TEDxDoncaster Women

Speakers

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

• Dr Bethany Rossington

  Dental Surgeon, entrepreneur, author, mentor and speaker

  Dr Bethany Rossington is a multi-award-winning dental surgeon, entrepreneur, author, mentor and speaker. She edited the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Dentistry and has authored widely for peer-reviewed journals. Alongside her surgical career, she has built a successful non-surgical cosmetic medicine clinic. Her work focuses on how professionals make complex decisions where science, technology and human insight intersect and how those decisions shape both outcomes and professional integrity.

• Jill North

  Professional Development Facilitator at DN Colleges Group

  Jill North is a Professional Development Facilitator at DN Colleges Group, working at the heart of Further Education in Doncaster. The daughter of a coal miner, she grew up in a community where precision, trust, and shared responsibility were not ideals - they were necessities. That upbringing now shapes how she thinks about AI in education: not as something for people from other places, but as a tool for helping every learner - including ESOL and SEND students - see that the future is not closed to them.

• Miranda Badminton Lavender

  Lecturer and advocate

  Miranda Badminton Lavender is a Sheffield-based lecturer and advocate who trained at an international law firm before pivoting into legal academia aged 29; a role she loves for the privilege of working with inspirational young adults from across South Yorkshire. In 2024, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, a diagnosis missed by two separate screening tests. When informed it was incurable, rather than resigning herself to this fate, she was propelled into action and turned to AI as one of many tools in her search for answers and possibilities. Miranda now sits on the Lived Experience Panel of the Ella Dawson Foundation and is involved in advocacy and research regarding cervical cancer screening and vaccination. Miranda is passionate about speaking about how knowledge and advocacy has the potential to be, quite literally, lifesaving.

• Tasmiha Arif

  Chief Information Security Officer

  Tasmiha Arif is a Chief Information Security Officer with expertise spanning identity security, threat intelligence, and the ethical dimensions of AI-driven change. Her professional work advising boards and security leaders on how technology reshapes power, risk, and human decision-making informs a wider conviction: that every technological revolution demands intentional leadership, not passive adoption. She brings the lens of a security professional to one of the most urgent questions of our time - who controls the systems that are reshaping us.

• Terri-Leigh Liddle

  Performance mindset coach and founder of Master Your Performance

  Terri-Leigh Liddle is a performance mindset coach and founder of Master Your Performance, working with entrepreneurs and professionals navigating growth, pressure and change. Originally a primary school teacher, she saw early how people are shaped to fit systems rather than understand themselves. Leaving teaching marked the start of her own journey to figure out who she was beyond expectations - after years of feeling like a product of what others said she should be. That experience now shapes her work, helping people make clearer decisions, avoid burnout and build success that actually feels like theirs.

• Valerie Tchikhiaeva

  Legal researcher, entrepreneur and public speaker

  Valerie Tchikhiaeva is a legal researcher, entrepreneur and public speaker whose work explores the relationship between justice, technology and human wellbeing. She is the founder of Tear It Up, an alcohol-free, trauma-informed stress release space designed to offer healthier and more inclusive alternatives to traditional leisure culture. With a background in civil and commercial law, regulatory analysis and social impact design, Valerie focuses on how governance, AI and human behaviour intersect - and what must change for technology and humanity to coexist responsibly.

• Vanessa Aradia

  Global Learning and Development Leader and AI capability architect

  Vanessa Aradia MSET, FMAT, CIMA Adv Dip MA, MCIPP is a Global Learning and Development Leader and AI and capability architect for the finance and payroll professions. She began studying bookkeeping at age 13 and has built her career across payroll, education and professional development, specialising in translating complex technological change into clear, human-centred learning. A keynote speaker and writer, she champions inclusive digital futures through her projects LETGO™, Work Smart Live Well™ and A'm ONLY HUMAN™ - each focused on building skills and systems that serve both people and planet.