Jacob Greenspan is a Santa Barbara native who has been standing on a basketball court since the age of three. Jacob performed as a part of the advanced band at Laguna Blanca for two years. Jacob currently attends Santa Barbara High School and one day hopes to write music and perform guitar solos for a worldwide audience. He also hopes to attend the distinguished Berklee School of Music. With extensive training from musicians Crosby Loggins and JR Richards, Jacob has developed his own signature style of bluesy, finger picking guitar riffs. From acoustic blues to classic rock on his favorite Stratocaster, Jacob’s passion for music is indicative by every note he plays.

In January 2011, J.R Richards created the 20k Watts project. 20k Watts is an Artist Eco Alliance which aims to bring sustainable clean energy to 3rd world communities in need. To empower communities in impoverished areas using the sun, wind, and battery for storing and supplying electricity and enhancing the current and future quality of life.

J.R Richards, and band mate, Ryan Rossi are currently writing songs for an EP that will theme “Music Can Help” and should have a new CD released by late Fall 2011.
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As a designer at Apple in the 1980s, Gromala’s job was to imagine how people would use paradigm-shifting technologies. Drawing on a lifetime love of photographing roadkill and things that provoke gut responses, she was consumed by wondering how multimedia affected our many senses, including our inner, usually quiescent senses.

Gromala doggedly pursued this at Yale University, earning an MFA. Because Yale was something of a Montessori school for grown-ups though, most of her classes were in the School of Medicine and Philosophy departments. In 1990, Gromala was selected to create one of the very first Virtual Reality (VR) artworks by the Banff Centre for the Arts. With choreographer Yacov Sharir, Gromala used MRI data of her body as the immersive environment. Their use of stereoscopy, spatialized sound, 6 degrees of freedom and lack of any rectilinear forms provoked the proprioceptive sense of where we are in our bodies. This and other VR works have been been recognized by numerous art, design and computer science organizations, by the U.S. Congress and the government of Canada.

Expert in art, design and computer science, Gromala was tapped to develop and teach the first multidisciplinary new media programs at the University of Texas, the University of Washington and Georgia Tech. She was a member of prominent labs: UW’s virtual reality lab (HITLab) and Georgia Tech’s GVU. There, Gromala developed virtual reality (VR) for phobias, anxiety, Parkinson’s and for children who were undergoing chemotherapy. Her current VR work is in use at 20+ hospitals worldwide.

Dr. Gromala earned one of the first PhDs in interactive art in the School of Computing Science at the University of Plymouth in England.
She is a senior Fulbright Scholar and consults for the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Named the Art Gallery Chair for SIGGRAPH’s millenial year, Gromala curated the largest number of interactive arts since SIGGRAPH’s inception. Using these works as exemplars, Gromala and Jay Bolter challenged a fundamental precept of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) n the MIT Press book, Windows and Mirrors.

Gromala is the founding Director of the Transforming Pain Research Group. Funded by national research councils and philanthropists, the pain physicians, computer scientists, neuroscientist, psychophysicist, media producers, designers and artists who comprise this team develop new technologies to help the estimated 1 in 5 North Americans who suffer from the “silent epidemic,” chronic pain. Diane Gromala is a Full Professor and holds the Canada Research Chair at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. She is currently a Visiting Scholar and Artist-in-Residence at UCLA’s California Nanosystems Institute.

Dr. Keith Witt is a psychotherapist, teacher, and author who has lived and worked in Santa Barbara, CA. for over thirty-eight years. He received his BA in Psychology and MA in Counseling Psychology from UCSB, and his PH.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Fielding Institute. He was licensed as an MFT in 1975 and as Clinical Psychologist in 1988.

Dr. Witt is the founder of The School of Love, which you can find more about on his website, www.drkeithwitt.com. Last year he delivered a TEDxAmericanRiviera talk on 100 Reasons to Not have the Secret affair: Educated Love in The Twenty-first century.

Realizing early in his career that mutuality and intimacy are central to human development and joyful existence, Keith’s work has explored intimacy and evolution from multiple perspectives yielding four books (Waking Up, Sessions, The Attuned Family, and The Gift of Shame), articles, and numerous lectures and classes which he has taught across the U.S. He has conducted over fifty thousand therapy sessions, led many groups, and has been a contributor to Integral Life and the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice. He and his wife Becky met in 1973 and have two grown children, Ethan and Zoe.

KAREN ARCHIPLEY
Co-owner, Archi’s Acres
Co-owner, Veterans Sustainability Agriculture Training (VSAT) program

Karen Archipley, once an international hat designer and manufacturer, brings her business and marketing expertise to Archi’s Acres and the VSAT program. Karen heads up the recruiting of students and identifies employment opportunities and entrepreneurship assistance for VSAT graduates as well as marketing and Sales of Archi’s Acres produce and VSAT graduates products.

COLIN ARCHIPLEY
Co-owner, Archi’s Acres
Co-owner, Veterans Sustainability Agriculture Training (VSAT) program

Decorated Marine Sergeant Colin Archipley brings his leadership skills and passion for agriculture technology to the Archi’s Acres VSAT program. Colin teaches the Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training program, and is leading the way to establish VSAT across the Country.

Read more about Karen and Colin here.