Quianna Lavant, a graduate of Savannah State University, is working full-time while pursuing a master’s degree at Armstrong State University. She hopes to teach English and dreams of impacting students and improving her community’s educational system.

An Albany, Georgia native, knew at an early age she wanted to be involved within her community and help people. She graduated from Savannah State University where she was a Tiger ambassador and Cheerleader. As part of Sisters Striving for Excellence, Inc., she grew her passion for helping people and worked to exemplify the values of sisterhood, community service, and professionalism. While working full-time, she is pursuing a PCL master’s degree at Armstrong State University. After she graduates in May 2017, she hopes to teach English and dreams to impact future students and improve her community’s educational system.

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Tonya Bonitatibus is the Riverkeeper and Executive Director of Savannah Riverkeeper, watching over the health and vibrancy of the Savannah River. She has served in that role for over 11 years, helping successfully guide the organization through threats to water quality, including the recent fight against the Palmetto Pipeline. She is an elected member of Waterkeeper Alliance’s Waterkeeper Council, International Committee, and Mentorship Program, serves on the Leadership Committees for Georgia Water Coalition, SC Basin Advisory Council and Lower Savannah River Alliance and is dedicated to protecting, restoring, and improving the river basin.

The post Bridging the partisan gap appeared first on TEDxSavannah.

Steve Riley has served as town manager for the Town of Hilton Head Island, SC with distinction since 1994. Along with overseeing daily operations of governing a town that triples its population every summer, Riley was critical in steering the town’s reentry and recovery processes in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. Having spent years planning Hilton Head Island for such an event, Riley was uniquely prepared to manage 244 staff and dozens of private contractors shortly after the devastation of the storm.

The post Using Technology to Improve Disaster Recovery appeared first on TEDxSavannah.

Lieutenant Tim McMillan is a veteran law enforcement officer with the Garden City Police Department. After a fateful traffic stop on October 1, 2016, Lt. McMillan has become an activist for police community relations and civil rights. He maintains an active blog where he discusses contemporary civil rights issues and inspirational insights. Lt. McMillan has been featured on numerous media outlets, and appears in the 2017 documentary film “Walking While Black.” Lt. McMillan is also the founder and director of the nonprofit police research, training, reform, and accreditation program, The Four Trees Project Inc.

The post Policing the Bridge appeared first on TEDxSavannah.

Courtney McNeil is chief curator of collections and exhibitions for Telfair Museums in Savannah, the oldest public art museum in the South. She has served in Telfair’s curatorial department since 2006. McNeil specializes in American art and has curated exhibitions ranging from historical to contemporary in a wide variety of media. She is active as a lecturer and writer and has served as judge for numerous art exhibitions and competitions. Before coming to Telfair, McNeil was employed at Childs Gallery in her hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. She holds a BA from Georgetown University and an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

The post Visually Documenting American Identity, Then and Now appeared first on TEDxSavannah.

Robin B. Williams chairs the Architectural History Department at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he specializes in the history of modern architecture and cities in Europe and North America. He earned his Ph.D. in Art History at the University of Pennsylvania with a dissertation on the urban transformation of 19th-century Rome. Since joining SCAD in 1993, Williams has focused his research on Savannah, directing the online Virtual Historic Savannah Project 1997-2006 and lead authoring a new guidebook, Buildings of Savannah. His current research analyzes the evolution of street and sidewalk pavement in cities across the USA.

The post How Historic Street Pavement Modernized the City appeared first on TEDxSavannah.

Jessica Leavitt left a small town Iowa to attend college which flipped her world on its head. Departing with a degree in fashion design and a love of the South, she worked in the fashion industry before Savannah’s siren song called her back. She currently works at DX Marketing, as Editor of The Scout Guide Savannah as well as contributes to the creative team as art director. She has a passion for creating a culture of communication, creativity and kinship. Jessica made a pinkie promise in second grade to become an adult that laughed often. To this day, Jessica can easily be found in a crowd by her infectious laugh.

The post Eye contact has potential to change your life appeared first on TEDxSavannah.

Timothy Mantooth is an educator, writer, inspirational speaker, and life coach. He completed an undergrad in psychology from Georgia State University and was distinguished with the Outstanding Graduate Student Award through the Master’s in Public Administration program at Kennesaw State University before earning a PhD in Education from Capella University. Dr. Mantooth addresses principles of transformational living with audiences ranging from prison populations to civic groups.

The post Surviving the Suicide of Someone You Love appeared first on TEDxSavannah.

Stephen Lush teaches a science centered, garden based education class, Scienhancement, in a public school for K-5th grade students. Students learn through growing, eating and rocking out to plants! His program uses the school garden, which consists of 26 raised beds, a greenhouse, and a newly plowed field, to enhance the science standards in a hands on, inquiry-based model. He has presented his successes at the Georgia Organics Conference as well as the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Farm to School Conference. He also conducts teacher training workshops on how to incorporate garden-based education into the curriculum.

The post Grow Something Real appeared first on TEDxSavannah.

Ted has been chasing his dream for 15 years. He believes in the idea of a honey company, Savannah Bee Company—a creation born of passion being pursued with dogged determination. Ted was first introduced to honeybees at 13 when a Gentleman Beekeeper put hives on his family’s land. This deep appreciation for bees continued in the Peace Corps where he taught beekeeping in Jamaica. Ted’s journey teaches him the bees are unusual in their wisdom— they show humanity that any act of symbiosis, where all parties benefit, is the most successful path long term. By operating his company like a beehive success is achieved together where individually it cannot be attained. His journey embodies a bee-centric reality of fighting for one’s dreams without harming others. The company’s passion for what they do and what they lovingly create will hopefully inspire others to Bee Above Their Usual. To that end, we all work to perpetuate a kind of goodness that not only supports honeybees, it emulates them too

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