Theme: Perspectives

A glass with water to the middle. Do you see it as half-full, or half-empty?

In the famous optical illusion, you see an old woman, and I see a young lady.

When the the Voyager 1 left the solar system, humans saw their home—the Earth—as we never had before. We were no longer at the center of the universe, but living on a “tiny, pale blue dot” in the vastness of space.

We hear it all the time: Perspective is everything. But how are our perspectives formed? How often are we aware of them, how often do we examine them, when making decisions? Who, or what, is influencing our perspectives—the forces both seen and unseen?

Once we are aware of our perspective, is there value in breaking from it? Can conflicts be solved with the empathy gained from seeing things from new perspectives, or is there more to it? Haven’t the great breakthroughs in history been a result of the artist, scientist or entrepreneur seeing things from new angles? Then why haven’t we learned to do it better, and more often?

TEDxSonomaCounty will bring together leading thinkers and doers to explore these questions and more as they explore the theme, Perspectives.

Jackson Theater at Sonoma Country Day School
4400 Day School Place
Santa Rosa, California, 95403
United States

Amar Hanspal with the Elsie Allen Drumline

Host, and our mystery guest!

Amar Hanspal is the host of TEDxSonomaCounty 2016: Perspectives. The mystery guest was the Elsie Allen Drumline, a group of fourteen students from Elsie Allen High School in Santa Rosa, California. They are led by music teacher, Kyle Thompson.

Matt Nightingale and Luanne Nightingale

Human Resources

Matt Nightingale works as a church musician and educator, and was an Evangelical music minister for eighteen years, directing choirs, bands and ensembles. He leads a very active and influential Facebook community related to worship/music in his denomination. Luanne Nightingale works as the Human Resources Director at the Volunteer Center of Sonoma County. She has a passion for serving in the nonprofit sector, and a Broadway-worthy singing voice that can only be heard in her car while on road trips or stuck in traffic.

Royal Jelly Jive

Infectious sounds of swingin’ horns, gritty keys and a bumpin’ rhythm

Royal Jelly Jive combines elements of soul, rock, swing and hip-hop, shaking up every dance-party and grooving harder than your typical rock n’ roll band dares to go. Fronted by enigmatic singer Lauren Bjelde, the band has quickly ascended to become one of the Bay Area’s most anticipated acts. After releasing their debut album to a packed house at Slim’s in late 2014, they hit the road and and have been touring non-stop ever since.

Gregory Clark

Economist, Professor

Gregory Clark is a Professor of Economics at UC Davis, an editor of the European Review of Economic History, chair of the steering committee of the All-UC Group in Economic History, and a Research Associate of the Center for Poverty Research at Davis. Professor Clark’s path from the rain of the West of Scotland to the sunshine of California was by way of degrees at King’s College, Cambridge, and Harvard, and faculty positions at Stanford University and University of Michigan.

Kevin Lafferty

Ecologist, Professor

Kevin Lafferty received a Ph.D. in Ecology from UC Santa Barbara in 1991. After postdoctoral work at UCLA and as a professional researcher, he joined United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 1996, where he is a principal investigator with the Western Ecological Research Center. He is also an adjunct faculty at UC Santa Barbara, associate resident director of the UCSB Coal Oil Point Natural Reserve, and the surf team faculty advisor. His research focuses on infectious diseases in marine systems.

Lee Ross

Professor, Political Science and Social Psychology

Lee Ross, a professor of psychology at Stanford University since 1969, teaches courses in the application of social psychology to bargaining, negotiation, conflict resolution, and broader public policy issues. He is a co-founder of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation and the coauthor of the books Human Inference and The Person and Situation, as well as nearly one hundred journal articles and book chapters.

Mark Trautwein

Editor, KQED's Perspectives

Mark Trautwein has been editor of Perspectives, KQED Public Radio’s daily series of listener commentaries, since 1999. Previously, he was on the staff of the US House Interior Committee and was responsible for the committee’s jurisdiction over parks, public lands and wilderness. He was a staff writer for Congress’ Environmental Study Conference, holds a degree in journalism from UC Berkeley, and has worked as a newspaper reporter.

Mary Carouba

Educator, Performance Artist, Writer

Mary Carouba is a popular speaker, performer, and coauthor of the critically acclaimed Women at Ground Zero: Stories of Courage and Compassion, a book that honors the women heroes of 9/11. Mary is currently involved with The Delancey Street Honors Program at Solano Prison, which aims to reduce recidivism rates by dramatically changing prison culture. She is writing a book and one-woman play, Life, Death and Other Comedies.

Michael Muller

Photographer

Michael Muller is a leading entertainment and fashion photographer. His celebrity portraits of Joaquin Phoenix, Brad Pitt, Scarlett Johansson and many others have graced the pages and covers of magazines such as Vanity Fair, Elle and Rolling Stone. He also creates iconic images for numerous movie posters such as The Avengers, Guardians of The Galaxy, and Iron Man. Michael’s book, Sharks, published by Taschen in 2016, is filled with images from his close-up underwater shark photography.

Phil Kauffold

Technical Animator

Phillip Kauffold studied Animation at Art Institute of California San Francisco. He got his start in video games working on Tomb Raider: Anniversary at Crystal Dynamics. He eventually managed the cinematics pipeline, which lead to a whole new career path where he could use both his artistic and technical skills. Phil started teaching character and creature rigging at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 2012. He continues to work on multiple virtual reality projects.

Rick Meyerowitz

Illustrator, Satirist

Rick Meyerowitz began contributing illustrated articles to National Lampoon in April 1970. He painted both the poster for “Animal House,” and the Lampoon’s most iconic visual, the “Mona Gorilla,” which has been called “One of the enduring icons of American humor” His recent book, “DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD: The Writers and Artists Who Made the National Lampoon Insanely Great” was published by Abrams. More recently, Rick was insanely pleased to have painted the poster for the documentary film, “DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD, The Story of the National Lampoon.” Shortly after 9/11, Rick and Maira Kalman created the New Yorker cover they called “NewYorkistan,” about which the New York Times wrote: “When their cover came out, a dark cloud seemed to lift.” Rick would like to point out that the lifting of one little cloud will hardly put a dent in the pall hovering over us these days, but he doesn’t want to be a bummer, so he won’t.

Rose McDermott

Social Psychologist

Rose McDermott is the David and Mariana Fisher University Professor of International Relations at Brown University and a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Although seventy years of political science research has demonstrated that social experience helps influence the development of political ideology, Rose McDermott shows that is only half the story; genetic factors also contribute, making political ideology partly hereditary as well. Rose McDermott is the David and Mariana Fisher University Professor of International Relations at Brown University and a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She received her Ph.D.(Political Science) and M.A. (Experimental Social Psychology) from Stanford University and has taught at Cornell, UC Santa Barbara and Harvard. She is the author of four books, a coeditor of two additional volumes, and author of over two hundred academic articles across a wide variety of disciplines.