Here are some of the speakers who will be participating at this year’s TedxMontclair event on November 5, 2011:

JAY JACOBS

Jay Jacobs’ lifelong challenge with his weight culminated when he and his daughter, Jennifer, became contestants on NBC’s Biggest Loser this past spring.  Jay lost 181 pounds and made it all the way to the coveted Final 4.  Prior to this, his struggle with the cycle of weight gain and loss inspired him to develop “mypetfat,” a weight loss product which has shipped to 15 countries.  Jay has been featured in Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and multitudes of lifestyle and business publications. 

Jay is the lead Brand Strategist and a managing partner of Shurn Group, a branding and marketing firm he co-founded with his wife Kim, and Jennifer.  He has produced integrated campaigns that include strategic ideation, naming, identity design, product development, packaging, web presence, promotion, as well as store design and architectural installations for an international portfolio of clients.  As a member of the TalentBank, the community of experts at Faith Popcorn’s Brain Reserve, Jay serves with visionaries worldwide to envision future brands and category dynamics.

ERIC WEINER

Eric Weiner is author of The New York Times bestseller The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s search for the Happiest Places in the World (Twelve/Grand Central). Winner of the Borders Original Voices Award and named a 2008 Best Book of The Year by The Washington Post, the book has been translated into 18 languages.
 

Eric’s latest book Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine is out in early December, 2011. Eric is a former correspondent for National Public Radio and The New York Times. His essays and articles appear regularly in The Los Angeles Times, Slate, The Washington Post, and Foreign Policy, among other publications.  A former Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, he no longer makes excuses for his incurable wanderlust. You can follow Eric and his travels at www.ericweinerbooks.com

ALMA SCHNEIDER

Alma Schneider, LCSW, is founder of Take Back the Kitchen. Her blog, TakeBackthekitchen.com,  like her consulting business, is dedicated to helping people recognize and overcome the common and unique psychological and practical obstacles to being everything they hope to be in the kitchen. She is a frequent contributor for Woman’s Day on line magazine, CBS local.com, has a video cooking show on aol’s Patch.com, is a recipe contributor to suzysaid.com,baristakids.com, rolemommy.com, Parent Times Magazine and numerous other websites and publications. Alma is a native New Yorker, transplanted to the suburbs, where she lives with her husband and four children. She is also the founder and President of Parents Who Rock, a non-profit organization, recently featured in Family Circle Magazine, which raises money for charity through concerts performed by musicians who are parents.

DANA JENNINGS

Dana Jennings, currently the Assistant Editor of the Sunday Arts & Leisure section will be our host/moderator for TedxMontclair.

Dana regularly reviews poetry and other books for the daily Culture section and writes occasionally for Arts & Leisure.

An author of several books and recent prostate cancer survivor, Dana will facilitate TedxMontclair on November 5th at Montclair State University.

ALAN JENKINS

Alan Jenkins is Executive Director of The Opportunity Agenda, a communications, research, and policy organization dedicated to building the national will to expand opportunity. Before joining The Opportunity Agenda, Alan was Director of Human Rights at the Ford Foundation, managing grant making in the United States and eleven overseas regions. Previously, he served as Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he represented the United States government in constitutional and other litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he was Associate Counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where he defended the rights of low-income communities suffering from exploitation and discrimination.

His other positions have included Assistant Adjunct Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, Law Clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Law Clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Carter, and Coordinator of the Access to Justice Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. Alan is a member of the Legal Services Corporation’s Special Task Force on Fiscal Oversight, serves on the Board of Governors of the New School University, and is a Co-Chair of the American Constitution Society’s Project on the Constitution in the Twenty-First Century. He holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an M.A. in Media Studies from New School University, and a B.A. in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard College.

JIM AXELROD

Jim Axelrod is the author of “In the Long Run” and a national correspondent for CBS News who previously served as Chief White House correspondent for the network. Before joining CBS News in 1996, he was a political reporter and substitute anchor at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, NC; a reporter for WSTM-TV in Syracuse, NY; and an anchor/reporter for WUTR-TV in Utica, NY.

TAMAR ADLER

A former editor at Harper’s Magazine, Tamar Adler has cooked at Gabrielle Hamilton’s Prune restaurant and Chez Panisse. She was the founding head chef of the restaurant Farm 255 in Athens, Georgia. Tamar’s first book, “An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace,” is being released by Scribner in October 2011. Tamar has written for Harper’s Magazine, Mother Jones, the Bangkok Post, Fine Cooking, Meatpaper, and Salon.com. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

JULIAN PAUL KEENAN

Julian Paul Keenan, PhD is a Professor of Biology and Psychology at Montclair State University. He is the Director of the Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory which specializes in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. He is the author of numerous books and papers and has published in the journals Science, Nature, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and he is the founder of the journal Social Neuroscience.