TEDxMiramonte High School

Speakers

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

• Bridget Harwood

  Student at Miramonte High School

  Bridget is a high school junior, avid runner, voracious reader, and aspiring scientist! Like most people, Bridget has struggled with pessimistic thoughts that always assume the worst of other people and their opinions of her. This speech is all about the negative, presumptive mindset so many of us hold, and how we all can move on from it. She will use her own personal experiences, scientific research, and professional opinion on social interaction, judgment, loneliness, and mindset, to discuss the implications of judging strangers too quickly and explain what happens to us when we live in constant fear of other people’s opinions. She will further explore the importance of giving the benefit of the doubt and propose some practical ways we can see the good in other people, to think more considerately and less judgmentally.

• Lorelei Keenan

  Student at Miramonte High School

  Lorelei Keenan is a veteran Congressional Debate speaker, Varsity basketball player, Special Olympics coach, and sister to her triplet brother, who happens to have Down syndrome. In her presentation “No Joe Rogan, We are not Bringing Back the R-Word,” Lorelei will challenge recent cultural conversations about language and inclusion, tracing the harmful history of this particular slur while examining what’s at stake for the disability community if society steps backward on progress we’ve already made. Combining rigorous research with personal insight, Lorelei offers a compelling case for why our words matter—and why some battles for human dignity are worth fighting again.

• Olivia Park

  Student at Miramonte High School

  Olivia is a veteran public speaker, a wrestler, an SAT tutor, a Business Analyst Intern, and have multiple international recognitions for her history skills. Yet out of all her roles, her title of Gender and Women’s Equity President gets the biggest reaction. Principally, the ideas behind equality for all genders seem like something everyone should agree on. However, Olivia finds, the mere mention of feminism has somehow been misconstrued into something else. In her speech, Olivia plans to guide audience members through the history of why the mere word "feminism" has become polarizing. She will explore the dissonance between the actual definition of feminism is and what the discourse around it has evolved into in modern-day society. Finally, I will zero in on why this difference is so important to modern-day political conversations around enacting the principles of feminism.

• Rishi Haldar

  Student at Miramonte High School

  Rishi Haldar is currently a senior at Miramonte High School and plans to study economics in college with a focus on math and history. For the past few months, Rishi has undergone an intensive data-driven research project under mentorship from a Clemson economics professor, which will be the focus of his speech. In this project, Rishi explored the long-term economic impacts of 1930s HOLC redlining in the San Francisco Bay Area through census modeling and analysis. In his talk, Rishi will go over the different models he used and explain what critical insight into redlining, socioeconomic, and historical trends can provide us insight towards.

• Sebastian Ziegler

  Student at Miramonte High School

  Sebastian is a senior at Miramonte High School with experience in learning and productivity science. He has co-authored a literature review research paper with a Cal Poly Pomona professor and written an essay on “Learning to Learn,” highlighted in a Pearson report at the World Economic Forum, and I am currently working on an advocacy project that contributes to UN Sustainable Development #4: Quality education under the MLK III Youth Council. In his talk, Sebastian will share his ideas regarding pedagogies, the idea of “learning to learn”, and how AI can not only intersect but also supplement education, critical thinking, and productivity in and out of the classroom.

• Weston Benner

  Student at Stanford University

  Weston Benner is a freshman at Stanford University, studying the intersection of artificial intelligence and education. When he's not multitasking with startingly little efficiency or serving as an EMT, he is likely meeting new people or trying to bake the perfect brownie! His speech centers on the tension between the rapid progress of artificial intelligence and the backward rippling effects it has on youth, most of all high school students. Society celebrates AI breakthroughs, from transformers to GPUs, and obsesses over companies like Nvidia. But while everyone is talking about technology and profits, he argues that we’ve overlooked the most important question: what is AI doing to us?