Theme: Anything's Possible

They push past the problem and focus on the opportunity. They acknowledge the naysayers but follow to their intuition. They defy, they challenge, they think outside the box. Meet 12 people who believe Anything’s Possible.

Mira Costa High School
1401 Artesia Blvd
Manhattan Beach, California, 90266
United States

MINDIA

MINDIA is a singer-songwriter-cellist who sings and plays the cello simultaneously. An artist who brings a new kind of alternative pop sentimentality, MINDIA believes good music travels through genre and time, and is deeply connected to her artistic vision. She makes music that paints pictures and captivates moods in listeners’ minds, with elements of catchy dark pop melodies, nostalgic lyrics, classical string arrangements and intricate sound design. MINDIA is an alum of Berklee College of Music, where she studied music business as well as cello performance. She has appeared on the main stage of Outside the Box Music Festival, New England Indonesian Festival, Berklee Performance Center and numerous other venues. MINDIA is currently based in Los Angeles, where you can find her regularly on the setlist of Mint, Bar20, Federal Bar, and Mid-City Music Lounge.

Amelia Conway

Amelia Conway is a film maker of short films, music videos and commercials. She is also fourteen years old, and can’t figure out why her age is such a big deal. Amelia made her debut in the entertainment industry when she co-hosted a radio show on the internet station “Little Radio” at seven years old. Since her radio days, she has gone on to make several short films and music videos. She has worked with many well-known brands — including Toms Shoes, Beats Music and American Girl Doll — and recently directed campaigns for Target and NASCAR. Amelia has a finely-honed taste for music and old films that has served her not only in her filmmaking, but also in her musical endeavors. She has been a member of Ryan Gosling’s band “Dead Man’s Bones” in the children’s choir, and traveled on the “Railroad Revival Tour” with Mumford and Sons. For Amelia it’s not about being known as a young director, or even a girl director for that matter. It’s about being a creative director, one aimed at inspiring people of every age and gender to do what they love and pursue their passions no matter the obstacles.

Cari Urgent

Cari Lynn Ugent didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur, she is an author and a freelance journalist in Chicago. But a lengthy hospital stay for a stem-cell transplant brought about by non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, compelled her to redesign an antiquated piece of medical equipment often the bane of patients and nurses alike…the I.V. pole. When told that the unwieldy pole full of her needed medication was too dangerous to move, requiring her to use a bedpan, Cari decided to take action. After interviewing countless doctors and nurses, working with industrial designers, and prototyping for a year, Cari now holds the patent to a product she believes in — the Safepole, an I.V. pole for the 21st Century. Since its introduction, Safepole has received prolific press, awards, accolades, and is used in major medical centers around the world. Cari Lynn continues to be inspired by an Aldous Huxley quote that has stuck with her since she was a teenager: “Experience is not what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.”

David Strayer

David Strayer is a professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah. Dr. Strayer is a prolific writer and his research examines attention and multitasking in real-world contexts. Dr. Strayer is a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society, the Psychonomic Society, and is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Sciences. Most recently he received the University of Utah Distinguished Scholarly and Creative Research Award, and the Interdisciplinary Teaching Grand Award for his work on The Psychology of Traffic. Dr. Strayer acknowledges that much of the technology that has been created to promote convenience can actually have an adverse effect and overload our brain mechanisms, resulting in distractions. As a human factors psychologist, Dr. Strayer observes what he sees in the real world, links it to theory, develops hypotheses and then tests those hypotheses in his lab. What he has found has helped save lives.

Devin Fidler

Devin Fidler is the Founder of Rethinkery Labs, a research and consulting center focused on better understanding the forces shaping tomorrow’s companies. He has worked with senior leaders at dozens of Fortune 1000 companies to systematically explore emerging issues and technologies, and to analyze their potential impacts. His ongoing work at Rethinkery Labs, including developing tools for “self-driving” management, has been covered by HBR, the New York Times and a number of other publications. He argues that today, companies themselves are a technology on the verge of disruption. Devin is a frequent speaker at gatherings of business leaders and others interested in the transformation of work and organizations. He approaches projects from a strongly international perspective, having lived and worked in several countries throughout his career.

Dr. Vallerie Coleman

Dr. Val Coleman is a psychologist and psychoanalyst who founded Stand InBalance, Equine Assisted Growth, Learning & Psychotherapy after experiencing the powerful and profound changes that can occur through partnership with horses. Firmly believing that facilitated interaction with equines can help us become better humans, Dr. Val and her team integrate psychology, group dynamics and systems to help children, families, and organizations maximize their potential. An accomplished presenter, Dr. Coleman has been on faculty at Loyola Marymount University, the Newport Psychoanalytic Institute, and Antioch University. She is also a contributing author in the books Harnessing the Power of Equine Assisted Counseling and in the upcoming Equine-Assisted Therapy Activities for Counselors. An exciting highlight for her work as an equine assisted psychotherapist was appearing as a guest expert on the Dr. Phil show.

Emily Angstreich

Emily Angstreich is a Senior at Mira Costa High School. She has played flute in many of her school’s ensembles as well as the Colburn Youth Orchestra and participates in Model UN as a student and a Senior Teacher. She also struggles with depression and anxiety. For some reason, the last sentence always stops people and makes them question everything about her. She sees how the stigma of being “mentally ill” affects individuals, families and communities. That’s why Emily is dedicated to mental health awareness, so depression and anxiety no longer carry shame but are just another part of life. Emily is a member of Mira Costa’s Social and Emotional Wellness Committee, which helps shape policies surrounding student stress and wellness. She is also the co-founder of Headstrong, a club that works to create a more open environment when talking about mental health on campus, as well as what we as a community can do to help those around us.

Gregor Trpin

A native of Vancouver, Canada, Gregor Trpin has been a teacher for over 10 years, the last four contributing to the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. Aside from teaching, Gregor’s background includes television acting, theater credits, and extensive experience as an acting coach, writer and director. Gregor has always held an admiration for classical poetry and plays, and enjoys intertwining his passions of performance arts and education in his slam poetry. Current and future projects include increasing awareness for further literacy development, as well as leading conversations for more balanced literacy. Through this work, Gregor hopes to promote reflection, self-discovery and openness that inspires teachers to take ownership of their instruction and create authentic learning opportunities for their students.

Kari Kroft

Kari Croft’s experiences growing up in South Carolina shaped her love for learning and solidified her belief that education is the key to a more equitable society. Today she is the founder and principal of RISE High School in Los Angeles, a school designed to better meet the unique needs of homeless, foster youth and other students with diverse learning requirements. Upon graduation with a BA in English Literature, she taught high school English on both coasts before returning to school to receive her Masters in Educational Leadership from Harvard Graduate School of Education. Once back in Los Angeles, she formed a school design team and in 2015 led them to win one of ten slots in the XQ: Super School Grant Project launched by Laurene Powell Jobs and Russlynn Ali. After years of planning, hiring and fundraising, RISE High School launches in the Fall of 2017 with thirty excited students.

Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides

Loretta is passionate about space. She and her husband George are the co-creators of Yuri’s Night — The World Space Party celebrated April 12th every year, all over the planet. They are also “Founder Astronauts” with tickets for a sub-orbital spaceflight on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Unity. Loretta has also spent over five hours floating weightless (30 seconds at a time) in a 727 aircraft as a Flight Director for Zero-G Corporation. Trained as an astrobiologist at Stanford and Caltech, Loretta has been to the Canadian Arctic to study plant life in extreme environments and to the hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean alongside “Titanic” director, James Cameron, to film the 3D IMAX documentary, “Aliens of the Deep.” She is currently a Jedi Trainer and working on a book called “The New Right Stuff” which uses space as an inspirational backdrop and powerful reminder of what we are capable of as a species.

Mindia Mindia

MINDIA is a singer-songwriter-cellist who sings and plays the cello simultaneously. An artist who brings a new kind of alternative pop sentimentality, MINDIA believes good music travels through genre and time, and is deeply connected to her artistic vision. She makes music that paints pictures and captivates moods in listeners’ minds, with elements of catchy dark pop melodies, nostalgic lyrics, classical string arrangements and intricate sound design. MINDIA is an alum of Berklee College of Music, where she studied music business as well as cello performance. She has appeared on the main stage of Outside the Box Music Festival, New England Indonesian Festival, Berklee Performance Center and numerous other venues. MINDIA is currently based in Los Angeles, where you can find her regularly on the setlist of Mint, Bar20, Federal Bar, and Mid-City Music Lounge.

Myles Spar

With a strong commitment to improving healthcare access among all populations, Dr. Myles Spar partners with his patients to help them achieve and maintain optimal health, and invest in their own well-being. Applying his broad and extensive experiences in traditional, integrative and international humanitarian medicine, he brings a fresh perspective to his work as a physician in underserved patient clinics and men’s healthcare. Dr. Spar worked with Doctors without Borders in Guatemala, Nigeria, Uganda and Nagorno-Karabakh, and served on the Board of Directors for three years. Today he is Director of Integrative Medicine at the Simms-Mann Health and Wellness Center of Venice Family Clinic, a Health and Wellness Consultant at the Coburn School of Music, a clinical instructor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and the principal investigator of a multi-site research study on integrative approaches to chronic pain. Recognizing the different approaches to medicine around the world, Dr. Spar founded the non-profit Integrative Medicine Access and became a Governor of California appointed member to the State Committee of Naturopathic Medicine. He currently sits on the Medical Advisor Committee at Beach Cities Health District and he is now writing Optimal Men’s Health for Oxford University Press.

Nancy Segal

Dr. Nancy L. Segal has been seeing double since 1982. As a post-doctoral fellow and research associate at the University of Minnesota, she worked on the well-known Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. A fraternal twin herself, Dr. Segal founded the Twin Studies Center at CSU Fullerton, where she is also a Professor of Psychology. Nancy’s current interests include the behavioral and physical development of twins, the nature of twins’ social relationships, Korean twins separated at birth, the behavioral development of Chinese twins adopted internationally, the behavioral consequences of twin loss, and the personality similarity of unrelated look-alikes. Her work illustrates that by using twins as “living laboratories” we can sort out which aspects of twins’ lives are influenced by genetic inheritance, and in turn begin to “lay bare the basis of human behavior.” Dr. Segal is an award-winning author and recipient of several international honors. Her hobbies include swing dancing, watching old movies and traveling to exotic locations. Her three proudest moments were having one of her books become an answer on Jeopardy, being pictured on a Pepsi can at a Madrid Congress and riding in an elevator with Eleanor Roosevelt.

Osonde Osoba

Osonde Osoba (pronounced “oh-shOwn-day aw-shAw-bah”) is a researcher and data scientist at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He has a background in the design and optimization of machine learning algorithms. He has applied his expertise to diverse policy topics such as epidemiology, defense acquisition, and science and technology policy. His recent focus has been on data privacy and accountability in algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence. Prior to joining RAND, Dr. Osoba’s research at the University of Southern California (USC) was focused on improving the speed and robustness of popular statistical algorithms, specifically expectation-maximization, neural networks, and Bayesian inference. When he’s not lecturing, writing or registering patents, you can find O Pé (Osonde’s apelido) substitute teaching and event organizing for the United Capoeira Association in Los Angeles (UCAinLA) and enjoying his practice of this Afro-Brazilian art form.

Raul Polit-Casillas

Raul Polit Casillas grew up around fabrics. His mother is a fashion designer in Spain and even at a young age, he was intrigued by how materials are used for design. Now, a systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he still is very much in the world of textiles. He and his colleagues are designing advanced woven metal fabrics for use in space through 3-D printing techniques. Polit-Casillas calls it “4-D printing” because they can print both the geometry and the function of these special materials which may someday shield a spacecraft from meteorites, fortify an astronaut’s spacesuit, or capture objects on the surface of another planet. Polit Casillas is the recipient of numerous JPL, NASA and AES Awards. He co-leads JPL’s Atelier, a workshop that does rapid prototyping of advanced concepts and systems. He is a Space Technology Program Office Collaborator with external companies such as Walt Disney Animation Studios, Autodesk and Frank Gehry Studio. He is the founder of both the Entasis Mecanika, a freelance initiative for architecture, technology and design, and the Aliter International Symposium Series in Space Architecture. He is also the curator and director of the 2012 Inhabiting Cosmos International Exhibition Series at the IVAM Museum of Modern Art, and sits on the AIAA Space Architecture Technical Committee (SATC).

Sebastian Gendry

Sebastien Gendry is a France-born American Laughterpreneur. In the early 2000s, a work-related burnout and ensuing journey towards recovery led him to discover, and fall in love with, the world of laughter. He is the creator of the Laughter Wellness method and has played a major role in introducing Laughter Therapy in North America, Russia and other countries. Sebastien has travelled close to one million miles offering a variety of laughter programs to thousands and continues to teach every year on four continents. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, 60 minutes, ABCs Good Morning America, National Public Radio and many more national media outlets in the USA and abroad. Sebastien is also the Founder and CEO of the Laughter Online University, a leading provider of eLearning solutions on Laughter Therapy with students world-wide in 82 countries, and The Laughter Consultants, LLC, a team of professional well-being experts based in Laugh Angeles, California.

Sebastian Gentry

Sebastien Gendry is a France-born American Laughterpreneur. In the early 2000s, a work-related burnout and ensuing journey towards recovery led him to discover, and fall in love with, the world of laughter. He is the creator of the Laughter Wellness method and has played a major role in introducing Laughter Therapy in North America, Russia and other countries. Sebastien has travelled close to one million miles offering a variety of laughter programs to thousands and continues to teach every year on four continents. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, 60 minutes, ABCs Good Morning America, National Public Radio and many more national media outlets in the USA and abroad. Sebastien is also the Founder and CEO of the Laughter Online University, a leading provider of eLearning solutions on Laughter Therapy with students world-wide in 82 countries, and The Laughter Consultants, LLC, a team of professional well-being experts based in Laugh Angeles, California.

Shivani Sharma

Dr. Shivani Sharma holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. She serves as Associate Director for the NanoPico Characterization Lab at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. Her primary area of expertise is nanomedicine, structural biology and biomarker development. She is a founding member of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) and has chaired sessions as well as delivered invited talks at several International/National conferences related to exosomes and cancer diagnostics. Shivani serves on the Editorial board of two Journals. Her award-winning work has been featured worldwide. A Clinical & Translational Science Institute fellow at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, she also pursues active interest in enhancing academic-industry research collaborations for biomedical technology translation. She is a proud mom of twins, and her favorite TED Talk is Stuart Fierstein: The Pursuit of Ignorance.