TEDxRancho Mirage

Speakers

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

• Dr. Carl Christman

  Professor & Mentalist

  Imagine hearing people’s thoughts! Now you know what it’s like to be Carl. He is a professor, mentalist, and author of the best-selling book How to Read Minds & Influence People. He plays with language, psychology, and body language to entertain audiences. But more importantly, his dog thinks he is amazing.

• Dr. Lynda Reid

  Author & Grief Expert

  Dr. Lynda Reid is a speaker, author, and Professional Certified Coach (PCC) whose work focuses on resilience, meaning, and human adaptation through life’s transitions. With a doctorate in education centered on multicultural leadership and growth through cultural immersion, she combines neuroscience, leadership research, and personal experience to help people navigate change, loss, and transformation. Following the death of her husband, Lynda developed a new perspective on grief that challenges the idea of “moving on” and instead explores how we learn to carry loss as a continuing expression of love.

• Dr. Romi Ran

  Oxford-Trained Clinical Psychologist

  Dr. Romi Ran is an Oxford-trained Clinical Psychologist, speaker, and author whose work explores the relationship between the mind, suffering, and human experience. After more than a decade working within traditional psychological frameworks, she became increasingly interested in the deeper mechanisms underlying thought, perception, and identity. Her perspective has been deeply shaped by several years of intensive contemplative practice, including extended solitary and dark room retreats, which continue to inform her clinical work. Her TEDx talk challenges the way we understand our own experience and explores what it means to experience life more directly.

• Ivan Borzenko

  Ultramarathoner

  Ivan was once told he may never walk and could spend his life in a wheelchair. Years later, he would go on to pursue a Guinness World Record during a 320-mile triathlon and serve with an emergency medical team on Mt. Everest. Through his story, Ivan explores the invisible barriers society builds around possibility and the ways those limits shape how people see themselves. Whether someone is facing challenges in their career, family, health, or personal goals, this is a reminder that our perceived limits are often much smaller than our true potential.

• Prema Walker

  Compostrepreneur

  Prema Walker is the Founder and CEO of Prema's Permaculture & Composting in the Coachella Valley. She grew up in India watching her grandfather farm land he had worked his entire life without ever building lasting financial security from it. When she settled in the Coachella Valley in 2020, she saw the same story among local growers, and it became one of the reasons she built her business. She built that business on California's SB 1383, the state law mandating that organic waste be diverted from landfills. Recognizing that the mandate created a durable market, she has, since 2021, diverted more than 700,000 pounds of organic material from landfills, composting it and returning it to the communities that generated it. That work has secured roughly $275,000 in competitive funding while creating jobs, growing food, opening green spaces for communities, and cutting the emissions that landfills release.