Honorable Bro. Owen Shieh speaks at TEDxHonolulu (Video)
Honorable Bro. Owen Shieh (member of Honolulu Lodge) recently spoke at Hawaii’s TEDxHonolulu. The topic of the recent TEDxHonolulu was “cultivating community”, where Bro. Shieh delivered a beautiful talk titled “Untamed Skies: Where Science Meets Humanity”. In many ways, Freemasonry endeavors to perform the same; and, Bro. Shieh’s talk seemingly draws upon this correlation in ways that only a Mason would understand.
Owen Shieh is the Weather and Climate Program Coordinator at the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC) in Honolulu. As a meteorologist, his fascination with weather and storms began at an early age in Florida, where he frequently experienced the wrath of tropical storms and severe weather. He temporarily left the warmth of the tropics for the wintry cold of the Ivy League to study atmospheric science at Cornell University, where he graduated Magna cum Laude with distinction in research. For the next several years, Owen was selected to participate in VORTEX2, the largest government- funded tornado field program in history. After obtaining his M.S. in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma, Owen moved to Hawaii in 2010 to pursue Ph.D. research at the University of Hawaii to improve tropical cyclone forecasting through collaboration with the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Pearl Harbor. As the Weather and Climate Program Coordinator at the NDPTC, Owen brings his broad experiences across the field of meteorology to oversee the development of FEMA hazardous weather training courses that will be deployed across the United States. His vision is to build national resilience to natural hazards by enhancing a “whole community” discourse that combines scientific research, operational forecasting, emergency management training, public policy, and public awareness.
Created in the spirit of TED’s mission, “ideas worth spreading,” the TEDx program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis.
