The Perkins Platform

Join us on Thursday, January 28 @ 5pm EST for an exciting and insightful conversation with Dr. Paula Stone Williams.  Dr. Williams is an internationally known speaker on gender equity, LGBTQ advocacy, and religious tolerance.  She is also a Pastor at Left Hand Church and Pastoral Counselor in Boulder County, Colorado. She has been featured in the New York Times, TEDWomen, TEDSummit, TEDxMileHigh, Red Table Talk, the Denver Post, The New York Post, New Scientist Magazine, Radio New Zealand, and many other media outlets.  Her TED talks, including I lived as both a man and woman & here’s what I learned, have over six million views. Tune in to hear her experiences and words of wisdom!

Tune in on Tuesday, January 19th @ 7pm EST for an informative talk with Dr. Selena Bartlett discussing her work on Neuroplasticity and brain health. Dr. Bartlett is a Group Leader in addiction-neuroscience and obesity at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation as well as a Professor of Neuroscience at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. CEO and Founder of MiGFiT Inc, she and her research lab focus on retraining mindset for emotional eating fitness, which is the biggest problem in diets that fail. She won the Outstanding Achievement Award and the Biotech Research Award and was an Ambassador for the Women in Technology organization.  She presented a TEDx talk about the brain fitness and neuroplasticity revolution underway and the brain vitality index mobile app. Her passion is to raise awareness of the importance of brain fitness to health and vitality.

Who should receive the COVID-19 vaccination first?  Using game theory, the mathematical way of modeling how people make strategic decisions within a group, two renowned researchers model different ways of prioritizing vaccinations to see which path saves more lives. Join us on Wednesday, January 13 @ 2pm EST/ 11am PST to hear from special guests, Dr. Madhur Anand, ecologist and poet, and her husband, Dr. Chris Bauch, mathematical biologist.Dr. Madhur Anand is a professor of ecology and sustainability at The University of Guelph, Ontario, where she was appointed director of the Guelph Institute for Environmental Research. Internationally recognized ecologist with research interests in modelling human-environment systems, she has collaborated with mathematicians, theoretical physicists, statisticians, computer scientists and poets on aspects of human health, and sustainability.  She is also an accomplished poet and writer, serving on several international journal editorial boards and grant selection panels. Dr. Chris Bauch is a professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, Canada. His research program applies mathematics to real-world problems in infectious diseases, ecology, social science, and sustainability.  He has developed mathematical models of the transmission of infectious diseases such as measles, smallpox, influenza, human papillomavirus, SARS and COVID-19.  His particular focus is on how disease spread responds to aspects of population behaviour such as physical distancing, mask use, and vaccines.  His research partners have included the WHO, the United States FDA, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Join us for a lunchtime conversation on what will be an enlightening conversation on the virus, the vaccine and the pandemic.  Dr. Shannon T. Bailey, earned his PhD from Yale School of Medicine in Cellular and Molecular Biology and is a world-renown medical scientist in his field.  Dr. Bailey will engage with Dr. Perkins to debunk many of the common myths held about the current pandemic and shed some light on information that will be immediately useful to leaders in communities and organizations.  The goal of this broadcast is to serve as a useful source of factual scientific information.  Our hope is that the information will be shared in ways that the typical non-scientist can understand and share.

Join us for an informative conversation about outsmarting unconscious bias. This broadcast welcomes renowned expert on happiness and inclusion, Valerie Alexander.  She is a globally-recognized speaker on the topics of happiness in the workplace, the advancement of women, and unconscious bias.  Her TED Talk, How to Outsmart Your Own Unconscious Bias has been viewed over 260,000 times, and she has spoken at hundreds of conferences, colleges and companies, including Coca Cola, GE Capital, NASA, Tillamook and several top Real Estate industry events.  Valerie started her career as a corporate securities lawyer, investment banker and Internet executive in the Silicon Valley, then transitioned to Hollywood, where she enjoyed success as a screenwriter and director.  She also writes Christmas movies for the Hallmark Channel in addition to traveling the world as a keynote speaker!

Joshua Freedman, CEO-Six Seconds,  joins us for a discussion on emotional intelligence and its importance in school leadership right now.  Six Seconds is a non profit organization dedicated to supporting people to create positive change while researching and sharing scientific, global, transformational tools & methods to support that goal. Joshua is a Master Certified Coach (ICF) and one of a handful of experts in the world with over 20 years of full-time experience implementing EQ with clients like FedEx, Intel, Etihad Airways, Amazon, Microsoft, all branches of the US armed services & the UN.  At the Heart of Leadership, an international bestseller, is his second of five books, six validated psychometric assessments and hundreds of articles and papers, including the world’s largest study on emotional intelligence, State of the Heart.  Tune in for a conversation with Joshua and the work his organization is doing across the globe!

Join us for a discussion on the RAPID-EC Study that's shaping the national conversation about the pandemic's effects!  The Rapid Assessment of Pandemic Impact on Development - Early Childhood Study (RAPID-EC) is an ongoing survey of nationally representative households with children ages 0-5 that gathers essential information on the needs, health promoting behaviors, and well-being of children and their families during this COVID-19 pandemic. These results can provide actionable data to key stakeholders to inform immediate and long-term policy decisions. We will hear from RAPID-EC Project Director, Dr. Phil Fisher, and renowned Policy Advisor and Scholar, Dr. Joan Lombardi. Dr. Philip Fisher is the Philip H. Knight Chair and Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, where he serves as Founding Director of the Center for Translational Neuroscience. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center on the Developing Child and a member of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, both based at Harvard University. Philip’s research focuses on developing and evaluating early childhood interventions in socially and economically marginalized communities.Dr. Joan Lombardi is a Senior Scholar at the Center for Child and Human Development at Georgetown University, focusing on global child development issues. She has been a policy advisor to organizations such as UNICEF, WHO, The World Bank and countless others. She also served as the first Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood during the Obama Administration 2009-2011, and as the first Director of Child Care and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and External Affairs in the Administration for Children and Families during the Clinton Administration (l993-98).

How has the global pandemic changed the classroom and schools?  School leaders from around the country will be featured on this episode of the Perkins Platform to shed light on the challenges they have had to face at the start of this school year during COVID and going forward.  This panel of educators includes Ana Escobedo, Assistant Superintendent of Elementary in Santa Barbara, CA; Kevin Parkinson, Principal of Midtown Public Charter School in Jackson, MS; Lakeesha Ramdhanie, Head of Schools Academics of Kipp Metro Atlanta Schools; and Luis Torres, Principal of Community School 55 | Benjamin Franklin in Bronx, NY.  This impressive group of leaders will discuss what they have experienced opening and maintaining schools in virtual and hybrid modes.  Tune in on Wednesday, December 2 @ 2pm EST for this exciting and informative show!

Join us for a discussion on Adverse Childhood Experiences and the implications for ACEs during this global pandemic.  ACEs are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood and have an impact on future violence victimization and perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity.  This broadcast features Rene Howitt, founder of COPE24 | Changing Our Parenting Experience.  Rene has spent the last 12 years speaking across the country in over 240 educational institutions to thousands of students. Their stories of abuse, neglect, foster care and lack of permanency in their lives led to the founding of her non-profit child advocacy organization.  She believes that the way to break the cycle of abuse for the sake of future generations of children is through educating and providing our youth with a coping skill set that may not have previously modeled to them.  She is also an appointed member of Missouri’s Task Force on Children’s Justice and the Critical Event Review Committees.  Tune in on Monday, November 30 @ 5pm EST to hear this enlightening conversation.

This broadcast features educational consultant and motivational speaker, Lisa M. Wilson - Founder of C.A.R.E. Coalition on Anti-Racism Education.    Lisa is a passionate advocate and educator who believes every student deserves the opportunity to reach their divine purpose and highest learning potential.  She helps educators develop the necessary skills to connect with students through leadership and development sessions, like ‘How to Nurture an Antiracism Mindset’.  Lisa received her Master’s Degree from Azusa Pacific University, studying Education with an emphasis on multi cultural contexts within school organizations.  She is currently completing a doctoral degree in Curriculum and Instruction at Capella University and engaged in Anti-Racist work all over the world.  Tune in on Wednesday, November 18 at 6pm PST / 9pm EST!