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Guest Occupation: Keynote presenter, teacher, and performer at healing music, leadership, health, and mindfulness conferences throughout the world
Guest Biography:

ELIANA GILAD

Born in the United States, Eliana left for France in 1991 and then moved to Israel in 1994. Professionally, she has dedicated her life to reviving the conscious use of voice and rhythm as natural healing instruments, as they were used in ancient matriarchal times. This wordless healing sound modality helps people find their authentic voices and connect to their inner calm and wisdom.

It has been clinically researched in a neonatal intensive care unit, where it was proven to lower blood pressure and heart rate, increase focus, and improve the quality of sleep. Her work has been featured in publications like Drummer, Yoga Journal, Mothering, Music and Medicine Journal, Global Rhythm, and Hindustan Times. Documentarian Emmanuel Itier also features Eliana in her award-winning film Femme (2013), narrated by Sharon Stone.

Eliana is a frequent keynote presenter, teacher, and performer at healing music, leadership, health, and mindfulness conferences throughout the world. Such events include TEDxSanJuan (2017), International Conference of Traditional Music (2017), Globe Sound Healing Conference (2014), TEDxVailWomen Conference (2012), Chinese Spa Conference (2011), Music and Medicine Symposium (2010), and the Legends of Nonviolence Conference (2007). She has also presented at the United Nations, the Chopra Center in New York City, and the Thank Water Conference (2003), alongside Masaru Emoto, author of Messages from Water, whose research revealed the profound effect of her music upon frozen water molecules.

Through the Voices of Eden Ancient Wisdom and Healing Music Institute, Eliana researches and teaches the principles of feminine power and the voice.

In addition to Miriam’s Secret, she is the author two books: Rhythms of the Natural Voice Workbook (2002), a companion to the CD Rhythms of the Natural Voice (2001); and Quiet in the Eye of the Storm: Living Peace in a War Zone, a digital book and audio program written, recorded, and published during the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon War. She has produced five music CDs and a groundbreaking relaxation music program used by dentists worldwide.

Eliana also narrated the “The Forgotten Jews,” a PBS documentary broadcast in November 2005. In 1992, she broadcast the voiceovers for CBS television during the Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.

She alternately makes her home in Los Angeles, California, and Galilee, Israel.

Guest Category: Performing Arts, Health & Lifestyle, Sound Healing, Kids & Family, Music, Philosophy, Psychology, Self Help, Spiritual
Guest Occupation: Money Intuitive
Guest Biography:

Mary Knebel is a certified Money Breakthrough Coach, a Money Intuitive, and the founder of MoneyPreneurs. She is known as the Moneypreneur, because she helps strong, spiritual businesswomen take control of their money to take control of their lives. Mary is especially known for helping women create that first 10k breakthrough in their business, which quickly turns into 15k and 20k months.

Mary shows women how to transform their {dysfunctional} relationships with money so they can create lives of financial freedom, fun, and fulfillment from anywhere in the world! She is highly intuitive and combines both practical and spiritual tools to quickly get to the heart of what is holding you back, often breaking through life long patterns in a single session. 

Guest Category: Education, Health & Lifestyle, Science, Society and Culture, Spiritual
Guest Occupation: Professional Actor, Producer/Director/Filmmaker, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Repertory Theatre
Guest Biography:

Brian Donovan has been a professional actor for over twenty-five years in film, television and radio. He’s worked on-screen with such luminaries as Angelina Jolie, Jim Carrey and Jim Belushi. He’s been the voice of countless animated heroes -- currently as Rock Lee from the juggernaut hit, Naruto. Next year, he can be seen in the indie film, Somebody’s Mother. His award winning documentary about his sister, 'Kelly’s Hollywood' is currently playing on Showtime Networks. In addition, Brian is the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Repertory Theatre. He lives in Los Angeles, CA with his family and dog, Cosmo.

Growing up in the 1970s and ’80s in Buffalo, New York, Brian and Kelly Donovan were inseparable siblings. Kelly had Down syndrome, and Brian was her protector from the time she was a child. Honest and raw, Donovan's documentary film 'Kelly’s Hollywood' intimately reveals how an aspiring actor brings his sister, born with Down syndrome, out to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of becoming a Hollywood diva. But as her health begins to fail and she becomes increasingly jealous of Donovan's fiancée, he is forced to confront his co-dependent sibling relationship and the threat it is posing to his engagement to Tempany. When Kelly's condition plummets, Brian desperately tries to fulfill her last wish of performing in front of a live audience. But will they be able to pull it off? And will Brian’s own dream of marrying Tempany survive?

Brian Donovan's Statement about his film:

"There’s a saying, ‘love is the only true adventure’, I would add, ‘making a movie about love is the only true adventure’. When I picked up the camera 15 years ago and started shooting my sister Kelly, I did not have much of an agenda. I was capturing moments in her life that intrigued and inspired me, but when those moments started to affect me more directly, I got more serious about making this film. I had a unique perspective on an intimate relationship with a disabled sibling, so intimate that my romantic relationships became increasingly complicated and constrained, leading me to this exploration on human connection, commitment and the choices in life that effect one’s fate. 

When I heard that 90% of expecting parents were choosing to abort their fetus upon discovering potential disabilities through genetic testing I started to worry. I’m not here to judge and my film stays far away from the pro-life/pro-choice battle. However, growing up, my father was deaf, my sister had Down syndrome and my best friend was born with Kyphosis or in lay man’s terms, a ‘hunch back,’ and I can’t imagine my life without them. They have contributed more to humanity than almost everyone else I know combined. I felt it was important and necessary to make a film about my sister who personified to me that ‘it’s not who you are when you’re born, but who you are when you live.’"

Guest Category: Arts, Entertainment, Kids & Family, Self Help, Society and Culture, TV & Film, Variety
Guest Occupation: Recovering non-denominational reverend, Author
Guest Biography:

Rev. Steph is a recovering non-denominational reverend who likes to walk a little on the wild side of God.  The title of her latest book, recently released on Amazon, says it all: 

“The Miss-Adventures of an Irreverent Reverend: A Spirit-ed Guide for Rebels and Renegades.” 

Born in London, England, she came to South Africa for the first time in 1985 on a 2-month holiday to see her mum, fell in love with South Africa, found the Science of Mind teaching and emigrated! 

In 1987, she had a vision of starting a multi-racial ministry which would heal the wounds of Apartheid and, in 1989, moved to America where she studied  for the ministry at Agape in Los Angeles under Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith of “The Secret” fame.

Guest Category: Religion, Inspirational, Motivational, Spiritual
Guest Occupation: Medical Doctor
Guest Biography:

Deepak Chopra (born October 22, 1946) is an American author, public speaker, alternative medicine advocate, and a prominent figure in the New Age movement. Through his books and videos, he has become one of the best-known and wealthiest figures in alternative medicine. Chopra studied medicine in India before emigrating to the United States in 1970 where he completed residencies in internal medicine and endocrinology.

Guest Category: Education, Health & Lifestyle, Medicine, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Science, Society and Culture, Spiritual
Guest Occupation: President Prospanica Indianapolis Chapter
Guest Biography:

Prospanica – The Association of Hispanic Professionals – is here to help you grow personally and professionally through:

  • Valuable employment opportunities for MBA students
  • Undergraduate assistance to pursue graduate education
  • Expanded business networks and guidance to advance your professional career

We have 46 professional and university chapters to support you, and we’ve created strong partnerships with prominent universities and Fortune 500 companies. Whether you’re looking for exciting job connections or a roadmap to graduate education, Prospanica will help you chart the path ahead.

Formerly the National Society of Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA) and founded in 1988, Prospanica’s nearly 30-year history emphasizes on educational and professional development programs to improve the Hispanic community as a whole.

Strategic Plan and Mission

Hispanics will contribute in the affluence of the U.S. in proportion to their share of the population, as they attain higher education and leadership positions in record numbers. The entire country will become even stronger as a result of greater participation from the Hispanic community. 

Prospanica's mission is to empower Hispanic business professionals to achieve their full educational, economic, and social potential. The organization works to fulfill this mission to our members through three strategies:

  1. Provide access to higher education for Hispanics seeking professional advancement in business 
  2. Offer resources, information and a sense of community to business students and professionals to increase their development and advancement opportunities
  3. Propagate a culture of participation and leadership to advocate for the growth of Hispanic professionals in corporate America

Vision

The Prospanica vision is to be the leading catalyst for Hispanic professional achievement through diversity of thought, expert collaboration, and community engagement to create and develop Hispanic leaders.

Guest Category: Education, News, Self Help
Guest Occupation: Internationally recognized documentary filmmaker and writer
Guest Biography:

Ric Burns is an internationally recognized documentary filmmaker and writer, best known for his eight-part, seventeen and a half hour series, New York: A Documentary Film, which premiered nationally on PBS to wide public and critical acclaim when broadcast in November 1999, September 2001, and September 2003.

Burns has been writing, directing and producing historical documentaries for over 25 years, since his collaboration on the PBS series The Civil War, (1990), which he produced with his brother Ken and co-wrote with Geoffrey C. Ward.  Since founding Steeplechase Films in 1989, he has directed some of the most distinguished programs for PBS including Coney Island (1991), The Donner Party (1992), The Way West (1995), Ansel Adams (2002), Eugene O’Neill, Andy Warhol (2006), We Shall Remain: Tecumseh’s Vision (2009), Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World (2010), and Death and the Civil War (2012), a film based on the best-selling book This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by historian and Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust.

His work has won numerous film and television awards including six Emmy Awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards,  two Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards,  three Writer’s Guild of America Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Writing;  the Eric Barnouw Award of the Organization of American Historians, and the D.W. Griffith Award of the National Board of Review.

2015 saw the release of three more films by Burns.  American Ballet Theatre: a history, which aired on PBS as a part of the American Masters series, celebrates the rich history and legacy of America’s national ballet company. Debt of Honor: Disabled Veterans in American History, a moving tribute to the history of disabled veterans, aired nationally on PBS in November in honor of Veteran’s Day.  And The Pilgrims broadcast as part of the acclaimed American Experience series, also in November of 2015.  The film brings to life the story of the men and women of the Mayflower: both the ardently evangelical English Protestants who led the mission, as well as the less fervently evangelical “Strangers” who went with them.

Burns was educated at Columbia University and Cambridge University. He lives in New York City with his wife and two sons.

Guest Category: Arts, Education, Entertainment, History, Military, News, Society and Culture, TV & Film
Guest Occupation: Professor, Brown University & Co-Director, Costs of War Project
Guest Biography:

Professor Catherine Lutz is the Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Family Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. She is also a co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University. She recently received a Guggenheim Foundation grant to write a book on how Americans across diverse communities understand war and its consequences. Lutz is the author of numerous books on the US military and its bases and personnel, including Breaking Ranks (with M. Gutmann, 2010), The Bases of Empire (ed., 2009), and Homefront: A Military City and the American 20th Century (2001), and a co-founder of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists.  She has also conducted research on UN peacekeeping in Haiti, South Sudan, Liberia, and Lebanon. Lutz is past president of the American Ethnological Society, the largest organization of cultural anthropologists in the US.

Guest Category: Education, Health & Lifestyle, History, Military, News, Politics & Government, Society and Culture