Karen McFarlane Holman
She has roots firmly entrenched in the world of radio as a founder of the community radio station KMUZ where she has hosted several radio shows.
Karen McFarlane Holman, Ph.D., fuses her 20-year career as a chemistry professor at Willamette University with her 25-year speaking and performance career. Her TEDx talk on anti-cancer drugs has generated an engagement of over 40K YouTube views and she was awarded Professor of the Year in 2010 by the Carnegie Foundation. She maintains a side hustle as a guitarist and singer in the all-girl garage band Hot Sheets as well as the socio-punk indie trio City of Pieces.
Karen’s love of connecting and speaking with audiences has roots in radio: She is the Founder of KMUZ-FM, the first community radio station in the capital city of Oregon, and has been a deejay at several stations on the West Coast since 1989. Karen has an enormous passion for conveying scientific concepts to general audiences and infusing the wonder of science into children’s lives. To that end, in 2020 she launched Science Rockstar Kids, an online science learning platform with the mission of cultivating curiosity rather than learning facts.
Brian Hart
During the day, Brian Hart is a full-time video producer at Allied Video Productions and works part-time for The RiverCity Rockstar Academy. But there is so.much.more.
A self-proclaimed community volunteer advocate, Brian literally walks the talk. He is the co-organizes TEDxSalem, is the chair of the Moxie Initiative, vice-chair for the Salem Progressive Film Series, and volunteers for Make Music Day, the Sundance Film Festival, and the Reel Film Snobs. Brian has also co-organized One Billion Rising events, Santa pub crawls, silent discos, & dance walks. He also co-organized the PNW’s first Before I Die wall. There have even been some secret projects that he has done that have remained anonymous.
In 2011, Brian was voted one of “Salem’s top 20 under 40” by the public via The Statesman Journal. Some of Brian’s favorite cool sheets are movies, gadgets & technology, sustainable living. He also likes to spotlight incredible humans and companies you have never heard of, other podcasts, and food, to name just a few.
Fun fact: In what started as a 30-day challenge, Brian has now been car-free since 2014.