Every month, Story Collider holds a virtual story slam. This April, we’ll present our second ever SUPER COLLIDER SLAM, in which five fan favorites from previous slams will return and compete for the ultimate prize: a Story Collider hoodie.
The second group of five winners of the Story Collider Slams who will be competing for this ultimate prize of being a Super Collider Winner will be:
John Aubert
Johana Goyes
Robert "Dr. Bob" Dempsey
Amanda Coletti
and Gail Thomas
Special thanks to story coaches: Ari Daniel, Paula Croxson, Maryam Zaringhalam, and Kayla Glynn
Our Host
Gastor Almonte is a stand-up comedian and storyteller from Brooklyn, NY. He's appeared on Comedy Central's This Is Not Happening, Risk! podcast and the Story Collider Podcast. Timeout magazine named him one of your "New Comedy Obsessions." He's been featured on the New York Comedy Festival, The People's Impov Theater's SoloCom and Cinderblock Comedy Festival. His new album, Immigrant Made, was released in March 2019.
Our Coaches
Kimberly Chao is a walrus. Or rather, she is known to play with her food and make a walrus face. Professionally, she manages investment portfolios and teaches financial literacy. She is also the first ever Super Collider Slam winner!
Matthew Dicks is an elementary school teacher, columnist, and internationally bestselling author of several novels including The Other Mother Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, and Twenty-one Truths About Love, as well as the nonfiction title Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling. Matthew is a 51-time Moth StorySLAM and 6-time GrandSLAM champion whose stories have been featured on This American Life. He’s the founder of Speak Up, a Hartford-based storytelling organization. He teaches public speaking and storytelling around the world to corporations, universities, politicians, advertising agencies, the clergy, and more.
Our Storytellers
Amanda Coletti is a PhD student in the Department of Communication at the University of Connecticut studying science communication, storytelling, and training/development. She has a M.S. in Physiology & Neurobiology where she used to study brain development before diving head-first into science communication. She loves burying her nose in a book, listening to podcasts, and cuddling with her cat, Belle.
John Aubert is a Professor of Geography and Environmental Sciences at American River College in Sacramento, CA. After realizing that his family and friends were finally getting tired of hearing his stories, he was ecstatic to discover that he could tell them to strangers! In addition to storytelling, John's other interests include movies, hiking, fly fishing, and volunteering in his community.
Robert “Dr. Bob” Dempsey received his PhD in astrophysics in 1991. His research on late-type stars included observations with the Hubble Space Telescope. Since 1997 he’s been a rocket scientist in NASA’s Mission Control, helping to build and operate the International Space Station. In 2005 he was selected as a Flight Director, choosing “Galileo” as his call sign. He has swum at the bottom of NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy pool and flown on the Vomit Comet – and done everything in between while leading Shuttle missions, space walks and developing a new crewed spacecraft, telling stories about it all. Otherwise he’s hiking the world with his wife Dorothy.
Dr. Johana Goyes Vallejos is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Missouri. Born and raised in the mountains of Colombia, South America, where she obtained her undergraduate degree in Biology. Later she moved to the US to pursue a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. In a nutshell, she studies how frogs attract each other so they can make babies, how they make the babies, and how they take care of their babies. Her research involves lots of jungle-hopping throughout the world.
Gail Thomas is a writer/actor/storytelling coach and lawyer living in NYC. Her voiceover credits include John Cameron Mitchell’s Anthem: Homunculus, Angelo Rules, David Letterman, and Beavis and Butthead. Her short comedy, My BFF won audience favorite at New Filmmakers. As a speechwriter for over 30-world class events including the Tribeca Film Festival, her words have been uttered by Oscar winners and fancy people with great clothes. These days, Gail’s great accomplishment is training Dezi, her new rescue dog.