TED Community

effective science writing and communication. I think science and technology should be accessible to everyone, not just individuals with a PhD!

One person with one idea that can change the lives of many

I graduated from Bucknell with a degree in engineering. I worked in construction management for a year after that and didn't like the politics or the people. I left and started my own photography studio, Glacier NYC. That's been my work for the last five years. I still know how the brownstones on my block are built, and I can tell you why they've held up for 130 years when some of the newer stuff uptown probably won't. One thing I notice on Strivers' Row that most people wouldn't is that the buildings here are a little shorter than the brownstone blocks on the Upper West Side. Seems like a small thing but it's not. Shorter buildings let more light down into the street and you can feel the difference when you walk down the blocks. The corner I come back to most with my camera is 138th and Frederick Douglass (partly because my laundromat and my grocery store are on that corner). I've shot the buildings there in every light and weather condition: midday, sunset, cloudy mornings, early evening, snow, rain. The road got repaved last year and looks better now. The buildings themselves haven't changed. Out of my home studio, I've photographed headshots for about 400 people in the last five years. They were actors who were getting ready for an audition. A founder who was fundraising and needed marketing assets. My neighbors. Half the job is lighting and framing while the other half is talking to the person. I have to have my lighting, framing, and photography skills down and muscle memorized in order to focus on the subject 100 percent during the session. Getting the shot is all about getting the subject to forget that they are in front of a camera. That's what I bring to TEDx. I live on the block, I volunteer in the community every week, I'm the person on the block people call when outsiders show up, and I've spent five years in my studio getting people to drop the stiff version of themselves and act normal in front of a camera. It’s only natural that a live stage makes sense for the next step.

I spend a lot of my time thinking about educational design, and how schools can be transformed to respond to the emerging challenges of the coming century.

Collaborative creativity

people - learning - teaching - meditation - being true and warm-hearted - body, mind and soul - music - literature - religion - India - science - Kalaripayattu- spirituality - friendship

Starting things, empowering youth, transformative education, food and cooking, traveling, meeting new people, being on stage, tinkering around...

Creating art with no inhibitions.

Books (I am a bookworm!), Comics and animation(Japanese ones), Cinema, TV series, Travelling, New worlds and people.

people.

Helping single and independant mothers, fund raising for charity, education for the future generation.