The First Voices of TEDxAmes.

Swathi Adimulam is a Data and AI Architect, public speaker, and technology leader with more than 16 years of experience helping organizations turn emerging ideas into practical, responsible solutions. Her work spans agentic AI, data intelligence, enterprise architecture, and AI-driven developer productivity.

As a speaker, Swathi makes complex technology understandable by connecting it to real business and human challenges. She has presented on topics such as sustainable AI, responsible innovation, data architecture, and the changing role of engineers in the age of AI. At the Grace Hopper Celebration, she delivered "Smarter, Not Hotter AI" and "Farming by the Node," talks that explored AI's environmental footprint and challenged engineers to build more efficient systems.

Swathi is passionate about helping both technical and nontechnical audiences understand not only what AI can do, but how it can be designed and used more thoughtfully.

Diogenes Ayala is a nationally recognized public safety and emergency management leader, educator, and U.S. Navy veteran whose career has been dedicated to helping people and organizations prepare for the unexpected. He previously served as an Emergency Management and Homeland Security Director, leading the response to the devastating 2022 Winterset EF4 tornado, an experience that reinforced his belief that preparedness is not simply a plan, but a shared responsibility. Named Iowa's 2022 Emergency Manager of the Year, Diogenes has trained more than 1,800 professionals in terrorism awareness, counter-IED strategies, critical infrastructure protection, crisis leadership, and emergency preparedness. He is also the founder and principal consultant of Danger & Associates and serves on the University of Central Missouri's Crisis and Disaster Management Advisory Board.

Dr. Jennifer Kasirsky is a doctor, mom, maternal healthcare champion who is passionate about women's healthcare. She has over 25 years of experience as an OB/gyn and currently works caring for underserved women. She has worked outside of the US as an Ob/gyn and has a broad perspective on healthcare outside the US and the current healthcare system in the US. She has worked to build a hospital system and department of Ob/Gyn outside the US and in her current role helps create programs to staff underserved communities with Ob/gyns and Certified Nurse Midwives.

Riana LeJeune is an award-winning upholstery artisan, applied AI technologist, inventor, and founder of Repinned Upholstery & Restoration and Renewabl Furniture Inc. Drawing on 13 years as a professional custom upholsterer, she created Renewabl, a patent-pending technology ecosystem that promotes furniture reuse while helping artisans visualize possibilities, improve profitability, manage their businesses, and preserve specialized knowledge. She also created the nation's first registered apprenticeship for professional custom upholstery, building a pathway into an overlooked skilled trade. Diagnosed with autism and ADHD at 41, Riana advocates for neuroinclusive leadership and systems that recognize unconventional talent. Her continuing education includes Advanced Neuromarketing at Harvard and Systems Thinking coursework through MIT. A 2026 Visionaries V-200 honoree and WomenTech Network Rising Star nominee, she will speak at the 2026 Inclusive Growth Summit at Yale.

Jennifer Welch is an educator, author, and founder of Threads of Life, a framework for exploring the influences that shape how we understand ourselves, our choices, and the lives we build.

An Iowa State University alum, Jennifer spent nearly two decades working in health and wellness, where she became fascinated by a question that extended far beyond health: Why can two people encounter similar circumstances and experience them so differently?

Her own unexpected professional reinvention deepened that question and challenged something she had long believed: that making the right choices should lead to the right outcomes.

Today, Jennifer explores the space between choice and control, and what becomes possible when we understand the forces that have influenced our lives without allowing them to determine what happens next.

Lauren Wu is a former ballerina turned healthcare and technology executive, a privacy and regulatory attorney, an Adjunct Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and an international speaker.

After a major health event forced her to step away from her executive career, she began examining leadership, burnout, and AI governance through a new lens: systems design, accessibility, and human capacity. She is the founder of Heart Led Leadership, the advisory practice built out of that work, and serves on the board of S.T.O.P. Her book, The HEART Advantage: How High-Trust Leaders Win Without Burning People Out, puts forward a framework for building successful teams and leaders without burning people out.

Her work connects compliance, technology ethics, disability, and leadership, helping organizations move beyond blaming individuals and toward building systems that actually support human beings.

John Yeager, Ed.D., is an educator, coach, and storyteller who has dedicated his career to studying the motivations behind human action and the mechanics of courageous leadership. As the Chief Education Officer at Yeager Leadership, he works across the corporate, healthcare, education, community, and athletic sectors to help leaders embrace courage as a daily, repeatable process. Driven by a mission to empower others, John combines extensive research with decades of experience to foster grit, vulnerability, and growth within teams and organizations.

A veteran teacher and a graduate of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania, John's new book, Courage Keepers: A Guide to Brave Leadership and Inspiring Bold Action in Others, is the product of his deep dive into how leaders can model and mentor bravery in times of uncertainty.