TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

Science

Clinical Neuropsychologist Justin Feinstein: Diving into Float Therapy

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Dr. Justin Fein­stein is a Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist and Direc­tor of the Float Clin­ic & Research Cen­ter at the Lau­re­ate Insti­tute for Brain Research. His lab­o­ra­to­ry inves­ti­gates the effects of Floata­tion-REST (Reduced Envi­ron­men­tal Stim­u­la­tion Ther­a­py) on both the body and the brain, while also explor­ing its poten­tial as a ther­a­peu­tic treat­ment for pro­mot­ing men­tal health and heal­ing in patients who suf­fer from anx­i­ety and stress-relat­ed dis­or­ders. Dr. Fein­stein joined the fac­ul­ty of the Lau­re­ate Insti­tute for Brain Research and the Oxley Col­lege of Health Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tul­sa in 2013, after com­plet­ing his Ph.D. at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Iowa, and his post­doc­tor­al fel­low­ship at the Cal­i­for­nia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy. He earned his under­grad­u­ate degree in cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego, and com­plet­ed his clin­i­cal intern­ship at the San Diego VA hos­pi­tal with a focus on the treat­ment of vet­er­ans with
PTSD.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? Prob­a­bly towards the begin­ning of this decade when I watched my for­mer men­tors, Ralph Adolphs and Anto­nio Dama­sio, give TED talks.

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? One of my favorite TED talks is Kel­ly McGonigal’s “How to make stress your friend.” She does a bril­liant job high­light­ing the adap­tive aspects of stress and how our per­cep­tion of stress can fun­da­men­tal­ly alter the bal­ance between life and death. This per­spec­tive has been use­ful in the con­text of my own research into inte­ro­cep­tion, and how the brain per­ceives when the body is in Home­osta­sis.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? The sur­vival of our species depends on our abil­i­ty to fore­see the future and adapt to the oncom­ing chal­lenges that face soci­ety. With­out vision, we are the blind lead­ing the blind, reac­tive­ly address­ing issues once the fire has already start­ed rather than proac­tive­ly try­ing to elim­i­nate such issues before they even begin.

What is the most impor­tant les­son you’ve learned in life? How did you learn it? In life, dreams do not always come true, but some­times the mere act of hav­ing the dream is more impor­tant than achiev­ing it. This is some­thing my father taught me in the first book he ever wrote, Catch Us If You Can.

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? I have spent the past 15 years close­ly study­ing a rare group of humans who are miss­ing their amyg­dala, a brain region the­o­rized to be crit­i­cal for fear. My attempt to scare these patients was not exact­ly for fun, but rather for research, and through it we have now learned that the amyg­dala is not the epi­cen­ter of fear in the brain.

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Immunol­o­gy, as virus­es and bac­te­ria are the great­est threat (oth­er than our­selves) to human­i­ty.

Would you rather have a rewind but­ton or a pause but­ton on your life? Def­i­nite­ly a pause button…in fact, I’ll be dis­cussing an actu­al pause but­ton in this year’s talk!

Catch that talk in per­son at TEDxSalem on Jan­u­ary 4 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets. 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

Theresa McCormick: Tomorrow’s fuel may be under your kitchen sink

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Sci­en­tist There­sa McCormick has a few ideas about alter­na­tive fuels, includ­ing one that you may find in your house already. 

There­sa is an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry at Port­land State Uni­ver­si­ty who holds a BSc Chem­istry from Queen’s Uni­ver­si­ty (2004), a PhD Chem­istry from Queen’s Uni­ver­si­ty (2008), with Post­doc from Uni­ver­si­ty of Rochester (2009–2010) and Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to (2011–2013). Orig­i­nal­ly from Cana­da, her favorite hob­by is curl­ing (more on that below), and now lives in Port­land with her hus­band, Omar El Akkad, and their daugh­ter. She once per­formed in an immer­sive rein­ter­pre­ta­tion of Julius Cesar that took over the entire chem­istry build­ing at her uni­ver­si­ty. Curi­ous? Us too…read on and learn more about Dr. McCormick then join us in Jan­u­ary for her idea worth spread­ing.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? My broth­er intro­duced me to TED, I don’t remem­ber what video he sent to me first, but he was devour­ing TED talks and send­ing me sev­er­al a day that he loved. 

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? Isabel Allende, her talk is so empow­er­ing, every once and a while I need to hear amaz­ing women talk about their lives. After watch­ing her talk, I start­ed read­ing her books, which are great, and where I learned why the Gold­en Gate Bridge is called the Gold­en Gate Bridge. 

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? To me, vision means see­ing things for both what they are and what they could be. When I think about see­ing things for what they are I think about see­ing the whole pic­ture, what the prob­lem is, and how to solve the prob­lem, and what new prob­lems that solu­tion will make. And when I think about what things could be I imag­ine how the world could be with the ide­al solu­tion to prob­lems. 

How has your life been dif­fer­ent than what you’d imag­ined? My life is dif­fer­ent from what I imag­ined in almost every way. I was raised on a farm out­side a very small town in rur­al Ontario. Most women I knew grew-up to become farmer’s wives. I knew I didn’t want to do that. I loved math and sci­ence, so I thought I would become a med­ical doc­tor, and work in my home town, and my farmer hus­band would look after the farm. When I went away to uni­ver­si­ty I found out that if you liked math and sci­ence you could become a sci­en­tist (I pre­vi­ous­ly thought all sci­en­tists were dead white men). That start­ed me down the path to become a chemist, and as is com­mon in aca­d­e­mics when I final­ly found a job as a pro­fes­sor I was very far from the farm I grew up-on. I nev­er thought I would leave Cana­da and move to Ore­gon (I didn’t real­ly know where it was until I inter­viewed at PSU). I nev­er thought I would be a chemist, teach­ing and research­ing, mak­ing dis­cov­er­ies and try­ing to solve the big world prob­lems.

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. Most peo­ple are pret­ty sur­prised to find out I was the cap­tain of the wrestling team in high school. I joined the team the year after they first allowed women to wres­tle. I had an amaz­ing coach who sup­port­ed the women as much as the men on the team. It was a great expe­ri­ence for me. Trav­el­ing for tour­na­ments was the first time I was on a plane. I learned a lot about how to lead a team that has been invalu­able in lead­ing a research group. I learned how to throw some­one, not quite as use­ful most of the time, but good to remem­ber. 

What is some­thing unex­pect­ed that has changed about you in the last few years? My daugh­ter came into my life two and a half years ago, which changed every­thing. Before her, my work was one of the most impor­tant things in my life, but now my fam­i­ly takes top-notch. Dahlia brings a new per­spec­tive, focus and joy to life to life.  

Do you have any com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties? I love curl­ing. I am a mem­ber of the Ever­green Curl­ing Club in Beaver­ton and have curled on the same team since I came to Ore­gon six years ago. I play lead, which means I throw the first two stones for my team. It’s a great com­mu­ni­ty and a fun sport.

If you could live in the set­ting of any book or movie, with­out nec­es­sar­i­ly being involved in the sto­ry, which would you choose? Anna Karen­i­na – I fell in love with 19th cen­tu­ry Rus­sia. I loved the farm­ing scenes, I want to go to the operas and par­ties. I read it because I felt like I need­ed to read it to be a well-round­ed adult, but I loved it. If you haven’t read it go read it. 

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? I went sky div­ing once. It was a late night in the lab and the whole group decid­ed it would be fun to go sky­div­ing. We all agreed to go togeth­er, but then every­one else backed out so I con­vinced my soon-to-be hus­band to go with me. I loved it and would do it again.

Would you rather have a rewind but­ton or a pause but­ton on your life? Pause, as long as it lets every­one else stop and I can still do things and don’t age while things are paused. 

Favorite book(s)? And why.
Amer­i­can War: it’s very good and every­one should have at least a dozen copies.

Time Trav­el­ers Wife: I love any­thing with time trav­el, so it was already off to a good start, but the char­ac­ters are great. Most great books I can’t put down, but this one I refused to pick up when I only had one chap­ter left because I didn’t want it to end.

Oryx and Crake, Mad­dAd­dam, and Year of the Flood: it is an immense­ly immer­sive imag­i­na­tion of a world where peo­ple didn’t take care of the earth.  

Make one change in the world? I would get rid of all car­bon emis­sions and have only sus­tain­able ener­gy. And while I’m at it, just cool the world down a bit. 

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? Smooth

Great­est fear? Bears and bees 

TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  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

Kaeli Swift explores avid interest in avians at TEDxSalem VII

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Kaeli Swift, 32, is a bird girl.

As a lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton with a Ph.D. in Avian Behav­ior and Ecol­o­gy, she spends her days talk­ing about the lives of birds. And as a researcher with an avid inter­est in avians, she some­times spends her nights that way, too.

Mar­ried, with five pets (sur­pris­ing­ly, no birds), Kaeli enjoys nee­dle felt­ing, read­ing, run­ning and bird­watch­ing. When not work­ing or engaged with her hob­bies, you can find Kaeli involved in sci­ence out­reach, speak­ing for dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions, such as the Audubon Soci­ety, as well as to stu­dents and at senior homes. When she takes the stage at TEDxSalem in Jan­u­ary, Kaeli will share her fas­ci­na­tion with our feath­ered friends and dis­cuss the pow­er of crows to enrich our lives and con­nect us to nature.

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? Rethink­ing infi­deli­ty… a talk for any­one who has ever loved, by Esther Per­el. Amaz­ing talk on adul­tery and why peo­ple cheat.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? I think it means appre­ci­at­ing that there are dif­fer­ent ways to see the world and dif­fer­ent ways to solve prob­lems. Hav­ing cre­ativ­i­ty to see things and prob­lem solve in unique ways is real­ly great to val­ue.

What is one of your favorite child­hood mem­o­ries? Going to the golf course with grand­moth­er to catch tree frogs in Sty­ro­foam cups. Spokane (dur­ing ele­men­tary school)

What do you feel most grate­ful for in your life? Health and that of the peo­ple around me

How has your life been dif­fer­ent than what you’d imag­ined?. Less pre­dictable.

What are some of the most impor­tant lessons you’ve learned in life? How did you learn them? Resilience, prob­a­bly the biggest les­son, learned that from being knocked down a lot and hav­ing to get back up.

What is some­thing unex­pect­ed that has changed about you in the last few years? Moved to a city I nev­er thought I’d live in — small, rur­al com­mu­ni­ty.

What song best describes your life? Bird­ing by Swet Shop Boys.

If you could live in the set­ting of any book or movie, with­out nec­es­sar­i­ly being involved in the sto­ry, which would you choose? Guernsey Lit­er­ary Pota­to Peel Soci­ety. 

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? I don’t like heights and I went on one of those sling­shot reverse bungee jump attrac­tions at Ore­gon State Fair. 

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Lichen. I think they’re so pret­ty and neat. Or mush­rooms.

What is the best gift any­one has ever giv­en to you? Hus­band bought me a cam­era – DLSR Nikon. Using it for bird­watch­ing

Would you rather have a rewind but­ton or a pause but­ton on your life? Pause – Need more time to get things accom­plished, going back seems painful and futile.

Favorite book? The Poi­son­wood Bible, By Bar­bara King­solver.

Top 3 movies of the moment? Day After Tomor­row, Coco, the first Men In Black

Top 3 songs or artists? Artists – Alt‑J, Mod­est Mouse, Band of Hors­es 

Where would you go in a time machine? Pleis­tocene Era (only if ful­ly armed) 

Make one change in the world? Snap my fin­gers and make every­one appre­ci­ate the con­nec­tion between social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice.

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? Depends on my mood…

Great­est fear? US health care sys­tem. Pos­si­bil­i­ty of get­ting old with­out health care.

Some­thing some­one should know about you? “I con­sume way too much pop cul­ture.” Celebri­ty gos­sip, enter­tain­ment news, etc.

Favorite col­or? Rich yel­lows – marigold yel­low.

 

Hebah Hasan: Overcoming your past to follow your future

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It was a sim­ple ques­tion from her daugh­ter that prompt­ed her to open up about her past.

Hebah Hasan’s fam­i­ly often gath­ered around her hus­band to hear sto­ries from his child­hood. One day the daugh­ter point­ed out that she rarely shared any sto­ries from hers.

“She asked me, ‘Did you do this as a lit­tle kid? Did you [dance] bal­let, did you do gym­nas­tics, did you do music?’” said Hasan, 32, moth­er of two and a speak­er at this year’s TEDx Salem VI.

“Actu­al­ly no, I didn’t do any of that,” she said.

“It was a dif­fer­ent time and a dif­fer­ent place,” she said.

Hasan grew up in Sau­di Ara­bia.

There, women were not to cause trou­ble in school, she said. They were seen as wives and com­pan­ions to men, not col­leagues, she said. Women were not to inter­rupt men and were not allowed to sec­ond guess the teacher, she said, some­thing that would prove very dif­fi­cult for the nat­u­ral­ly pre­co­cious and inde­pen­dent Hasan.

She recalls being reg­u­lar­ly neglect­ed and ignored in her class­es grow­ing up. She also remem­bers the emo­tion­al abuse she would reg­u­lar­ly take at school. One par­tic­u­lar­ly humil­i­at­ing moment was when she had ques­tioned one teacher’s math prob­lem and had been forced to stand on one foot in the cor­ner for the remain­der of the class.

Despite the hard­ships Hasan endured, she went on to grad­u­ate from high school and com­plete her edu­ca­tion in elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing and com­put­er sci­ence. Today she works as a soft­ware engi­neer at Garmin in Salem.

Hasan is not look­ing for pity. Look­ing back on her strug­gles, she knows that they played a role in mak­ing her who she is now, she said. That’s the part of the les­son she hopes her daugh­ter hears and not the pain or the fear, she said.

“I don’t want to dis­cour­age her, it made me who I am,” Hasan said.

She will share her sto­ry on the TEDxSalem stage to pro­vide empow­er­ment, she said, and per­spec­tive.

“I would like them to look at things from a dif­fer­ent angle,” she said.

It’s a per­spec­tive she says she wants to share most of all with her son and daugh­ter.

“I want to do it for my kids, they inspire me.”

 

 

Name: Hebah Hasan

Age: 32

Edu­ca­tion: Degree in elec­tri­cal and soft­ware engi­neer­ing, com­put­er sci­ence from Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty

Posi­tion: Soft­ware team leader at Garmin Avi­a­tion

Home­town: Riyadh, Sau­di Ara­bia

Fam­i­ly: Hus­band, son and daugh­ter

Pets: Lots of pets grow­ing up, includ­ing a lizard, par­rots, bun­nies, cats and dogs, most­ly from her father who would ran­dom­ly bring them home, “just from pet store or friends or wher­ev­er.” “He got the weird­est pets ever.”

Hob­bies: Hik­ing, camp­ing, being out in nature; learn­ing gui­tar and piano

Favorite movie: Brave­heart, star­ring Mel Gib­son. “When he shout­ed, ‘Free­dom!’ How impor­tant this is [for him], to the point that he will fight for it to the end of his life.”

Favorite song: “Remem­ber This,” by NF and “The 4th Branch” by Immor­tal Tech­nique

Favorite books: Mys­tery books, espe­cial­ly the writ­ings of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle.

 

 

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. 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.

Anna Nixon: An advocate for girls in science

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Anna Nixon, Founder of STEM 4 Girls

Meet our final sur­prise speak­er for TEDxSalem V “Through the Look­ing Glass.”

Anna Nixon’s STEM career began in the sec­ond grade, when she and her father start­ing build­ing robots togeth­er in their garage. She was hooked imme­di­ate­ly.

“I loved that feel­ing of accom­plish­ment that came with final­ly get­ting a robot work­ing after hours of hard work,” she said.

Now, a senior at West­view High School in Port­land, she intends to take her pas­sions to a big­ger stage. Once she earns her degree in com­put­er sci­ence, com­put­er engi­neer­ing, or bio­med­ical engi­neer­ing, she aspires to work with robots that will be used to pro­vide med­ical aid.

Anna has learned a lot since the sec­ond grade, being involved in FIRST Robot­ics, tak­ing advanced STEM class­es in school, and start­ing a non­prof­it, STEM 4 Girls. She’s not only more knowl­edge­able and skilled, she’s become aware of the field’s chal­lenges recruit­ing and retain­ing girls and women.

Ever since Anna first joined robot­ics, she was often the only girl in the room.

“I think that the biggest chal­lenge that comes with being the only girl in the room is feel­ing the pres­sure that your actions will reflect on every girl,” she said. “And I think this is true for any minor­i­ty in any field. It’s easy to get into the mind­set of ‘If I make a mis­take peo­ple are going to think it’s because all girls are bad at this’ instead of mere­ly accept­ing your mis­take and mov­ing on. While it may seem unfound­ed, that fear of fail­ure makes you less con­fi­dent tak­ing risks or ask­ing oth­ers for help which can have a neg­a­tive impact.”

Anna’s non­prof­it, STEM4Girls, aims to solve these issues and help girls stay in STEM by build­ing up their con­fi­dence and fos­ter­ing a sup­port­ing and encour­ag­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

“Var­i­ous stud­ies have shown that girls actu­al­ly tend to do bet­ter in STEM sub­jects than their male coun­ter­parts, at least until around mid­dle school,” Anna said. “As they grow old­er, girls often tend to lose inter­est in STEM because they don’t see oth­er girls doing it or they get the mes­sage that ‘STEM is a guy thing’. Thus, the great­est sup­port that girls can get is mak­ing them feel includ­ed in the STEM com­mu­ni­ty. This means pro­vid­ing them with female role mod­els and peers that they can depend on as well elim­i­nat­ing prej­u­diced views against women in STEM.”

Join us Jan­u­ary 6 to hear more about Anna’s sto­ry and her call to action.

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.