2021 Speakers
2021's theme is RESILIENCE.
TEDxUW-Green Bay 2021 Speakers
Hannah Beauchamp-Pope
Healing Us, Healing America
Born and raised in the city of Green Bay, Hannah is a junior studying Democracy & Justice Studies and Psychology, while minoring in Sociology and Anthropology. She represents UW - Green Bay as the 2021 Newman Civic Fellow, LIT College Fellow, and Vice President of the Black Student Union. Outside of school she works as a legal intern at the Law Firm of Conway, Olejniczak, & Jerry. The 20-year old holds strong passion for advocating for social and racial justice in her community.
Alexandra Campion
The Language of Social Justice
Alexandra Campion is a Marketing and Communications Recruitment Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Office of Admissions. She generates content and executes marketing campaigns that introduce prospective students to UW-Green Bay and higher education while striving to eliminate barriers for first-generation and/or minority students as they embark on their higher education journey. After photographing the Kenosha, Wisconsin marches for Jacob Blake in 2020, Alexandra became entrenched in the fight for racial equity – both locally and nationally.
Anna Destree
COVID-19: Leading Public Health and Remaining Resilient
Anna Destree (Nick) is a Public Health Officer and Administrator for a local Public Health Department in Northeast Wisconsin. Anna has worked in Public Health since 2005, starting her career as a Public Health Educator focused on Public Health Emergency Preparedness, and later promoted to Public Health Officer in 2016. In addition to her role as local Public Health Officer, Anna has led several community campaigns including “Do1Thing” and “This is Public Health.” Anna also served briefly as Vice President of the Region 3 Healthcare Emergency Readiness Coalition. For the past year and a half, Anna has led a team of public health professionals, and worked together with healthcare and community partners, to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic at a local level.
Robert Hornacek
The Future of Hunger Relief Isn't About Food
After spending two decades as a broadcast journalist and investigative reporter, Robert Hornacek entered the world of hunger relief in 2019. He currently serves as the assistant executive director of Paul's Pantry in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Paul's Pantry operates a full scale, free grocery store for people in need. The pantry, whose motto is "Neighbors Feeding Neighbors," is supported entirely by community donations. Robert and his wife have four sons. He also serves as a permanent deacon in the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay.
Vicki Medland
Nature’s Insensible Loss
Vicki Medland grew up in urban Milwaukee, but much of her childhood memories are from time spent wandering her grandparents’ lakefront and forest properties where she learned to identify wildflowers and insects. Her love of nature led her to pursue degrees in zoology and ecology studying human impacts on the ecology of wetlands. She spent 20 years as an instructor and as the Associate Director of the Cofrin Center for Biodiversity at UW—Green Bay where she taught courses in biology and environmental science, directed student internships and led outreach efforts to help people understand, appreciate, and value biodiversity and the natural world around them. She continues her biodiversity journey as a writer, illustrator, university instructor, and adjunct curator in the Richter Natural History Museum.
Daniel Moore
National Parks: Searching for the Sublime
Dan Moore is a Photographer/Videographer at UW-Green Bay and an award-winning landscape photographer, specializing in images of our National Parks. Dan graduated from UW-Green Bay with a degree in Integrated Communication and a minor in two-dimensional art.
Michelle Danforth-Anderson with Oneida Smoke Dancers
Indigenous Generational Resilience
Within all of us is a fire, call it your spiritual gauge. For the Oneida - On^yote?a*ka (oh-ne-ode-ah-gah) People of the standing stone, our history and fire has existed since the beginning of time. As Oneida people, we carry generational trauma, sacrifice and good times with us into the future. As we say “for the 7th generation”, it is what drives us to continue to exist. One of the traditions is Smoke Dancing. Considered a war dance to help prepare for battle, the dance later honored those who came before.
Michelle Danforth is the Marketing & Tourism Director for the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. She is a regional Emmy nominated film Producer of documentary films and has been with Oneida Nation for 13 years. Creativity has no limits in her management roll at Oneida Big Bear Media. Big Bear is composed of Oneida Tourism, print & mail operation, and tribal newspaper. Her team has developed a traditional long house and log home site for tourists to visit, as well as the largest online timeline document archive of any tribe in the U.S. The focus for the future is to create media utilizing technology for education, preservation, entertainment and tourism.
TEDxUW-Green Bay 2021 Committee
Forrest Brooks
Forrest Brooks is a faculty member in First Nations Studies, Humanistic Studies, and the First Nations Education doctoral program. He is an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, with ancestral lines in both the Stockbridge Munsee Nation of Wisconsin and the Menominee Nation. Forrest is a life-long learner of Haudenosaunee original ways of thinking, being, and doing.
Ryan Martin
Dr. Ryan Martin is the Associate Dean for the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and a faculty member in the Psychology Department at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He is a nationally known anger researcher whose work focuses on healthy and unhealthy expressions of anger, including how we express anger online. His work has been featured in a variety of national and international news outlets including the BBC, New York Times, and NPR. He is a past TEDx speaker and hosts two podcasts, Psychology and Stuff and All the Rage, out of Phoenix Studios, the podcast network of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Dr. Ashok Rai
Dr. Ashok Rai is the President and CEO of Prevea Health, one of the largest multi-specialty health care organizations in Wisconsin, serving the northern, eastern and western regions of the state. As the leader of Prevea Health and as a medical doctor trained in internal and pediatric medicine, Dr. Rai is committed to the health and wellness of local communities. That commitment extends nationally as well, as he was recently named the Board Chair of AMGA (American Medical Group Association) - a trade association based in Washington, D.C. representing more than 175,000 physicians across the country. Dr. Rai has become a familiar voice on a national and local level to push for a healthier America and revolutionary transformation of the American health care system. His passion to redesign health care in the U.S. embraces the movement from fee-for-service methods of payment to value-based care, which rewards health care organizations for their work in preventive health care and encouraging patients to live healthy lifestyles – and not for the amount of procedures they perform.
Sheryl Van Gruensven
Chief Business Officer/Senior Vice Chancellor for Institutional Strategy. In August of 2019, she served as the University’s Interim Chancellor until the appointment of Michael Alexander on May 1, 2020. Prior to the interim role, she served as Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance. Van Gruensven joined the staff at UW-Green Bay in 2004 as a Human Resources Manager and became the director of HR in 2005. Her greatest passion is empowering girls and women to be their best, and she currently serves on the Girl Scouts of Northwestern Great Lakes board and co-founded and co-leads the UW-Green Bay Women’s Leadership Network. She earned her bachelor’s in human resources management from Upper Iowa University, and her master’s degree from Silver Lake College, Manitowoc.
Aaron Weinschenk
Aaron Weinschenk is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Department Chair at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He also has an appointment in the Psychology Department at UWGB. Aaron earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2013 and has been teaching at UWGB ever since. His research focuses on voting behavior, campaigns and elections, political participation, public opinion, and political psychology. To date, he has published over 25 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Political Research Quarterly, Political Behavior, Electoral Studies, and American Politics Research. He also authored a text (published by Routledge) on elections in 2016. Weinschenk is regularly sought out to comment on politics and has been featured in outlets like The Washington Post, Vox, Huffington Post, and USA Today. At UWGB, he teaches classes on American Government, Public Policy, the U.S. Congress, and Urban Politics. He also teaches a freshman seminar called “Comedy Central Civics.”
Jennie Young
Jennie Young is an Assistant Professor of English and the Director of the first-year writing program at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. She has a Ph. D. in English from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Her research interests include rhetorical theory and the rhetoric of education, specifically as those areas apply to high school students. She published a book in 2017 titled Rhetoric, Embodiment, and the Ethos of Surveillance: Student Bodies in the American High School. During the Fall of 2018 she presented her research in the form of a TEDx talk at the inaugural TEDx event in Green Bay. She is also interested in creative nonfiction and its place in English composition programs and has published articles in both academic and creative journals. She previously taught high school.
TEDxUW-Green Bay 2021 Student Interns
Yan Xer Lim
Yan Xer Lim is a student at UW-Green Bay, majoring in Business Administration, emphasis in Management and Marketing. Yan Xer is currently working at the Weidner Center for the Performing Arts as a Weidner PEEP, assisting in all functions of the building. He has worked and volunteered in the Green Bay community, serving in the local food pantry and other business organizations. He is currently pursuing illustration skills with digital art as a hobby.
Kylie Heisz
Kylie Heisz is a student at UW-Green Bay, majoring in Communication, emphasis in Social Media and Public Relations. As well as a major in Theatre, emphasis in Performance. Kylie is currently the 2021 event intern working under Dr. Jennie Young, assisting the selection committee. She has worked on campus in Residence Life as both a Resident Assistant and Community Advisor, and is the co-president of Alternate Theatre.
