Lily James Olds (née Whitsitt) is a theater director and visual artist whose work has received recognition across multiple fields. She is the founder of Door 10, a pop-up performance and art lab based in New York City.

Lily is director of the TED Fellows program, a dynamic fellowship of visionaries. She helps individuals — astrophysicists to artists, doctors to entrepreneurs — strategically communicate their big ideas, and amplify them on the global stage, in order to create greater impact. Many of the talks she’s developed and coached have over 1M views. She believes deeply in the necessity of nurturing creative and collaborative ecosystems in order to solve our world’s most pressing problems.

She is a two-time recipient of the Princess Grace Award (honoring extraordinary emerging artists). Her work has been supported by and presented at Baryshnikov Arts Center, SFFILM, Tribeca Film Festival, Seattle Art Museum, New Georges, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Time Warner Foundation, WP Theater, Drama League, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, Feldstärke International, Centquatre, and PACT Zollverein.

She received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and has taught courses, workshops, and been a guest artist at CalArts, Wesleyan University, Sarah Lawrence, NYU/ Tisch, Stanford’s Medicine & the Muse program, New York Live Arts, Fine Acts, Fordham, Pace University, and TED.