Speakers

Damian Kulash, Jr. is an artist, musician, filmmaker, and the frontman for the polymath rock group OK Go. He’s directed the band’s long string of boundary-pushing music videos, racking up more than 300 million views online. They’ve danced in zero gravity and on treadmills, they’ve built a warehouse-sized Rube Goldberg machine to run in sync with a song, and they’ve choreographed hundreds of explosions filmed in just a few seconds. Damian has received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award for Visual Art, a Grammy, three MTV VMA’s, twenty-one Cannes Lions, three Webby Awards, and has had his work presented at The Guggenheim, MoCA, LACMA, The Hirschhorn, The Hammer Museum, and Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture.

Damian graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 1998. He’s written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Rolling Stone, and testified before the US Congress in support of Net Neutrality. He serenaded Barack Obama at his 50th birthday party, appeared on the Simpsons, and Animal from The Muppets once played the drums in his garage. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

David “DJ” Kurs is a theatrical and video producer who became the second Artistic Director in the thirty-year history of Deaf West Theatre in 2012. Prior to that, he served as an associate producer and ASL master on Deaf West productions. He has since produced numerous shows for Deaf West Theatre, including "Spring Awakening" which enjoyed a highly acclaimed twenty-week run (NY Times Critic's Pick) on Broadway and earned three Tony nominations.

A recognized leader on the push for inclusion in the arts, he has spoken at the Berkeley Forum and has served as a featured panelist and speaker at countless conferences and events around the world. He has been recognized by numerous organizations such as the California Association of the Deaf and served as a lead committee member of NEA's National Roundtable on Creating Opportunities for Deaf Theater Artists and the Deaf Theater Action Project in collaboration with Emerson College.

Helen Leigh is a creative technologist who specializes in music technologies, craft-based electronics and education. Leigh designs and makes musical instruments, from interactive art installations to mainstream commercial products. Helen also writes things, including the books Music Tech Hacking and The Crafty Kid’s Guide to DIY Electronics, as well as a regular column for Make Magazine. She has lectured in London and Berlin at the graduate and postgraduate level on physical computing, electronics, music technology and play.

Jess Turgeon is the director of experience at Minnesota Children’s Museum. With more than 20 years of museum experience and an MBA from Carlson School of Management, Jess has spent her career focused on serving the visitors and creating excellent visitor experiences. Responsible for the “fun” part of the museum, Jess oversees the creation and implementation of exhibits and programs at the museum. She is passionate about providing delightful, educational experiences for children and families.

John Goodwin joined the LEGO Foundation as CEO in April 2017 to pursue a career where he could combine his business skills with his passion for philanthropy and driving positive social impact.

The LEGO Foundation is dedicated to influencing parents, teachers and policy makers to adopt learning through play as the most powerful means for children to acquire the broad suite of skills needed to thrive in today’s world – and to provide the evidence and advocacy to support it.

Prior to being appointed CEO of the LEGO Foundation, Mr Goodwin held a position as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the LEGO Group with responsibilities comprising finance, corporate IT, corporate social responsibility, external relations, corporate business services, legal affairs and procurement.

Before joining the LEGO Group, John served as a President in Procter & Gamble where he was responsible for leading a variety of global businesses covering Pet Nutrition, Electrical Appliances and Food Snacks. Earlier in his career, he conducted a wide range of finance leadership positions in the company, including Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Finance, New Business Ventures, Investor Relations and Strategic Development.

Mr Goodwin holds a 1St class degree in Mathematical Engineering from the University of Loughborough and is a Fellow of the Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. He resides in York, England and is married to Elizabeth Goodwin, a former primary school teacher, with whom he has three grown children.

Sarah Fornace (Co-Artistic Director) is a director, puppeteer, choreographer, and narrative designer based in Chicago. She is a co-Artistic Director of Manual Cinema. Outside of Manual Cinema, Sarah has worked as a performer or choreographer with Redmoon Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Court Theatre, Steppenwolf Garage, and Blair Thomas and Co. Recently, Sarah wrote the story mode for the video game Rivals of Aether. In 2017, she directed and edited the first episode of the web series, The Doula is IN. In 2016, she directed and devised an "animotion" production of Shakespeare's Hamlet with Rokoko Studios for HamletScen at Kromborg Castle in Elsinore, Denmark. (www.manualcinema.com)

As the senior education and research specialist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, my role involves several different projects: seminar coordinator, summer internship coordinator, distance education, links between the research institute and other partners, and other projects that I haven’t begun yet. Please see our educational resources page for links.

I am interested in the open ocean and deep sea communities with particular emphasis on invertebrates. Specific areas of interest include: Ecology and biogeography of open ocean and deep sea organisms; Functional morphology, natural history, and behavior of pelagic and benthic organisms; Systematics and evolution of ctenophores and cnidarians (molecular phylogeny). I am also very committed towards education.

Jer Thorp is an artist, writer and teacher living in New York City. He is best known for designing the algorithm to place the nearly 3,000 names on the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan. Jer was the New York Times' first Data Artist in Residence, is a National Geographic Explorer, and in 2017 and 2018 served as the Innovator in Residence at the Library of Congress. Jer is one of the world's foremost data artists, and is a leading voice for the ethical use of big data. Jer’s book 'Living in Data’ will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the spring of 2021.

You can find Jer online at jerthorp.com.

Dr. Katie Mack is a theoretical astrophysicist exploring a range of questions in cosmology, the study of the universe from beginning to end. She is currently an assistant professor of physics at North Carolina State University, where she is also a member of the Leadership in Public Science Cluster. She is the author of the book "The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)" and has written for a number of popular publications, such as Scientific American, Slate, Sky & Telescope, Time, and Cosmos Magazine, where she is a columnist. She can be found on Twitter as @AstroKatie.

Kristen Lomasney is very much a "well, sure, why not" sort of person, which is how she has a master's degree in international relations and economics but works in media, specifically as general manager of Adam Savage's Tested.

Kristen started her career in 1994 as a program assistant at the Council on Foreign Relations (a New York think tank), moved to research fellow at The Century Foundation (another think tank), then pivoted to ... part-time copyeditor at Discovery.com. Once at Discovery Channel, she moved quickly from copyeditor to executive producer on the digital side, producing the online extensions for such shows as MythBusters, Dirty Jobs, Man vs. Wild, Monster Garage, American Chopper and Deadliest Catch. After more than 15 years at Discovery, she quit and moved from Washington, DC, to San Francisco, CA, where Adam Savage, former co-host of MythBusters, hired her to manage his own digital media presence, which turned into her current position as general manager of his YouTube channel, Tested.

When not working, Kristen rides her road bike (4,000 miles annually), hangs out with her husband-equivalent Tom, watches copious amounts of media, and admires her growing puppet collection.

You can find her on Instagram at @krystynlo.

Nadya Peek develops unconventional digital fabrication tools, small scale automation, networked controls, and advanced manufacturing systems. Spanning electronics, firmware, software, and mechanics, her research focuses on harnessing the precision of machines for the creativity of individuals. Nadya directs the Machine Agency at the University of Washington where she is an assistant professor in Human-Centered Design and Engineering. She is on the board of the Open Source Hardware Association, half of the design studio James and the Giant Peek, plays drum machines and synths in the band Construction, and got her PhD at MIT in the Center for Bits and Atoms.

Shawna Young is a passionate educator who joined Scratch, the world’s largest and most diverse coding community for kids, as executive director in 2020 after serving as the executive director of the Duke University Talent Identification Program (Duke TIP). At Duke TIP, she directed one of the largest academic talent searches, with over 450,000 K-12 students and over 3 million alumni. During COVID-19, Young transitioned the $35M+ non-profit organization, anchored in providing academically rigorous summer residential programs, to primarily serving its students and families online and developing new outreach methods to increase the diversity of students in its talent search. Prior to Duke TIP, Young spearheaded the expansion the Office of Engineering Outreach Programs (OEOP) at MIT, serving as the executive director for eight years.

Dr. Arthur Benjamin is the Smallwood Family Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College. He has been repeatedly honored by the Mathematical Association of America for his teaching and writing, and was recently selected by Princeton Review as one of The Best 300 Professors in America. He is also a professional magician and one of the world's fastest mental calculators.

Dr. Benjamin has given 3 TED talks which have been viewed over 20 million times. He has demonstrated and explained his calculating talents to audiences all over the world and has appeared on numerous television programs, including The Today Show, CNN, and The Colbert Report. He has been featured in Scientific American, Omni, Discover, People, Esquire, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Reader's Digest. Reader's Digest calls him "America's Best Math Whiz."

Eva Galperin is EFF's Director of Cybersecurity. Prior to 2007, when she came to work for EFF, Eva worked in security and IT in Silicon Valley and earned degrees in Political Science and International Relations from SFSU. Her work is primarily focused on providing privacy and security for vulnerable populations around the world. To that end, she has applied the combination of her political science and technical background to everything from organizing EFF's Tor Relay Challenge, to writing privacy and security training materials (including Surveillance Self Defense and the Digital First Aid Kit), and publishing research on malware in Syria, Vietnam, Kazakhstan. When she is not collecting new and exotic malware, she practices aerial circus arts and learning new languages.

Janella Watson is a children's media, edtech and museum consultant, with expertise in creativity, play and experiential learning. Drawing on more than 20 years of work as a researcher and practitioner in children’s museums and science centers, she creates curriculum, media content, programs, exhibits and experiences that center equity and spark joy, learning and whole family engagement. Her current clients and partners include Nickelodeon, Brown University’s Causality and Mind Lab, Nucleus Education, Sesame Workshop, and WGBH Education. Janella lives, works and plays in Providence, RI with her husband and her curious and kind seven-year old.

Jason Webley is a troubadour based in Everett, Washington. Beginning as a street performer in the late 90s, Webley built an international cult following for his songs and stories. Armed with an accordion, a guitar, a porkpie hat, and a plastic vodka bottle full of pennies, he has performed in over forty countries and released a pile of records. Some of Webley's recent projects have focused on the local history of Webley’s hometown of Everett. He is also captain of a floating river circus project called "FLOTSAM!"

J. Roxanne Prichard, PhD (University of Wisconsin-Madison, Neuroscience, 2004) is a Professor of Psychology at the University of St. Thomas. Dr. Prichard has spent the last fifteen years studying how students sleep. Her TEDx talk “Addressing our Children’s Sleep Debt” was featured in the lecture series: Transforming Education. Her research has been summarized in a variety of national media outlets including The New York Times, TIME, US News and World Report, PBS News Hour, Huffington Post.

Alexandra Lange is a design critic. Her essays, reviews, and profiles have appeared in numerous design publications including Architect, Harvard Design Magazine, Metropolis, and T Magazine, as well as in The Atlantic, New York Magazine, the New Yorker, and the New York Times. Her latest book, The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids was published by Bloomsbury USA in June 2018. She is currently at work on a new book about the history and future of the American shopping mall.

Singer, rapper, and writer Dessa has made a career of bucking genres and defying expectations—her résumé as a musician includes performances at Lollapalooza and Glastonbury, co-compositions for 100-voice choir, performances with the Minnesota Orchestra, and top-200 entries on the Billboard charts. She contributed to the #1 album The Hamilton Mixtape: her track, “Congratulations,” has notched over 16 million streams. As a writer, she’s been published by The New York Times and National Geographic Traveler, broadcast by Minnesota Public Radio, and published a memoir-in-essays (My Own Devices, 2018) in addition to two literary collections. As a speaker, Dessa has delivered keynote speeches and presentations on art, science, and entrepreneurship; guest lectures at universities and colleges across the US; and a TED Talk about her science experiment on how to fall out of love. She’s been covered by Pitchfork, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal amongst others. The LA Times says Dessa “sounds like no one else.” The Utne Reader calls her a “one-woman powerhouse.” On the stage and on the page, her style is defined by ferocity, wit, tenderness, and candor.

You can find Dessa online at @dessadarling on Twitter and Facebook, @dessa on Instagram, and at dessawander.com.

Since 2008, Dr. Don Weinkauf has served as the Dean of Engineering at the University of St Thomas in St. Paul. Minnesota. During his interview for the position, he used elements from Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods as a basis for his vision for the future of engineering education. From 1996-2008, Dr. Weinkauf was Professor of Chemical Engineering at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, New Mexico. He has been honored nationally for his teaching and research as a Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. Prior to his career in academia, Dr. Weinkauf worked for Shell Oil Company as a Research Engineer in the development of new plastics materials. For part of that time, he worked at the CONACYT Centro de Investigacion en Quimica Aplicada (CIQA) in Saltillo, Mexico. He holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin and a BS from Iowa State University both in Chemical Engineering.

Sara Winge spent nearly 25 years at O'Reilly Media, where she helped discover, explain, and amplify the stories of emerging technologies and the people who created them. She was co-creator (with Tim O'Reilly) and producer of the company's infamous unconference, Foo Camp, as well as steward of the O'Reilly brand, and the marketing and communications strategist for corporate and new initiatives. Her previous jobs, which include furniture refinishing, firefighting, and employment counseling, prepared her for working in tech in non-obvious but crucial ways.

Sarah Pinsker is the author of Nebula Award-winning novel A Song For A New Day, the Philip K Dick Award-winning collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, and the upcoming We Are Satellites, to be published by Berkley in May 2021. She is also a singer/songwriter who has toured behind three albums on various independent labels. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with her wife and dog.

You can find Sarah online at @sarahpinsker on Twitter and at sarahpinsker.com.

Dr. Susan Lane-Outlaw is the Executive Director at Metro Deaf School in Saint Paul, MN. Previously, she was a fun loving child, student, skateboarder, athlete, and Assistant Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the graduate Deaf Education program. She has over 25 years in the field of deaf education as a teacher, administrator, and in teacher preparation. She earned her doctorate from Gallaudet University in Deaf Education with a focus on language and literacy development and curriculum. These days, she enjoys participating with students and staff in purposeful fun and games.

AnnMarie is a Professor in the School of Engineering and the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas. She is the founder and director of the Playful Learning Lab, which explores ways to encourage children, of all ages, to embrace playful learning. She and her students created Squishy Circuits. She is the author of “Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and the Future of Innovation.”

You can find her at annmarie-thomas.com.

I'm a principal member, drummer, producer and remixer for Grammy Award winning group OK Go. I’ve been playing drums for over 30 years, having developed a passion for music and art as early back as kindergarten. OK Go began recording and touring in 1998, and we haven’t stopped yet. The band was signed to Capitol Records in 2001, and won the Grammy Award for Best Music Video by 2006. Nominated for two more Grammy Awards since, OK Go continue to receive a multitude of other honors and awards from two MTV Music Video Awards to two YouTube Music Video awards and, notably, the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award. In 2009, Dan decided to branch out from the band to also become a more involved writer and collaborator. He graduated Icon Collective in 2011, focusing on music production and mixing. Since that time, I have released numerous full album productions, as well as dozens of mixes and remixes for various artists from around the world.

Carly Ciarrocchi is a performer, writer/creator and morning enthusiast. She works primarily in kids' media and began her journey as a host/writer on Sprout's live preschool TV show Sunny Side Up. Other preschool TV credits include Snug’s House and The Big Fun Crafty Show on Universal Kids. All three shows earned Daytime Emmy nominations. As a musician, she's written tunes for Sprout/Universal Kids and is a vocalist/songwriter on Tim Kubart's Grammy Award-winning children’s album HOME. In March, she hosted the 2020 LEGO Idea Conference in Denmark, helping the team pivot to a livestream experience due to COVID-19. As a personal offering to families during these difficult times, she spent 22 consecutive Saturday mornings live-streaming a crafting and improv show called Tube Town straight out of her Brooklyn apartment. As a performer and content creator, she meets her audience where they are and keeps things just the right amount of weird. Her work combines authenticity, resilience, curriculum and comedy. She’s currently the co-host of the newest season of Weird But True, from National Geographic, which launched on Disney+ in August.

Manuela Hill-Muñoz, a native of Medellin Colombia learned at an early age that making, playing and crafting formed the perfect triangle to learning and forming connections. Hill-Muñoz serves as the Director of Innovation and Changemaking at the University of St. Thomas. In her everyday Hill-Muñoz engages college students in the create[space] and connect students to resources to reach their goals.

Twin Cities Trapeze Center is a circus school and performance group based in St. Paul, MN. Our mission is to make circus fun and accessible to all ages and abilities. Join us for a class and experience the joy, whimsy, and surprise for yourself!

Dr. Vanessa Cornett has directed the piano and keyboard programs at the University of St. Thomas since 2007. She is a certified meditation instructor, author of the book The Mindful Musician: Mental Skills for Peak Performance (Oxford University Press, 2019), and co-founder of the Project for Mindfulness and Contemplation at St. Thomas. She has given masterclasses and workshops on topics related to peak performance, creativity, and collaborative improvisation in 23 of the United States and in South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Finland, Ireland, Ukraine, Canada, and the U.K. Her research is published in the Journal of Transformative Education, Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, Music and Politics, College Music Symposium, the MTNA eJournal, and in the textbook Creative Piano Teaching. She earned a DMA in piano performance and literature from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She recently earned a graduate certificate in sport psychology and three additional professional certifications in various aspects of wine snobbery.