Dr. Lingbing Zhang imagines a world without cancer and has developed an innovative approach which prominent oncologists agree could win the final battle against the disease — preventing at least 30% of cancer deaths.
A postdoctoral fellow in cancer immunology and immunotherapy at Stanford University with a Ph.D in Immunology from Jilin University, Dr. Zhang has been studying cancer immunology for 15 years, understanding the immune system during the whole process of cancer development from early stage to late stage and death.
Tom Triumph is a consultant, speaker and author who helps companies grow by helping them reinvent their business, product development, and marketing.
He’s helped large organizations act nimbly and small companies scale. He’s participated in two global technology revolutions—(less invasive surgery and software-as-a-service) - and along the way has been part of some remarkable success stories (and some misfires).
Tom lived aboard a research ship where he tended to the mini-sub (Jacques Cousteau was on the Board), wrestled in the Olympic trials, and helped oversee the design and build of the largest composite hovercraft ever built in the US.
He’s the author of the book "Evolve or Die: Lessons for World-Class Innovation & Creativity."
He resides in North Carolina with his wife of 38 years, and is an ultrarunner who envies Tom Hanks’ long run as Forrest Gump.
After receiving her PhD from Temple University in philosophy of religion, Stephanie Theodorou focused her attention to the study of consciousness and the role of symbolism in cognition. Her interest in animal consciousness evolved from her research in phenomenological accounts of experience in Western and Eastern philosophical traditions. She has been teaching at the university level for the past 30 years and has published work on the philosophical implications of the emotional life of animals, metaphor and mind, hermeneutics, and Asian philosophy. She taught and directed the Honors Program at Immaculata University in Malvern, PA. and currently teaches at the University of Central Florida.
Dr. Aly Cohen is a board certified rheumatologist and integrative medicine specialist, as well as an environmental health expert. She has collaborated with the Environmental Working Group, and has written the textbook, “Integrative Environmental Medicine” for the Weil/Oxford University Press series. In 2015, she created TheSmartHuman.com to share environmental health and prevention information with the public. She lectures nationally on 'environmental health' topics and is a regular expert guest for television, print, and podcasts.
Dr. Cohen is working to educate and empower the 'next generation' to make safer, smarter lifestyle choices through environmental health and prevention curriculum. Her consumer book, "Non-Toxic: Guide to Living Healthy in A Chemical World", will be released in 2020. You can follow her health tips and recommendations on Facebook: The Smart Human, Twitter and Instagram: @thesmarthuman and read her blog and posts at TheSmartHuman.com!
Nelson Johnson is a former practicing attorney and New Jersey Superior Court Judge.
In the 1980s he represented the Atlantic City Planning Board during approval of many of the casino properties. It was that experience which motivated Nelson to write his book Boardwalk Empire which inspired the HBO series. The sequel The Northside: African Americans and the Creation of Atlantic City was published in 2010. His third book Battleground New Jersey: Vanderbilt, Hague and Their Fight for Justice was released by Rutgers University Press in November of 2014.
Local Talent Talks
The following presenters from our local community, including students, will give five minute talks:
Alexis Faison is an 18-year-old rising senior at the Lower Cape May Regional High School. Throughout her high-school career, Alexis has been apart of multiple clubs & organizations that have helped shaped her into the person she is today. Alexis served as a Lieutenant Governor of Division 1 for the New Jersey District of Key Club International for the 2018-2019 service year, a member of Tri-M Music Honor Society, National Honor Society, & Spanish Honor Society, and she has been an active member of the Class of 2020. Being able to participate and document her 4 years of high school has helped realize how she can use social media as a tool to find our passions and strengths. Reimagining social media is only the beginning for finding a passion and making it come to fruition. Instead of focusing on the negative, she finds the positive in the platforms being cultivated. Alexis is planning to become a surgeon to “give back to the communities who have done so much for her,” and because social media has played a role in influencing her interests.
Tiriq R. Callaway is an Atlantic City, New Jersey native who also credits Pleasantville, New Jersey as the town that raised him. He refers to his hometown as “Atlantic-Ville,” a name he coined by combining the two cities together. As an accomplice to his writing style, authenticity rings loud when Callaway writes. His life experiences and master's degree in social work, equipped him with the empathy he uses to create encouraging work for others.
Tiriq's deep passion to write and help people, pushed him to self-publish his first book, a memoir about his life entitled, A Diamond In God’s Dirt. He's been published in the New Social Worker Magazine for his poetry, and also had work published in the Rizzarr Magazine, by award winning journalist Ashley M. Williams.
Set to release his newest poetry book (Fall 2019) “shine through our shade: an evolution of self love,” he’s reached the likes of Nikki Giovanni who stated, "Tiriq has vision beyond his years … his poetry is simple but expressed powerfully, and viscerally captures both the universal human experience and the particular struggles of an African American man today."
Callaway continues to gain daily inspiration from the world and his personal experiences. The author intimately expresses his thoughts and beliefs, and aims to make a personal connection with people to spread more hope, happiness, love, and laughter every day.
Kashyap is a certified AI and Deep Learning Developer who has programmed and delivered 6 MLH and Federal level hackathon winning projects and has done AI internships at Genpact and EduChat. He has co-led an AI workshop at a conference in Princeton University and is currently the Dean of the Princeton School of AI where he strives to provide world class AI education to his community for free. Adding on, he's an instructor with over 10,500 students as part of his online course on AI. He is also the primary author of a deep learning patent that I have written as part of the Genpact Internship.
NOTE: Due to unforeseen circumstances Duke Riley will not be able to participate this year.
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Riley breaks down the core philosophical principles that have been the guiding force behind much of his subversive maritime art, culminating in recent work concerning disposable plastic waste. We Conquered Five Oceans and Seven Seas directs attention to those most accountable for the catastrophic destruction of the world’s oceans. In doing so, he outlines his own pathway for using art to fight against apathy and tackle an otherwise overwhelming dilemma.
Duke Riley explores the struggles of marginal peoples who exist, perhaps forgotten, within larger encompassing societies, looking at such issues as the tension between individual and collective behavior, conflict with institutional power, the cultural impact of overdevelopment and the environmental destruction of waterfront communities. Riley is known for work that combines the seafarer’s craft with nautical history through drawing, tattooing, printmaking, mosaic, sculpture, performative interventions, and video structured as complex multimedia installations.
Riley has had solo exhibitions at Magnan Metz Gallery, New York City; the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland; the Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY; and the Havana Biennial, among other venues. He has received numerous awards and commissions, including a Percent for Art public art commission, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, and the MTA Arts & Design commission for the Beach 98th Street Station renovation. Born in Boston, he received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, before moving to New York, settling in Brooklyn, and earning his M.F.A. from Pratt Institute.