TEDxLawrence 2015 Speakers

Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D., is the world’s leading researcher on hope. His mission is to help people of all ages exercise some control over what their future can become and to teach them how to aim for the future they want in school, work and life. He is also one of the most vocal advocates of psychological reform of America’s education system. He helps schools function less like impersonal factories and more like dynamic human development centers that help students achieve the meaningful futures they say they really want – including a good job and a happy family.

Dr. Lopez is a Gallup Senior Scientist in Residence and Research Director for the Clifton Strengths Institute. As chief architect of the Gallup Student Poll, he has measured hope in over a million people. This measure of hope, engagement, and wellbeing taps into the hearts and minds of U.S. public school students to determine what drives achievement. (It is available at no cost to any school or district interested in using it to start a hope conversation in their community). Dr. Lopez is the director of the annual Gallup Wellbeing Forum, which convenes scholars, leaders, and decision makers to discuss the issues that determine happiness and health.

He researches the links between hope, strengths development, academic success, and overall wellbeing and collaborates with scholars around the world on these issues. He specializes in hope and strengths enhancement for students from preschool through college graduation, advocating a whole-school strengths model that also builds the strengths expertise of educators, parents, and youth development organizations. Dr. Lopez has provided strengths mentoring to thousands of college students, including academic, career, and life planning, and he advises schools, colleges, and universities on these issues. He is coauthor of the statistical reports for the Clifton StrengthsFinder and the Clifton Youth StrengthsExplorer.

Ph.D

Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry University of Kansas

Bioengineering Graduate Program

Full Member, KU Cancer Center

Areas of Specialization

Analytical Chemistry, Micro/Nanofluidics, Single Cell Analysis, Genetic Analysis, Proteomics, Cancer Biology and Diagnostics, Systems Biology, Nanobiotechnology

Anthony graduated from Baker University in 2000 and has completed the Triple Crown Academy for Professional Dog Trainers distance education course.  Anthony has owned a business in Lawrence, KS since 2004 and is the founder of two non-profits that focus on the human canine bond in community outreach and in healing.  He was on the Lawrence Humane Society board from 2010-2015, serving as the Secretary, Vice-Chair and Co-Chair during his tenure.  Through his non profits, he regularly volunteers his time in areas relating to the human-canine bond including humane and safety education for local grade schools and at the Lawrence Police Summer Camp, returning to Baker to speak on human/animal ethics, volunteering every week with his therapy dogs at the Topeka VA Hospital in the PTSD, Acute Psych Recovery, and Substance Abuse wings, and as an embedded consultant with the Kansas City Missouri Police 1910 and 1920 SWAT teams in a new collaborative program to reduce dog shootings in high risk situations.  He lives outside Lawrence, KS where he resides with his wife and 6 dogs.

Eric is a multi-headed hydra of creativity, having released 10 albums and toured the world as the drummer for Ultimate Fakebook, The Dead Girls, and Truck Stop Love. He founded the movie-review site Scene-Stealers.com, is a contributor to RottenTomatoes.com, has reviewed movies for Kansas Public Radio, KCTV5, KSNT, and KTKA, and is the current film critic for the Lawrence Journal-World. He's an award-winning business communicator and social media community manager, currently kicking ass for clients at Callahan Creek, a marketing agency based in Lawrence. Eric is currently the social media communications chair for American Advertising Federation – Kansas City, and is the vice president of the KC Film Critics Circle. Perhaps he is best known as the 2013 World Air Guitar Champion, and a tireless ambassador for the sport of competitive air guitar -- and its dream of achieving world peace.

Jackie is a native Kansan from Bob Dole Country.  After living on the West Coast, Jackie Counts knew she wanted to get back to the heartland, and wanted to land in a place that valued free-thinking and had a university feel.  She’d been to Lawrence once for an Apartheid protest in college.  Bruce, her husband, convinced her that it was a cool place and that they should give it a whirl.  So, they packed up with a new baby, no place to live, and no jobs and landed in Lawrence in 1993. Today, Jackie is the Director of the Center for Public Partnerships and Public Service at the University of Kansas Achievement and Assessment Institute. In her work and personal life, she pushes boundaries to stretch thinking about what is possible and tries to persuade others to join her on the journey.