Becca Cleveland-Stout

I've lived in McMinnville, Oregon for most of my life. I went to a Japanese school for three years, then transferred to Oregon Episcopal School in Portland, where I was very involved in theater, music, student policy, sports, and student leadership initiatives. I was especially involved in the student service learning committee, which organized events such as the annual food and toiletries drive for partner schools. I was the student leader of Cereal Thursday, a program that collects cereal every month to donate to the nearby Community Transitional School. CTS is a school for children without permanent addresses, and these children are also often without access to healthy breakfast food. I acted as the captain of the school lacrosse team, and played as a varsity athlete on the soccer team. Since 2010, my school in Portland has been in a partnership with a school in Haiti. As a sophomore and junior, I worked very hard with administration to try to make the partnership an active one; I designed an action plan, presented it to the head of school, and gathered a group of teachers, students, parents, and administrative members to work towards making the plan a reality. In February of 2013, I visited Haiti as an ambassador of my school, and met with the head of the partner school. Although, ultimately, the partnership did not succeed due to infrastructural problems, designing the action plan gave me leadership experience, as well as experience dealing with large institutions. In terms of formal training in different disciplines, I received leadership training at the Mercy Corps Global Leadership workshop. In 2012, I attended the Sewanee Young Writers' Conference. I also participated in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Summer Seminar for High School Juniors in 2013. I've volunteered at various organizations, such as Broetje Orchards and AMOR. I've always been incredibly passionate about travel; I love making connections with people from around the world. In 2013, I moved to Costa Rica to attend United World College Costa Rica with students from over 80 different countries. At UWC Costa Rica, I have been involved in student council, the financial committee, and the school musical. I was also a speaker at the 2014 TEDxUWCCR event.

I'm passionate about learning, about music, about theater, about creativity. I'm passionate about new ideas, about reading, about soccer, and about making unexpected connections.

Recently, I gave a TEDxUWCCR talk about using mushrooms to clean up marine oil spills. Last year, my classmate Lauren and I conducted an experiment studying the time- and cost-efficiency of using a "mycoboom," on oil spills, which is essentially a burlap sack filled with straw, sawdust, and mushrooms. The straw and sawdust work to absorb the oil, while the mushrooms degrade it. We found that using the mycoboom costs significantly less than using any of the more conventional methods of oil spill remediation, like technology that rotates on the water's surface to collect oil. The mycoboom also works much more quickly than these other methods. I believe that, sometimes, solutions to environmental problems are much simpler than they appear, and are often sitting right in front of us, if only we would look.

Throughout my education, I've seen dozens of TED talks; in an effort to prove the power of good public speaking skills, my teachers would show TED talks given by particularly gifted orators. I'd leave the classroom impressed by whatever new idea the speaker had presented, but the talks had little impact on my normal life. This year, a group of students at my school, United World College Costa Rica, curated a TEDx event, and I volunteered to speak. The event was spectacular; being able to go onstage and speak about my passions with the audience was such an incredibly empowering experience. The best part, though, was watching my fellow speakers, most of whom were my classmates, share their ideas on such a global platform. I love that I go to school with people who have such an interest in the world around them, people who are able to see a problem and propose a solution. I was inspired. I began to believe in TED.

People don't know I'm good at music. I know some piano, I've sung in choirs, and am now, slowly, trying to teach myself guitar. I love to hear about what other musicians are involved in or working on.