Without further ado:

Curator: Sean Meadows
Director of Program Management: Rachel Miller
Director of Operations: Alex Murdoch
Director of Partnerships: Adam Miller
Director of Content: Matt Digel
Director of Community Relations: Ali Pump
Director of Design: Dave Cole

It’s with great pleasure to be announcing that TEDxPSU is in search of it’s next Curator. Since our inception in 2010, TEDxPSU has grown in leaps and bounds. We’re excited to the keep the fire burning and great conversations alive. So please, join us on this amazing adventure.

Submit your application

Event Information Page: http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/5192
Where: New Leaf Initiative, 100 South Fraser Street, State College, PA 16801
Sessions(Time in EST):

• Session 4: 11:30am – 1:15pm
• Session 5: 2:00 – 3:45pm
• Session 6: 5:15 – 7pm
• Session 7: 8:00 – 9:45pm

Last Thursday, TEDxPSU hosted our second Salon event, Synthesizing Sustainability. The event was held at the New Leaf Initiative in State College, and was hosted by Mike Shamalla, who kept the conversation focused on living sustainably as well as maintaining sustainable mindsets and practices. The event opened with speaker, Allison Lilly, Outreach Coordinator for the national competition EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge. “I eat, breath, sleep…and pretty much drive, these three syllabuls: EcoCAR,” says Lilly. Her discussion revolved around hybrid technology and the next competition EcoCAR 2: Plugging into the Future; how to turn a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu, compact car, into an innovative hybrid vehicle. She also talked about the growing role of social media and focusing on younger generations to get kids thinking and cmmunicating about what they are doing in the future. “In the theme of TEDx: I think these are some Ideas Worth Spreading,” Lilly remarked in her closing line.

The second speaker was Spud Marshall, the creator of the New Leaf Initiative, who reflected on his time spent in Haiti that had inspired a local music project. Marshall began by relating the “sea of blue tents” he saw when he first flew over Haiti; the country has less than 1% tree coverage and the rest is scattered by patches of white and blue, people’s homes. As desolate as the land may look, the first sight off the plain was a band of musicians. “I took my first steps in Haiti, and this [music] was the first sound I heard,” said Marshall. Many of the local he met while in Haiti were connected to music in some way, one explaining, “When music hits you, you feel no pain.” Marshall took the opportunity to really explore Haiti by spending time getting lost in the city, only to spend hours finding his way back. After talking a local named Carlos, Marshall got the idea to create a music project to support the local music and musicians. The project is currently underway and focuses on local Haitian music as well as international music that is popular in the country and a diaspora of music from the United States, particularly State College.

Click here to watch TEDxPSU Salon Synthesizing Sustainability in a quick two minute video.

Mia Bloom is an Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and International Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Her work specializes in terrorism through her fellowship at the International Center for the Study of Terrorism with a focus on Middle Eastern conflicts as well as rape during war. Mia has published several books and her studies have been featured on numerous media outlets, including CNN and CSPAN. She has also been interviewed by Nightline’s Ted Koppel and PBS’ Jim Lehrer.

Mia is originally from Montreal, Canada but went overseas at the age of 17 to attend Tel Aviv University in Israel. During her time abroad, Mia became fascinated with the region and its conflict and traveled throughout the Middle East. She lived in Cairo and Israel and felt it was important to learn the languages of the region. In addition to Russian, Mia studied Arabic and Hebrew.

In the 1980’s, various terrorist organizations were a “virtual alphabet soup” of left wing and Marxist organizations. But once Marxist principles began using the religious language of Jihad, it began fostering a culture of martyrdom, something new. By the end of the decade, the greatest change was the impact of the religious organizations and the ideology of Jihad. Mia studied these movements as well as the Russian Invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian Revolution that were extremely influential in how Middle Eastern governments handled religious dissenters.

After finishing a degree in Russian History and Middle East Studies, Mia returned to complete a Masters in Arab Studies at the Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She then continued her studies and got her PhD in political science from Columbia University.

“I came to Penn State because President Graham Spanier had the insight to create the International Center for the Study of Terrorism under the leadership of John Horgan,” says Mia.  “Coming to Penn State allowed me to combine my love of teaching with the ability to engage in inter disciplinary research.”

At the same time, the ICST also has a robust internship and mentoring programs for both grad students and undergraduates. Mia’s most recent work focuses on exposing the emergent occurrence of women and child terrorists.

“I am especially interested in cycles of violence that demonstrate the intersection between victimhood and mobilization into violence. For example, how women raped are transformed into suicide bombers,” she says.

Her book, Bombshell: The Many Faces of Women Terrorists, brings these growing problems to light, analyzing the root causes and the direction of modern terrorism today. It discusses how the role played by women, and increasingly children, makes the conflicts multi generational and self perpetuating.

As for why Mia chose to accept her invitation to TEDxPSU, it’s rather simple: “I am an avid fan of TED.com and when I found out that Penn State had a TED opportunity I jumped at the chance.”

Dean Christian Brady

Christian Brady became Dean of Schreyer Honors College in August 2006, but his interest in the education field began years before he arrived in Happy Valley.  Born in Texas and raised in Montgomery Village, MD, Brady attended high school in Damascus, MD before heading to Cornell University.  After receiving his undergraduate degree, Brady went on to complete a Masters in Biblical and Theological Studies from Wheaton College, then a Masters in Jewish Studies from Oxford University.  Brady received his doctorate from Oxford in Oriental Studies, with a focus on ancient Hebrew and Jewish Literature.

Inspired by his interest in interpretive studies of the Bible, Brady chose to become an educator to communicate to others the importance of life decisions and the effects on their futures.  Brady bases his teaching style on his real life experiences, reaching out to students through conversation.  He describes his favorite part of teaching as being able to positively affect students through counsel and guidance.  He is a valued and esteemed member of the Penn State faculty and the Schreyer Honors College is lucky to have him.

Derek Sivers

Derek Sivers is a musician, writer and entrepreneur who began his own company, CD Baby, in 1998.  At first, he sold his own music on the site, but as time passed, he began to sell other people’s music on the site, creating a new venue for musicians, which would eventually become the number one venue for independent music sales.  In 2008, Sivers sold CD Baby to focus on other ventures.

In 2003, he was awarded the World Technology Award, giving him notoriety for his breakthrough achievements.

Sivers is not only known for his musical and entrepreneurial achievements, but also for his love of life, which he shares in his writings.  Sivers is an excellent example of what a TED speaker should represent, encouraging the spread of ideas through speech and example

Pure Cane Sugar

Together, Kate Twoey, Molly Countermine and Natalie Berrena, are Pure Cane Sugar, “an assemblage of masterful melodies and haunting harmonies that inspire sweet dreams.” With accompanying artists Daniel Collins on fiddle and Daryl Branford on drums, their original, artful arrangements are captured in sweet synergy and rhythm.

Everyone in the group is either originally from State College or has lived here long enough to proudly consider them self a “local”. With such close backgrounds, it wasn’t exactly difficult for the group to come together either.

In a Q&A session, the group points out that “the local music scene is pretty tight, so we all met while playing in bands with other mutual friends.”

The girls were all members of other bands at the time but there weren’t any all-female groups in town so Pure Cane Sugar teamed up to try and make something different. “We decided to pull these feminine forces together and see what happens,” they explain.

“The boys,” as they like to call them, were added about a year ago when the group decided to spice things up and kick it up another notch.

Yet, if you ask the group why they chose their name, you may be surprised to learn that Pure Cane Sugar was not their first choice.

“We were originally “Shoe Fly Pie”, but found another band in another state with the same name. So we changed it to Pure Cane Sugar about a year later,” explains the group. “We wanted something feminine, but edgy, and we liked having three words in our name to represent the three girls. The name was actually dubbed one day when Molly’s husband Rene was making his morning coffee…he pulled out the Pure Cane Sugar and said ‘I’ve got it!’”

And just like that, Pure Cane Sugar was able to pull out a name and establish a solid following; but it proved more difficult to find one genre that could embody their sound. In a discussion over what kind of music they play, the band will tell you “Americana but we honestly don’t stick to one [genre] all the time.”

“We sometimes have a hard time with this question. Sometimes we are folksy, other times bluesy, sometimes you can hear some country influences and then other times R&B influences,” the group explains as they try to define their music. “Our ‘thing’ has never really been focusing on a particular genre, as much as it has been what three female vocalist can do with a song. The harmonies are where we put our emphasis.”

And it shows. Pure Cane Sugar’s sultry voices, soulful harmonies, and powerful lyrics evoke exquisite vocals. Every song will raise its heart and soul in an authentic harmony that truly resonates. Their debut album, Come Back Home, features these sweet vocals dripping from raw lyrics. Individually, the group will say their songs are written about those moments in life that make us laugh, or cry, or think, or wonder.

“The roots of our songs are kept close to the heart. Our music is really centered around the harmonies. We start with that and then the song starts to form a personality. As a group we try to share with our audience the moments that captivate us as well….whether it’s a subtle moment with a haunting harmony or a driving beat that has us dancing around the stage,” relates the group. “We want them to experience the music with us.”

Since the addition of “the boys” on the fiddle and drums, the band’s immediate focus is working on a new album. They are hoping to have that completed within the next year and excited to be approaching the time when they can travel out of the area. Further sights are set on some trendy summer festivals but Pure Cane Sugar enjoys the local atmosphere. “We are also fortunate enough to have regular gigs in State College and adore playing locally. This business is thrilling and unpredictable…you never know where you will end up!”

Where the group can be certain they will end up is at this year’s TEDxPSU coming November 13^th. Pure Cane Sugar is coming to the event based off of a recommendation. “Zach [Zimbler] had previously worked with us on the PSU radio station, The Lion 90.7 FM. We are all huge TEDTalk fans and were thrilled to be invited to participate in TEDxPSU!”

Rob Rogers is a well-established editorial cartoonist, who will speak at TEDxPSU Relics to Revolutions.  Although Rob was born in Philadelphia and lived in Oklahoma for 10 years, he has found a home in Pittsburgh as an editorial cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  Since 1993, he has captured the attention of the Pittsburgh area with his enlightening creations. Prior to the working at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Rob got his start at The Pittsburgh Press in 1984.

Rob’s cartoons cover a wide array of topics both nationally and internationally.  His feature “Brewed on Grant” is his where his creative views on local matters are highlighted weekly.  Roger’s work has been syndicated in prominent national papers: USA Today, Newsweek, The Washington Post and The New York Times.  

Professionals in editorial cartooning have recognized Rob on various occasions.  Rob was a 1999 Pulitzer Prize finalist.  His work was recognized when it earned the 2000 Thomas Nast Award from the Overseas Press Club and the 1995 National Headliner Award. Overall, Rob has won 12 Golden Quill Awards.  From 2006-2007, Rob served as the president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, which is an organization that he is active in.

This year’s TEDxPSU event will not be the first time Rob has taken the stage.  In the past, he has spoken at a myriad of events.  Rob has presented his view on the creative process to public and school audiences on countless occasions.

Rob attended Carnegie Mellon University, where he received a Masters in Fine Art.

James Stone

James Stone, a native of Bainbridge Island, Washington, James currently resides in State College, Pennsylvania.  He is in his second year studying New Media as a Master of Fine Art candidate in the University Fellows program and he is also an Instructor in the School of Visual Art.

James’s past connections to TED talks are limited to those he has watched online. He is fascinated by the intersection of interesting topics discussed in TED talks that often are not presented by mainstream media.  In regards to the TEDxPSU event, he is most excited for the unique opportunity to present his work in a way that can engage a general audience.

A Technological Symbiosis of Cyborg Plants is the subject of James’s Relics to Revolution presentation.  He obtained interest in his talk topic while reading philosophical works on the avocation for the dignity of plants at the same time he was looking into plant communication research.  These two topics intertwined when he started to investigate the idea of vegetable intelligence.  James’s Graduate Student Residency allowed him to spend his summer at the Institute for the Humanities and Arts, where he developed his thesis project which contains many of the concepts for his TEDxPSU talk on Cyborg Plants.

There are various aspects about being a graduate student that James both favors and dislikes.  He finds the intellectual nature of a Division 1 research institution to be especially engaging.  Although he is overwhelmed by work at times, James knows he came to graduate school to advance himself within his field. James has found the ability to turn his interests, which consist of programming, electronics, embedded systems, open source, croud sourcing, robotics, into a career. For 10 years, James has worked as a self-taught on-the-job Java programmer/DBA.

James attended San Jose University, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

Lori Hepner

As an artist, Lori is often inspired not only by other artists but also by listening to the wide spectrum of scientific disciplines that TED talks feature.  She is enthused by how TED talks “combine great enthusiasm for very different paths of knowledge.”  Excited to watch the other speaker’s presentations, Lori will surely have a small notebook on her at all times for when she can draw inspiration for her art based on the passions of experts in other fields that will be featured at TEDxPSU.

Inspiration is a factor that has driven Lori’s current body of work, Status Symbols, which is the force behind her Relics to Revolution talk topic.  For a few years, Lori has been studying the distinctiveness of our digital age by analyzing a series of virtual Twitter portraits.  She recognizes the 140 characters that Twitter allows users as an expression of that user’s creation of a visual persona, which can be changed at a moment’s notice.

Over the years, Lori has gone through various part-time jobs- studio assistant for a sculptor, photo lab technician, Starbuck’s barista- on her way to becoming a professional artist.  She is in her fifth year as an Assistant Professor of Integrative Arts at Penn State Greater Allegheny, where she teaches classes in Photography and Integrative arts. Lorinotes that she enjoys all aspects of her job at Penn State.  She is lucky to share her zeal with her students while they develop their own appreciation and experience within the field of art.

Lori earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology.  She then attended Rhode Island School of Design to obtain her Master of Fine Arts.

Jeremy Irish is the President and CEO of Groundspeak. Jeremy
launched “www.geocaching.com” in September 2000 as the first official website for the geocaching hobby. Groundspeak, Inc. is the oldest and largest geocache listing site. “We are trying to trick as many people as we can to go outside,” Jeremy said in a previous report.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Jeremy thinks more than half-a-million people regularly play the adventure game on his site alone and in more than 200 countries.Prior to becoming CEO, he was a member of the US Air Force working as a Mandarin Cryptologic Linguist. He has also worked as a project manager, technologist, e-commerce developer and as a web developer for a number of companies includingGeneral Electric. Jeremy continues to be deeply involved in the various projects atGroundspeak.

He currently lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife and two beagles, Sophie and Gus. Jeremy likes maintaining his privacy stating in a geochache forum, “As much as I would like to be behind the curtain, I grudgingly accept celebrity as one of the requirements for running a popular web site. I definitely don’t enjoy it, but I do acknowledge that it is good to have some clout when talking to companies like Garmin and getting features implemented (like cache icons) and geocachers’ ideas heard…I definitely like my privacy. After five years I have occasionally given personal information away, but I don’t actively discuss myself.”

Mark Ballora

technology, history of electroacoustic music and musical acoustics. He received degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles, New York University and McGill University. He is the author of Essentials of Music Technology (Prentice Hall, 2002) and has been published in LEONARDO and the College Music Symposium. He has also written short articles in Electronic Musician magazine. Past work includes sound designs and electroacoustic scores for modern dance, theatre, animated films and radio dramas.

Ballora was raised in Marin County, California, just outside San Francisco in the late sixties. Ballora states important influences during his childhood include Muir Woods, the anti-Vietnam movement, the moon landings, the hip, activist Glide Memorial church, irreverent Mad Magazine, Star Trek, Beatles records and Grateful Dead concerts.

In 1984, Ballora moved to New York to pursue a career in theatre. After leaving his Wall Street day job, Ballora pursued opportunities to teach music workshops to children in public schools. In 1995, he moved to Montreal to study for his Ph.D in Music, Media & Technology at McGill University.

Ballora joined the Penn State faculty in 2000. He holds a joint appointment in the School of Music and the Department of Integrative Arts. His current research focuses on auditory representations of scientific data sets with an emphasis on auditory displays of heart rate variability data for diagnostic and artistic realizations. His work has been presented at the International Conference on Auditory Display, Computers in Cardiology, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) and the Society for Arts in Healthcare.

Eric Mockensturm

Pennsylvania State University. Eric’s passion for computers and technology is evident through his development of iOS applications such as Polywords. This passion pushed Eric to become more involved in the “mining” of bit coins.

“I think it’s a really great and thought-provoking idea,” Eric said. “[At TEDxPSU], I’ll be talking about what I think is the purest form of money there is and why I think Bitcoin will eventually be the way we exchange wealth.”

The mining of this digital currency has the enormous potential to impact our economy by providing an open-source project for currency used all over the world. Although Eric says Bitcoins may not have as much of an impact now, a Bitcoin-like system will eventually be what the world uses for money.

“Ultimately, it’s just an extremely clever solution using peer-to-peer networking, social engineering, crowd-sourcing, computer science, and mathematics to a problem that society has always left governments to handle.”

Bit coins have been somewhat controversial in their existence. Eric will delve into the implications of the digital currency’s future at this years talk.

Eric believes TEDxPSU is important to society because it’s an outlet for passionate people to get their message out. He said the best thing about Penn State is that it is a large university in a small college town.

“In that sense I think it’s what a university should be; a community of scholarly people, teaching one another, debating issues, etc. without the hassles of living in a densely populated area.”

In the future, the professor hopes to have a positive influence on many more students and my own children in hopes “that one of them does something to positively change the world.”

Frustrated by the lack of innovation, agility and flexibility in traditional schools, Ali Carr-Chellman, a former third grade teacher, realized that these types of traditional elementary classrooms were not for her. She is now an instructional designer, author and educator, working on how to change schools to improve education. Ali is a professor at the Pennsylvania State University in the College of Education working primarily with doctoral level students to help produce the next generation of faculty with inspired research ideas and methods. She also teaches online courses focused on helping teachers learn how to improve their own instructional design practices and classrooms. Her recent research projects include, “Bring Back the Boys,” which offers a look at ways gaming can be used to reengage males in their elementary education. In another project, Ali asks prisoners and homeless people how to reform schools, offering new opinions to policy making.

Ian Rosenberger
Founder of Thread International

Ian Rosenberger is a former Survivor: Palau contestant and MTV MADE coach who has worked on the brand development of companies such including MTV and Eat n’ Park. After these ventures, he traveled to Haiti and witnessed the problems of poverty, disease and pollution that plagued the country. To combat these problems, Ian formed an N.G.O called Thread International. Thread International aims to take waste in desperately poor countries like Haiti and turn it into innovative products, provide opportunity for economic growth and improve the general welfare of people. The goal is to inspire sustainable solutions throughout the developing world and set an example for environmentally conscious innovation. Ian graduated from Penn State in 2004 with degrees in animal science and education.

Dr. Joseph Valente
Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Joseph Valente is involved in comprehensive research in childhood studies, comparative and international education, educational anthropology, deaf studies and disability studies. He is the author of the autobiographical novel and autoethnography, “d/Deaf and d/Dumb: A Portrait of a Deaf Kid as a Young Superhero,” published by Peter Lang. Currently, Joe is the co-principal investigator of the video ethnography project “Kindergartens for the Deaf in Three Countries: Japan, France and the United States,” funded by the Spencer Foundation. To learn more about his work, visit http://joevalente.net.

Michael Mann is a professor in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, a climatologist, and the director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. Michael is best known for his extensive background and research in the field of paleoclimatology. This work led to Michael’s graph of temperature trends over the last thousand years, popularly coined as the “hockey stick graph” because of its resemblance to the sporting equipment. The graph has received acclaim and criticism since its publishing. He has received many awards and honors including, but not limited to, the Outstanding Scientific Paper Award by NOAA in 2002 and also was named one of the 50 Leading Visionaries in Science and Technology by Scientific American. Michael is also one of the founders of RealClimate.org, a highly acclaimed climate science website that was chosen in 2005 as one of the top 25 “Science and Technology” websites by Scientific American and as one of the top 15 “green” websites by Time Magazine in 2008. Michael’s educational background includes an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale.

Rick Schuhmann

Rick Schuhmann has been a faculty member at Penn State University since 1998 and is currently the Walter L. Robb Director of Engineering Leadership Development in the College of Engineering. Dr. Schuhmann holds faculty positions in Engineering Design, Science-Technology-and-Society (STS), and is a member of the graduate faculty in Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Dr. Schuhmann’s industry experience includes offshore submarine geophysical exploration and onshore work as an environmental consultant. He has been qualified by state and federal courts to testify as an expert in quantitative risk assessment and the quantification of industrial emissions and modeling their transport in the environment. As a marine geophysicist, he has excavated three Colonial era shipwrecks.

Dr. Schuhmann’s teaching at Penn State reaches across the engineering, entrepreneurship and leadership curricula, with a focus on sustainability and global collaboration. In 2002, he received the GE Learning Excellence Award for “Promoting learning across the traditional college boundaries,” and in 2009, he received the W. LaMarr Kopp International Achievement Award for “Extraordinary contributions to the advancement of the international mission of the University.” He is a beloved professor and is active in both local and international water resource engineering projects and agricultural projects in rural developing world communities.

Jack Mattson

Jack Matson is a prize-winning innovator who develops courses in innovative design based on “intelligent fast failure.” As Director of the Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education at Penn State’s College of Engineering, he brings an original and offbeat approach to teaching engineering design. Dr. Matson’s teaching philosophy is to stimulate creativity by encouraging students to risk failure and to realize failure is essential to developing design skills and judgment. He centers his techniques on teaching people to unlearn years of practicing risk aversion by stressing the connection between creativity and risk.

“No issue is more important to the engineer or entrepreneur than intelligent failure,” says Dr. Matson.

Dr. Matson is the founder and principal owner of Envinity, Matson Biofuels, and is a testifying expert specializing in chemical emissions, historical industry knowledge and regulations. He has prepared expert opinions in over 100 cases. Dr. Matson has more than thirty years of experience in the field of environmental engineering. His experience ranges from working as a chemical/environmental engineer for chemical companies in the 1960’s, to working as a consulting engineer to a variety of chemical facilities, to being a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Houston and Penn State for eighteen and seventeen years, respectively. His academic background includes a B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toledo and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Rice University.

Dr. Matson believes that “risk taking is the primal way we learn to innovate. My role is to teach students to understand the value of failure as a natural learning process and path to creating knowledge that ultimately can lead to success.”

According to Dr. Matson his unique teaching style benefits students when they enter the professional world “by teaching students to learn how to fail fast and intelligently. They become the innovators that produce the leading edge technologies for a prosperous and enlightened future.”

The most rewarding part of his job is to “continually be a participant and catalyst for others in innovating ways to protect and enhance the ecosystem.” According to Dr. Matson, being a speaker at TEDxPSU serves as “an opportunity for me to spread my ideas on the role that Eco-Buildings can play in creating a sustainable future for planet earth.”

Big things are happening in the world of TEDxPSU. This week, we are proud to announce the theme of November’s event, “Relics to Revolutions,” give you information of event registration, and provide you with more details on the first Salon, which will be held on September 13^th.

About “Relics to Revolutions”:

As surviving memories of our past, links to our antiquity, relics have become the backbone to today’s revolutions; they are the blueprint to our designs, and the basis of our ideas. With the past and the future becoming mere perspectives, we learn from our history in order to inspire and invent the future.

From landing on Mars, to releasing the first movie with surround sound, the revolutions of our recent history are quickly eclipsed and bring to the forefront the change in the world. Encouraging mankind to think past the present, “Relics to Revolutions” will not belong to those content with the present, but to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Perhaps it’s your philosophy, or your neighbor’s pragmatic methodology, but its a communal belief that sharing Ideas Worth Spreading will jettison the next wave of great thinkers and doers.

The first TEDxPSU Salon, entitled “Innovate and Educate” will focus on new ideas in the field of education, and will showcase speakers from the Pennsylvania State University’s College of Education. “Innovate and Educate” will be held on September 13^th, 2011 at The State Theatre. We are excited to announce that Roger Shouse, professor in the College of Education, and Samuel Sennott, Ph.D. candidate in Special Education at the Pennsylvania State University, and J.J. Thomchick, guitarist and recent graduate of Berklee College of Music, will be speaking and performing.