Sheri Salata
Sheri Salata is the author of The Beautiful No: And Other Tales of Trial, Transcendence and Transformation. Named an Amazon best-selling new release and an Apple Must Listen audio book, the memoir has touched thousands of readers and inspired them to reimagine their lives.
Sheri is the cohost of The Sheri + Nancy Show, a popular podcast about living the life of your dreams, and the cofounder of the aspirational lifestyle brand, The Pillar Life, a guidance system focused on 8 foundational areas of living. Health + Wellness. Spirituality + Happiness. Romance + Sex. Family + Friends. Creativity + Innovation. Adventure + Discovery. Sanctuary + Beauty. Money + Abundance.
Sheri has been featured on The Dr. Oz Show, Today, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, Happier in Hollywood, The Good Life Project, Marie Forleo, and Almost 30.
Sheri’s new venture in media is the evolution from her life-altering 20-year career with Oprah Winfrey. Sheri’s day-to-day hits and misses as the final Executive Producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show were featured in the docu-series Season 25: Oprah Behind the Scenes. Sheri served as President of Harpo Studios and OWN.
Sheri has been named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business and The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Power 100.
3 words to describe Nature?
Awe-full. Humbling. Holy.
3 things Nature taught you?
Beauty is in everything.
Everything is alive.
There are a gazillion shades of green.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Hawai'ian Islands
Lake of the Woods, Canada
Napa Valley
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
The ocean makes me feel on the edge of a great big mystery. How gigantic creatures can live submerged but still sing their songs for me. How the waves come in and out in rhythmic perfection without missing a beat. I feel wild and messy and sacred and beautiful as I take it all in.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
When I see a forest, it makes me feel like I am in the cathedral of all cathedrals.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Like Mama Earth is sending a message.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Like the Universe is blessing me.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Safe and secure in my humanness
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Like crying
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
I am an ocean mountain forest person with a little desert on the side.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
9
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I am a tiny thing dipping my toes in the pacific ocean for the first time and it feels like my home.
Chunlei Guo
Chunlei Guo is a professor in Optics and Physics at University of Rochester. He is a Fellow of American Physical Society and Optical Society of America. He also serves as the Editor-in-Chief for one of the most widely recognized handbooks in lasers and optics, CRC Handbook of Laser Technology and Applications (2nd Edition).
Often inspired by species in nature, from lotus to butterflies to spiders, his research at Rochester led to the discoveries of a range of highly functionalized materials through laser processing, including the black and colored metals, and superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic surfaces. These technologies have a broad range of applications and have been covered extensively by the media, including the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, Discovery, The Economist, Popular Science, Time, ABC, and many more (read here). Over the past few years, he has been working closely with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in developing technologies for global sanitation, water conservation, renewable energy, and sustainability. He discussed his work in the TEDx below.
3 words to describe Nature?
Peaceful. Inspiring. Eternal.
3 things Nature taught you?
Humility
Kindness
Knowledge
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Okavango delta (Botswana)
Himalaya mountain range (Tibet)
Cappadocia (Turkey).
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Calm
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Curious
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Energized
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Passionate
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Awakening
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Reflective
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
I like them all.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
A hiking trip with a few childhood friends. We were going further and further along a woody road with no end in sight. We were nervous but all wanted to keep going...
Michael Rosenblum
For more than 30 years, Michael Rosenblum has been on the cutting edge of the digital ‘videojournalist’ and Citizen News revolution.
During this time, he's led a drive for video literacy, and the Democratization of Video and Video news. His work includes: the complete transitioning of the BBC's national network (UK) to a Vj-driven model, starting in 2002; the complete conversion of The Voice of America, the United State’s Government’s broadcasting agency, (and the largest broadcaster in the world), from short wave radio to television broadcasting and webcasting using the ‘VJ” paradigm (1998-present); the design behind Current TV in partnership with former US VP Al Gore; the construction of a national hyperlocal citizen journalist network with Verizon; and the construction of NYT Television, a New York Times Company and the largest producer of non-fiction television in the US.
He has partnered with a number of major media companies including The Guardian (UK), USA Today, New York Magazine, The Travel Channel and others to create video ‘Academies’ where anyone can learn to report, shoot, edit and produce video on their own.
In 2009 he co-founded TheVJ.com, along with his wife, Lisa Lambden, an online video training site.
He has also designed, built and implemented VJ-driven news channels around the world, including Time/Warner’s New York 1, Associated Newspapers (UK) London based Channel 1, Young Broadcasting stations in the US, Switzerland’s largest commercial TV broadcaster, TeleZuri, as well as a host of smaller projects such as Eritrea’s ERI-TV and Sri Lanka’s SLBC. His consulting clients include The BBC, McGraw-Hill, TV-24/Germany, TV4/Sweden, Oxygen Media, National Public Radio, Danmarks Radio (DK), TV-3 Sweden, Norway & Denmark, Tokyo Broadcasting, Korea Broadcasting.
As a producer, Rosenblum has produced or overseen production on more than 3000 hours of programming for both network and cable. His shows have included the long-running TRAUMA: LIFE IN THE ER, Paramedics, Police Force, Labor and Delivery, Science Times. These series have aired on TLC, Showtime and National Geographic. He has also produced for ABC, CBS, Oxygen and the BBC. Most recently his groundbreaking 5Takes series for Discovery has completely rewritten the production paradigm. The company currently has more than 350 hours in production for this year alone.
He has conducted his unique VJ training classes and boot camps all over the world, from Thailand to Marrakech, and has lectured extensively both overseas and in the US. He recently entered into a partnership with Discovery Communications to set up the Travel Channel Academy, a national training facility open to anyone. For 8 years he was an adjunct professor of communication at New York University, where he taught “Television and the Information Revolution”, a course of his own design and at The Bauhaus in Germany. Prior to that he taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. His Brussels based Rosenblum Institute trains European journalists to work as vjs. He is the author of Videojournalismus (germany) and iPhone Millionaire (McGraw Hill, 2013).
He and his wife live both in New York and in the UK and teach at Oxford University in Britain.
3 words to describe Nature?
Real. Unmediated. Honest
3 things Nature taught you?
Who I was
Who I am
Who I could be
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Coast of England at Northumbria
Middle of Sahara Desert
Lamu, Kenya
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?
Humble
When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?
Connected
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?
Terrified
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?
Grateful
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?
Alive
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?
Connected
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Ocean
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
When I was about 10 years old, my father had a friend named Eddie Durban who had a wood Lightning sailboat - 19 foot. No motor. One day, he took me out for a sail and we turned up into a series of small estuaries that ran in the wetlands that are now almost gone on the East Coast. The boat was silent, but it ghosted along, and as we drifted in the marsh, the whole place around us seemed alive and vibrant.
Dallas Taylor
After cutting his teeth as a sound designer/mixer for networks like NBC, Fox, G4, and Discovery, DALLAS TAYLOR launched Defacto Sound, where he’s led thousands of high-profile projects ranging from blockbuster game trailers and advertising campaigns to Sundance award-winning films. A respected thought leader on the narrative power of sound, Dallas is a sought-after speaker at conferences, a regular contributor to major industry publications, and creator of the podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz.
3 words to describe Nature?
Calming. Symbiotic. Human
3 things Nature taught you?
We are nature disguised in fancy clothes and fancy devices.
Nature is the most preferred human sound.
Nature is a double edged sword. It can kill us, but also be the most soothing thing for our brain.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Kalalau Valley Lookout overlooking the Na Pali Coast
Any stop along the Road to Hana
Anywhere in the Rocky Mountains on a warm day
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Peaceful
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Exploratory
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Terrified
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Time
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Sleepy :)
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Like getting a recorder. Good, clean, howling wind is rare and hard to capture.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
A mountain overlooking an ocean
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I used to take long walks and bike rides in the Delta of Arkansas growing up as a kid. I grew up on a lake that was formed by the Mississippi River, but later leveed off. I grew up right before the explosion of the internet, so my childhood was filled with 4+ hour walks/rides up and down the Mississippi River and my lake (Horseshoe Lake, AR). I think that helped me sort out the difficult times in my childhood and ultimately prepared me for adulthood.