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Wasatch Speaker Series
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Presented by
2023-2024 Speakers
“A series of up-close and personal speaking experiences with eminent leaders, thinkers, and innovators of our time in an open and unbiased forum.”
Secretary Pete Buttigieg
U.S. Secretary of Transportation (2021–2025)
Pete Buttigieg served from 2021 to 2025 as U.S. Secretary of Transportation. During his tenure, he worked to launch over sixty thousand infrastructure projects across the country, improve transportation safety and technology, expand airline passenger protections, and resolve pandemic-related supply chain disruptions.
Previously, Buttigieg served two terms as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, where he was elected at the age of 29 and led the city to its strongest period of economic and population growth in decades. He also served for seven years as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve...(See Full Bio).​
Ella Al-Shamahi
Paleoanthropologist, National Geographic Explorer, Stand-Up Comic, and PBS Documentary Host
Ella is a National Geographic Explorer, palaeoanthropologist, evolutionary biologist...and stand-up comic. Her debut book The Handshake is a Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year. She specializes in Neanderthals, caves, and expeditions in hostile, disputed, and unstable territories. She almost exclusively works in places it is hard to get insurance, such as Iraq, Yemen, Nagorno-Karabakh, and places she can’t publicly admit to. From heading up exploratory expeditions to joining cave excavations, the conditions can be unusual, from avoiding landmines to wearing a burqa for security reasons.
Ella believes that this is a risk worth taking because huge parts of the planet’s scientific potential are being ignored due to instability...(See Full Bio)
Andy Mann & The Eli West Trio
National Geographic Photographer, Emmy-Nominated Director and Recording Artist; Performing as Andy Mann and the Eli West Trio
Andy Mann is an Emmy-nominated Director, 12 time Telly-Award Winner, National Geographic Photographer, and marine conservationist whose imagery is helping tell the story of our rapidly changing planet.
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Andy is also a renowned public-speaker and songwriter who blends the two disciplines to present a dynamic evening of adventure, exploration, imagery, and music, known as The Helmsman show. Joined onstage by the acclaimed Eli West Trio, Andy Mann and his band will share a behind-the-scenes look at some of the wildest places on our planet. Drawing on classic folk troubadour traditions, the quartet weaves in a delightfully warped, salty sense of storytelling to original musical arrangements and stunning imagery from above and below the surface of the ocean....(See Full Bio & Event Info)
Vice President Kamala D. Harris
49th Vice President of the United States (2021–2025)
On January 20, 2021, Kamala Harris was sworn in as the 49th Vice President of the United States— the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected to this position.
As Vice President, she brought people together to advance opportunity, deliver for families, and protect fundamental freedoms. She led the fight for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own bodies, the freedom to live safe from gun violence, the freedom to vote, and the freedom to drink clean water and breathe clean air. She took particular focus on job creation through the investment in our nation’s small business and community banks. She also presided over the vote to confirm the first Black woman, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, to the Supreme Court...(See Full Bio)
Adam Kinzinger
U.S. Congressman from Illinois (2011–2023), Member of the January 6th Committee (2021–2023), CNN Senior Political Commentator, and Author of Renegade
For Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, service to country has been the guiding principle of his life and career — first as a member of the armed forces, and later as a lawmaker in the halls of Congress. When the strength of the nation was tested on January 6th, 2021 and in the months following, Kinzinger took his sworn oath further, boldly demonstrating an exceedingly rare loyalty to country over party.
As one of only two Republicans on the January 6th Committee, Rep. Kinzinger stood against his own party in pursuit of democracy and justice...(See Full Bio).​​
Vladimir Kara-Murza
Russian Politician, Historian, and Pro-Democracy Activist; Former Political Prisoner and 2024 Pulitzer Prize-Winning Washington Post Columnist
Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian politician, author, historian, documentary filmmaker, and former political prisoner.
A close colleague of the slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, he served as deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party and was a candidate for the Russian Parliament. Leading diplomatic efforts on behalf of the opposition, Kara-Murza played a key role in the adoption of Magnitsky sanctions against top Russian officials by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, and Australia.
For this work he was twice poisoned and left in a coma; a joint media investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider, and Der Spiegel has identified FSB officers behind the attacks...(See Full Bio).
Kevin Fedarko & Pete McBride
National Geographic Adventurers of the Year, Author Kevin Fedarko and Photographer Pete McBride, Share the Story of their Epic Grand Canyon Thru-Hike
Join National Geographic photographer/filmmaker Pete McBride and Author Kevin Fedarko on a gritty and epic year-long quest through the entire length of the Grand Canyon—not “rim to rim” as has been tackled by many—but “end to end.” This route, if floated down the river, would cover 250 miles. On foot, where there are no trails, it covers 750 miles.
Enduring slot canyons, scorching sun, and snow, McBride and Fedarko made this epic journey to highlight the many challenges facing this iconic landscape today, from overdevelopment to the threat of contamination from uranium mines at the canyon’s edge. Their expedition also checks in with the many Native American tribes who still call the Grand Canyon National Park home, and they invite us to contemplate the value of wild spaces...(See Full Bio).
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