TEDxWoodsHole

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• David Hanson

  David Hanson founded Hanson Robotics in 2003 “to awaken intelligent robotic beings, grant them sparks of true consciousness and creativity, and distribute these beings and their constituent technologies into the world.” Since then, the Hanson Robotics team has introduced a renowned series of the world’s most lifelike intelligent robots, enlivened by Hanson’s breakthrough technologies including Frubber™ skin material, and Character Engine cognition software. Hanson received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in film/animation/video and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas. He has also worked as a sculptor and a technical consultant at Walt Disney Imagineering. He has earned awards from NASA, the National Science Foundation and Cooper Hewitt Design, and has appeared with his robots at major conferences, including TED in 2009.

• Roger Hanlon

  Roger Hanlon is a diving biologist who has published more than 160 scientific papers, with emphasis on camouflage and communication signals in marine animals. His research on the amazing camouflage skills of octopus, squid and cuttlefish has uncovered some basic principles of camouflage and he is now exploring whether the principles apply to all animals, both terrestrial and aquatic. Hanlon is also collaborating with materials scientists and nanotechnologists to develop “metamaterials” which—like squid skin—are observant, adaptive, and responsive to the environment.

• Jennifer Pogue

  Jennifer Pogue is a third-generation Woods Hole summer resident and is on the Board of Overseers for the MBL. After finishing her medical training in plastic and reconstructive surgery and a fellowship in hand surgery, she established a private practice in Stamford and Greenwich, Conn., with academic privileges at Yale Medical Center. She participated as a volunteer for SMILE, performing cleft lip and palate surgery in Ecuador; and for Amigos De Las Americas, administering immunizations in Honduras. She left her medical practice in 1999 and became the chief Business and Financial Officer of Pogue Press, a publishing company of computer books. Currently, she is in transition to a new profession. In addition to being a long-time TED attendee, Pogue spoke at TEDLong Beach 2011 and is on the TEDxWoodsHole planning committee.

• Sylvia Earle

  Sylvia Earle is an oceanographer, explorer, author, lecturer, formerly chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), leader of the NGS Sustainable Seas Expeditions, council chair for the Harte Research Institute, and founder of Mission Blue and the Sylvia Earle Alliance. Founder of three companies, she has decades of service on various corporate and non-profit boards including Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. A graduate of St. Petersburg College and Florida State University, she holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University and 20 honorary doctorates. Named as Time Magazine’s first Hero for the Planet, Living Legend by the Library of Congress, and 2009 TED Prize winner, she has authored 180 publications, led more than 100 expeditions with 7,000 hours of diving, lectured in more than 70 countries, and received more than 100 national and international awards including the Netherlands Order of the Golden Ark, The Explorers Club Medal, and the Royal Geographical Society’s 2011 Patrons Medal for Exploration.

• Chris Reddy

  Chris Reddy studies oil spills and other contaminants in the marine environment. His work focuses on answering questions such as: How long will oil persist at a particular location and why? When should there be human intervention at contaminated sites, and when can Mother Nature handle the job? How “clean” is “clean”? Most recently, he has been studying the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Reddy is also investigating several other spills as well as natural oil seeps off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., and oil leaking from a World War II wreck. He was a 2006 Fellow in the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program, which provides academic researchers with the skills and connections they need to be effective leaders and communicators. Reddy has taken this charge to heart, providing hundreds of interviews to the media, writing provocative op-ed articles on science and scientist-media interactions, and teaching courses on science

• John Bates

  John Bates is a consultant in the arena of online computer games and virtual goods. Since 2006 he has been a consultant for MindArk, creators of EntropiaUniverse.com, and he is currently also working with WEMO Media, a next generation digital studio from Venice, Calif. WEMO Media is pioneering an art and entertainment project inspired by the ocean, theblu.com, in collaboration with Academy Award winning animators, universities, artists, and developers from around the world. Bates was formerly online services director for Virtual Vegas (since sold to Vivendi), co-founder of BIGWORDS.com, and global market developer for Goldstar.com, where he was also the first employee and manager of venue relations. He has spoken at hundreds of conferences, business schools and other venues all over the world, including speaking at TEDActive during the 2011 TED Conference.

• Max Holmes

  Max Holmes is an earth system scientist with broad interests in the responses and feedbacks of coupled land-ocean systems to environmental and global change. Most of his current research focuses on large rivers and their watersheds and addresses how climate change and other disturbances are impacting the cycles of water and chemicals in the environment. Holmes has several ongoing projects in the Arctic (field sites in Russia, Canada, and Alaska) and more recently has begun working on large rivers in Africa, Asia, and South America. He is strongly committed to integrating education and outreach into his research projects, particularly by exposing K-12 and undergraduate students to the excitement of scientific research.

• New York Polyphony

  New York Polyphony is gaining a reputation as the preeminent male classical vocal quartet in the fields of early and new music. The quartet’s members (Geoffrey Williams, countertenor; Geoffrey Silver, tenor; Christopher Dylan Herbert, baritone; and Craig Phillips, bass) deliver dynamic performances in a wide range of styles. Their current CD, Tudor City, is a synthesis of ancient and contemporary vocal music that Minnesota Public Radio calls a “stunning tour through chant, polyphony and renaissance harmonies.” The CD spent three weeks in the Top 10 of Billboard’s classical album chart, cracked the Top 5 on iTunes classical, and hit No. 1 on Amazon’s MP3 albums list.

• Chris Linder

  Chris Linder uses photography to educate and inspire the public about science. He works closely with researchers in the field, documenting them as they study the environment—whether it’s from the deck of a ship, amid a penguin colony, or in the tropical jungle. His education and training as an oceanographer give him a special insight into photographing science. Since 2002, Linder has photographed more than two dozen research expeditions, including 14 to the polar regions. His photographs have been featured in museum exhibits, including at the Field Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and in books, calendars, and magazines worldwide. He is the author of Science on Ice: Four Polar Expeditions (University of Chicago Press, 2011) and The Photographer’s Guide to Cape Cod: Where to Find the Perfect Shots and How to Take Them (Countryman Press, 2007).

• Diane Cowan

  Diane Cowan founded the Lobster Conservancy in 1996 to improve biological knowledge of the American lobster and applying it to fishery and environmental management. She was formerly an assistant professor at Bates College and has served the State of Maine’s Department of Marine Resources as chief lobster biologist and leader of the Division of Biological Monitoring for the lobster, shrimp, herring and urchin fisheries. Cowan earned her Ph.D. from the Boston University Marine Program and continued her studies as a fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1999 and 2005.

• Ron Zweig

  Ron Zweig served as a staff member of the World Bank (1992-2006), where he worked as a technical specialist and task manager on programs that involved environmental assessment and management of aquatic resources, including freshwater, brackish and marine aquaculture; inland and costal fisheries; marine and inland aquatic sanctuaries; lake and reservoir fisheries management; coastal zone planning and management; and biodiversity conservation projects. Much of this work focused on poverty reduction through the direct engagement of women and other disenfranchised groups in those activities in Asia. As an ecosystem modeler, Zweig developed ecological and economic mathematical simulation models and a training game of integrated aquaculture systems. Before joining the World Bank staff, Zweig worked on similar activities for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), World Food Program, United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), U.S. government agencies, private sector entities, and NGOs as well as for the World Bank as a consultant. Zweig led the New Alchemy Institute’s aquaculture program in Falmouth, Massachusetts, from 1975 to 1985. He presently consults on the above topics is a proponent of renewable energy and conservation programs. He is the Falmouth representative to the Cape Light Compact; is on the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Board of Overseers; and is the president of the Coonamessett Farm Foundation. He has more than 50 publications in scientific and popular journals.

• Colleen Flanigan

  Currently living in Portland, Oregon, and raised along the Monterey Peninsula in California, Colleen Flanigan has been listening to the ocean tide for much of her life. Her background is in design, jewelry, steel sculptures, conceptual and interactive mixed media, and ball-and-socket armatures for stop-motion animation (including for the feature movie “Coraline.”) Through her socio-ecological alter egos, Miss Snail Pail and Amphitrite, Flanigan has joined the voices defending our natural resources as an interventionist artist. The documentary “On the Trail with Miss Snail Pail” has been screened at four environmental film festivals since 2009. As Amphitrite, goddess of the sea, Flanigan leads coral restoration re-enactments. Working with an international team in Cancun last summer, she built a steel sculpture inspired by DNA for the underwater Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA). Colleen is in the first class of TED Senior Fellows.

• John Francis

  John Francis, known the world over as the Planetwalker, began his environmental work in 1971, when he witnessed a tanker collision and oil spill in San Francisco Bay. He gave up the use of motorized vehicles and began to walk, because he felt partly responsible for the mess that washed up on the shore. Several months later, on his 27th birthday, because of the arguments his decision to walk seemed to create, John took a vow of silence that lasted 17 years. During that time of silence, Francis founded Planetwalk, a nonprofit environmental awareness organization, and received a B.S. degree from Southern Oregon State College, a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana-Missoula, and a Ph.D. in Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is currently a visiting professor. He later sailed and walked through the Caribbean and then walked the length of South America. Upon ending his silence, Francis served as project manager for the U.S. Coast Guard Oil Pollution Act Staff of 1990, in Washington, D.C., and participated in writing international oil spill regulations. He is the author of The Ragged Edge of Silence (2011) and Planetwalker: 17 Years of Silence, 22 Years of Walking (2008), both published by National Geographic Books.

• Ben Dubin-Thaler