Join the Story Collider in Atlanta for an evening of five personal stories about finding meaning in life. From the side of an ice-covered mountain to deep within a glistening cave, hear stories about the surprising places the search for purpose can take us.
Stories by:
Denise Arribas got her BFA in Musical Theatre from Shorter College in Rome GA and has worked all over Atlanta in theaters such as Alliance Theatre, Actor’s Express, Center for Puppetry Arts, 7 Stages, Horizon Theatre and Aurora Theatre. In 2010 she was fortunate enough to be able to use her musical theater skills and the innate clowning skills she’s been honing since childhood and put them to good use in the hospital when she joined the Atlanta Clown Care Unit. In 2015 she became the Site Coordinator at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Hughes Spalding. In 2016 she became one of the founding member of Humorology Atlanta HA! and serves as their Marketing/Community Outreach Coordinator. When not clowning around at the hospital she is an on-camera actor with Houghton Talent and a translator/ voice over actor with Enghouse Interactive.
M. Amin Ghane is a PhD candidate at Georgia State University’s Neuroscience Institute. A native of Chicagoland, he grew up bi-culturally with Iranian-American parents. Amin graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in molecular biology. An insatiable curiosity ensured a broad – and eclectic – range of experiences: he’s studied everything from the corn genome to the causes of epilepsy. Amin is also actively involved as an advocate for the institutions of science in the United States, to which his family owes their version of the American Dream. Outside of science, Amin enjoys traveling with friends, playing music, and spending time with his amazing family.
Mark Kendall is an Atlanta-based comedian. He is an ensemble member at Dad's Garage Theatre. His one man show, "The Magic Negro and Other Blackness" was produced by the Alliance Theatre and he continues to tour the show around the country. For his work with the show, he was awarded "Best Professional Funny Man" by Creative Loafing Atlanta in 2015. Mark studied film at Northwestern University. He worked at Comedy Central through the Chris Rock Summer School Program for up and coming comedy writers of color. During his time at Comedy Central, he got to pitch jokes to the writing staffs of "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report."
Donna McDermott is an ecology PhD candidate at Emory University. She works in Dr. Berry Brosi’s lab and is investigating how bumble bees learn about flowers. She’s way enthusiastic about stories, science, and teaching at every level.
Steve Robinson is a PhD Candidate in bioengineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. His research focuses on development of microscale models of disease in order to study biological signaling pathways and evaluate potential therapeutic compounds. During his PhD, Steve spent a year at Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg in Germany for a research collaboration optimizing new techniques for imaging microtissues. When he's not in lab, Steve spends much of his spare time climbing. Having climbed rock faces in 18 different states and 10 different countries, he's always looking for new ways to connect with the world. Steve has also worked with several startups in fields ranging from telemedicine to climbing products, and plans to pursue aspirations in entrepreneurship after completing his PhD.