­ical engi­neer­ing at OHSU’s Zuck­er­man lab.

It’s her ener­gy that has tak­en a once-intrigu­ing idea and made it real, accord­ing to Bri­an Hart and Car­lee Wright.

“We have want­ed to do a youth event since we start­ed TEDxSalem, but we did not have enough resources,” Hart said.

“Thanks to Megha step­ping up, now our vision is becom­ing a real­i­ty, but bet­ter — not only does this event fea­ture youth speak­ers, but it is also ful­ly youth dri­ven.”

“We are proud to be men­tor­ing Megha and the team she has cul­ti­vat­ed,” Wright said, “espe­cial­ly when, accord­ing to the Ore­gon Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion 2014–15 Stu­dent Enroll­ment Report, Salem-Keiz­er School Dis­trict is the sec­ond largest in the state with just over 40,000 stu­dents.”

“TEDxYouth@Salem is giv­ing those stu­dents a plat­form to share their ideas worth spread­ing,” Wright said.

Although the event is tar­get­ed at youth, TEDxYouth@Salem is not just for teens, accord­ing to Joshi. So who should come?

“Every­one!” Joshi said. “Any­one who is will­ing to open their eyes to new ideas and lis­ten to what youth have to say will def­i­nite­ly enjoy this event.”

And what should peo­ple come away with?

“For the younger crowd, a sense that they mat­ter in the com­mu­ni­ty, and their actions can influ­ence many peo­ple,” Joshi said. “For every­one else, a new per­spec­tive on some­thing we may take for grant­ed.”TEDxYouth@Salem in Salem, Oregon

TEDxYouth@Salem

9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Novem­ber 11, 2017

at the Elsi­nore The­atre in down­town Salem, Ore­gon

Tick­et infor­ma­tion com­ing soon
Check back with the TEDxSalem home page for the lat­est!

Meet Artist-in-Residence Kathryn Cellerini Moore

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Ore­gon-native and self-pro­fessed nerd Kathryn Cel­leri­ni Moore is a cre­ative force trans­form­ing child­hood mem­o­ries into thought-pro­vok­ing art instal­la­tions. And this year she is the TEDxSalem Artist in Res­i­dence help­ing set the tone for our event, com­mu­ni­cate its theme and con­vey an ‘idea worth spread­ing.’

Drawn to art for its ther­a­peu­tic val­ues, Kathryn holds a BS in Psy­chol­o­gy and a BFA in Allied Visu­al Arts from Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty. She earned her Mas­ter’s Degree in Stu­dio Art with a focus on print­mak­ing, sculp­ture and instal­la­tion from Stony Brook Uni­ver­si­ty in New York. Although across the coun­try, Kathryn want­ed a pro­gram that would allow her to explore.

“Stu­dio art was open enough for those like me who can’t decide on one medi­um,” she said. “I wasn’t good about mak­ing deci­sions, about focus­ing. I want­ed to do what felt should be done for what­ev­er the idea was.”

“I nev­er felt like I was going to mas­ter any one mate­r­i­al because I nev­er stick with one for very long,” Kathryn said. “What you are mas­ter­ing is how to take an idea and give it form. So I would say, I am most­ly drawn to con­cep­tu­al ideas where the idea forms every­thing else.”

“I am also very drawn to mate­ri­als,” Kathryn added. “The sump­tu­ous­ness, tex­tures and col­ors.”


Inspi­ra­tion for the artist derives from her child­hood and the envi­ron­ment in which she grew up.

“My art is very seat­ed in how I respond to my every day and con­nect­ing to that…asking the ques­tion ‘Why do I respond that way?’” Kathryn said, not­ing that how for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence con­tin­ues to impact our dai­ly lives has been a thread through her work for some time.

For her TEDxSalem stage instal­la­tion, Kathryn hopes view­ers will see some­thing unex­pect­ed. It’s a vision that’s chaot­ic and con­trolled at the same time, she said. But there is also a very per­son­al lev­el, a fam­i­ly por­trait, to the instal­la­tion.

“For me, this instal­la­tion pays homage to the sweat and tears that goes into a rev­o­lu­tion,” Kathryn said, “I am look­ing at rev­o­lu­tion on a broad­er scale….as being a per­son­al a‑ha moment, a break­through in per­cep­tion that changes your life for­ev­er. I cre­ate art­work from direct per­son­al expe­ri­ence with the intent and belief that the per­son­al is uni­ver­sal.”

“Rev­o­lu­tion is also from begin­ning to end…one full cycle…a destruc­tive force,” Kathryn said. “Rev­o­lu­tions can be the basis for com­mu­ni­ty and growth.”

In coop­er­a­tion with the Salem Art Asso­ci­a­tion through a new pro­gram cater­ing to the Artist-in-Res­i­dence con­cept, Kathryn will be work­ing on her TEDxSalem stage instal­la­tion on-and-off at The Annex through Jan. 6. The Bush Barn Art Cen­ter and the Annex are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tues. to Fri. and noon to 5 p.m. Sat. and Sun., at 600 Mis­sion St. SE in Salem. The build­ings will be closed from Dec.  25-Jan. 3.Learn more at salemart.org/programs/annex.