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Cloe Shasha Brooks: The Search For Big Ideas

Marla Aufmuth / TED

About The Episode

Anyone from anywhere can give a TED Talk. This hour, we're joined by curator Cloe Shasha Brooks, who leads a massive search each year to discover brilliant speakers who often fly under the radar.

About Cloe Shasha Brooks

Cloe Shasha Brooks is TED's Speaker Development Curator. Each year, she oversees TED's Idea Search and a pool of speaker nominations that come in from all over the world. Cloe curates in a variety of fields, with an international focus on culture, social justice, literature, and humor. She works with speakers to develop and write their talks, diving deep into their research to help them communicate their ideas with impact.

Cloe's background is in journalism and cognitive psychology. She has contributed articles to ABC News and Huff Post, and wrote weekly news features for the Middlebury College newspaper for four years. Prior to joining TED in 2011, Cloe graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury College, where she received her bachelor's degree in psychology, and wrote a year-long thesis on designing educational testing to strengthen long-term memory. She was featured as one of Go Magazine's "100 Women We Love" in 2020.

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You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHour and email us at TEDRadioHour@npr.org.

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NPR/TED Staff