2011 Speakers Archive

Dr. Arthur Kaufman has a passion for creating innovative education and service models to better address community, indigent, rural and population health needs. He is the Vice Chancellor for Community Health at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, and a Distinguished Professor in...

Henry Rael’s community organization was selected by the USDA in 2009 ago to create new farms in Albuquerque’s South Valley. He started with a single backyard farm, which has — since — grown to multiple sites. There are more than two acres under cultivation this...

A doctor and serial entrepreneur, Dr. Ries Robinson believes that light can change the way the world of medicine works. He’s done research with UNM’s School of Medicine, worked with Sandia Labs and been named New Mexico Inventor of the year. His presentations on innovative...

Megan Kamerick has been a business reporter for 16 years. She’s received awards around the country for investigative stories, personality profiles, environmental coverage, and her portrayal of women. She has received top honors for her work in San Antonio, New Orleans and Albuquerque for stories...

Shana believes education is one of our most powerful tools for creating a just and sustainable future – and is dedicating her young activist life to doing just that.  Shana joined Bioneers in 2010 as Education Program Manager to spearhead the organization’s first formal Education...

Nancy Judd creates couture sculptures made from trash. Imagine a glamorous floor-length evening gown glittering with thousands of crushed glass pieces that encourages us to see garbage in new ways. One of Ms. Judd’s pieces has been accepted into the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Her elegant recycled...

Croft began ‘finishing’ in 1994 in Santa Fe through the Morelli Furniture Company, where he learned both Old World finishing techniques (shellac, pigments) and more modern ones (lacquers, oil glazes, urethanes).  Most important, a long-time artisan taught him not to use anything off the shelf.  Croft–a tinkerer...

Co-founder and co-CEO of Bioneers, a social nonprofit organization that since 1990 has identified, cross-pollinated and disseminated breakthrough solutions for people and planet. A social entrepreneur who is accomplished in both the nonprofit and corporate worlds, Simons has served as the president of Seeds Of...

Founder and president of Playworks. Jill has worked for more than 25 years in the nonprofit sector, during which she focused her entrepreneurial skills on conceiving of and growing two successful nonprofit organizations. Jill launched Playworks in 1996 with two schools in Berkeley, California. During the...

President and Chief Executive Officer, Altela, Inc., is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and led four high-tech start-up companies since leaving Sandia National Laboratories in 1994. He has also serves on several Boards of Directors for other high-tech companies and non-profit organizations. Prior to co-founding Altela, his...

Cathryn McGill is equal parts artist and social activist.  Born and raised in Muskogee, Oklahoma she directed her first play at the age of 6 in the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church; was a state and national debate champion throughout her high school years and studied public...

Rachel Preston Prinz is an architectural designer and historian who graduated from Texas A&M in 1998 with a professional Masters in Architecture (with emphases in Architectural Design & Architecture History) and a Certificate in Historic Preservation. Her pre-professional degree was a Bachelors of Environmental Design,...

Hakim Bellamy is a two-time National Champion in the Poetry Slam scene. He was a member of the 2005 National Poetry Slam Champs Team Albuquerque in his first year of poetry slam,

Diana Northup has been studying things that live in caves since 1984.  She has a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of New Mexico.  She and her colleagues on the SLIME (Subsurface Life In Mineral Environments) Team are investigating how microbes help form the colorful...

“Albuquerque’s quirkiest weekly concert series” says Albuquerque the Magazine of the Church of Beethoven’s community-oriented, arts-centered weekly performances

Co-Director of Bioneers Dreaming New Mexico Project, is a world-renowned water steward, biodiversity and wildlife specialist, research scientist,