TEDxLancaster 2021

A message from our Executive Director

For those who attended TEDxLancaster 2021, you became part of the TEDx global community by experiencing an independently organized TED event, under license from TED. We hope you were inspired by the "ideas worth spreading" from our speakers and that the ideas allow you to start "Making a Difference" in whatever you endeavor to do. Pictures from the event can be found here. THANK YOU for attending TEDxLancaster 2021. It is because of YOU and your interest and support that we can provide a platform for our speakers. Here's to "ideas worth spreading!"

Bob Vasile, TEDxLancaster Executive Director

Click the program above to view or download

The Official TEDxLancaster 2021 Program

To view or download the program, click the program or click here.

Speakers

Andrew Bliss

Turning Chance into Structure: The Necessity of Mentorship in Youth

Andrew Bliss is graduate of Lampeter-Strasburg High School and is now a current undergraduate student in biomedical engineering at Cornell University. He currently is an undergraduate researcher in the De Vlaminck Lab at Cornell in circulating cell-free DNA and RNA and plans to continue his education through medical school. Andrew found the value of mentorship by chance as a high school student and now wants to help create opportunities for other young students in the community and across the country in STEM as the co-creator of TEAM Marstronaut, a mentorship program that is a part of the Force for Health network.

Andrew chose to not have his talk available online.

Dr. Vincent Carson

The Power of a Genetic Diagnosis

Vincent Carson is a Pediatric Neurologist at the Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg, Pennsylvania. The Clinic for Special Children is a nonprofit clinic that serves as a trusted medical practice for children and adults with rare genetic disorders from the Amish and Mennonite communities. He is fortunate to work with an amazing team of physicians, nurses, genetic counselors, and laboratory scientists at the Clinic, which enables him to integrate clinical medicine with patient-centered research on a daily basis. His research is focused on neurogenetics, ranging from neuromuscular disorders and metabolic disorders to epilepsy. He earned his B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Pennsylvania State University, his M.D. at the Drexel University College of Medicine, and completed residency in both Pediatrics and Pediatric Neurology at the UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Will Kiefer and Nate Luvice

Want generational change? Share your network

(Will and Nate will be giving their talk together)

Will Kiefer started Bench Mark Program in 2014 and has since expanded the organization to serve well over 100 students per year. Will loves working with his team to problem solve. Nothing makes him happier than seeing his teammates, who were once Bench Mark students themselves, running the program on a daily basis. Will measures himself by the number of people whose lives he has made better.

Nate Luvice is a mentor at Bench Mark Program and Behavioral Specialist at SESI Schools. As a graduate of Bench Mark, Nate was offered the opportunity to come back and work with students similar to himself that have been affected by trauma, gangs, and drugs. His own journey is an example for young people on how they can change their lives. Nate worked his way from a part-time role, to a full-time position, and ultimately to a full-time job in a local behavioral school. These days he's a proud father, a dedicated community member, and someone who has changed the course of his family's history for generations to come.

Dr. Alexia McKnight

Tech-Savvy Tips to Revolutionize Your Health

Alexia McKnight grew up in Virginia, wanting to be a veterinary radiologist. Becoming fascinated with advanced imaging, particularly MRI, she pursued veterinary medicine to realize that goal. After a post-doctoral fellowship at an MRI lab and a diagnostic imaging residency, she taught equine and large animal radiology before starting her own teleradiology practice in Chadds Ford, PA. Her career focus has been equine MRI, as she enjoyed the advantages of technology throughout her career and personal life. An unexpected twist ushered her through some legal and legislative landscapes while experiencing a different perspective of radiation and technology.

Eric Sauder

We’re Trying to Solve the Climate Crisis at the Wrong Scale

Eric Sauder is a social innovator focused on climate change with a background in engineering, sustainability, and design. Despite the looming challenge of climate change, Eric is resolutely optimistic about the potential for people to implement solutions that build a more vibrant and equitable world. For the past five years, he has worked alongside farmers and natural resource professionals to create new programs and support for farmers to sequester carbon, generate ecosystem services, and create resilient agricultural economies. This vantage point allowed Eric to see the potential for greater regional climate collaboration. He founded RegenAll, a Lancaster, PA based nonprofit, to catalyze regeneration across rural and urban communities. RegenAll works with households, businesses, and communities to identify and implement place-based climate solutions that capitalize on a region’s unique strengths and resources.

Gail Groves Scott, MPH

Big Pharma and the Overdose Crisis: How I Went from Drug Rep to Whistleblower

A researcher, public health policy advocate and doctoral student, Gail Groves Scott, MPH, studies prescription drug marketing and addiction policy. She was a pharmaceutical sales rep for more than 16 years, before becoming a whistleblower for the U.S. Department of Justice, about the marketing of the addiction medicine Suboxone ™(buprenorphine/naloxone). She testified as a fact witness for a grand jury in the Purdue Pharma/ OxyContin ™ case. Most recently, she spent three years on staff at a Philadelphia university, launching a program to educate multidisciplinary healthcare professionals and policymakers about addiction, recovery, harm reduction & stigma. Gail was a TEDMED 2018 scholar.

Matthew Woodson

Cultivating the Power of Music

Matthew Woodson is an educator, performer, and entrepreneur based out of Lancaster, PA. A percussionist by trade he can be seen with local band Big Boy Brass, his most recent steelpan project Woodson Steel Experience, and other local production companies. As the Director of Community Percussion for the local non-profit Music For Everyone, he instructs students in the School District of Lancaster and facilitates group drumming events/programs throughout the community.

Tracie Young

A Wildlife Rehabilitator’s Plea to Those Who Hunt and Fish

Tracie Young is the Founder, Director and Wildlife Rehabilitator of Raven Ridge Wildlife Center located in Washington Boro, PA. A lifelong resident of Pennsylvania, Tracie has always had a profound love of animals. When the Deepwater Horizon exploded, resulting in the largest oil spill in the history of marine drilling, Tracie wanted to help the hundreds of thousands of animals that had been affected. Tracie learned that only licensed wildlife rehabilitators were being allowed access to the animals affected by the gulf spill. She decided then to become a wildlife rehabilitator. After volunteering and apprenticing under her mentor, Peggy Hentz of Red Creek Wildlife Center in Schuylkill Haven, Tracie scored almost perfectly on all three tests the Pennsylvania Game Commission offered to those hoping to become rehabilitators. Finally, she had fulfilled her dream of becoming a wildlife rehabilitator.