Theme: Push to Start

Push to Start. This theme offers many interpretations, but in all instances it symbolizes the push to start moving from potential to kinetic energy to manifestation.

Schwab Auditorium
Penn State University
University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802
United States

Bruce Grierson

Bruce Grierson was born and raised in Edmonton, Canada, and started on a pre-med stream before switching into the social sciences..After undergrad, he took a year to clear his head. He planted 50,000 or so evergreen trees in the mosquito-infested wilds of northern Alberta, tended sheep on a farm in Norway, spent time alone on a Greek Island. Somewhere during that year he remembered that what he always wanted to do most was write. Grierson started doing some journalism, which evolved into a specialty in long-form creative nonfiction. His work has been published in The New York Times magazine, Psychology Today, Popular Science, Discover, Scientific American, Eighteen Bridges, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Guardian, and the Globe and Mail. He has collaborated with Kalle Lasn on the book Culture Jam, and has since written two more books, U-Turn and most recently What Makes Olga Run?

Chelsea Carmona

Chelsea Carmona is a writer and drug treatment activist whose work has appeared in a wide range of print and online publications including TIME, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, The Christian Science Monitor, The Huffington Post and The San Francisco Chronicle. Chelsea serves as The OpEd Project’s Program Manager, running ambitious training and mentoring programs with top scholars and activists all over the nation.

Darla Lindberg

Darla Lindberg actively engages broad challenges facing humanity, and advocates a systems-approach to problem identity involving multiple domains. The cornerstone of Lindberg’s work is the belief that each and every person – from boots-on-the-ground to policy formation – must play an integral part in affecting a solution. She is a registered architect, has authored numerous publications, exhibitions, and commissions, and has won numerous awards including the 2010 College of Arts & Architecture Outstanding Teaching Award. She holds a lifetime distinction, that of "University Professor" from the University of Utah and she is the first woman to be both tenured and promoted to Full Professor in Penn State's Architecture department. She currently holds the distinguished Stuckeman Chair of Design Innovation at Penn State and credits a "horse whisperer's" experience and instinct to getting the very best out of her students.

David Hughes

David Hughes is an Assistant Professor of Entomology and Biology at Penn State. He grew up a poor kid in Dublin, Ireland and was kicked out of school at the age of 15. For a while he lived in a hostel and worked on a horse farm in the West of Ireland. There he first saw the scars of the Famine fields from 1847. He eventually went back to school at 19 before leaving Ireland to study at some of the finest Universities in the world (Oxford, Copenhagen, Harvard) but it is his experience of the American Land Grant school system that has most affected him. Here, at a shining example of such a school, Penn State, he thinks a lot about Ag and how to prevent future famines-not in Ireland but in Sub Saharan Africa, the Indian Sub-continent, and other developing regions. With Marcel Salathé, he developed PlantVillage—the world’s largest social network site around food plants. The goal is to fundamentally transform the way we share knowledge so we can grow more food for a 9 billion+ world.

James Franklin

James Franklin is approaching his second season as the head coach of Penn State’s Football program. Franklin was named the 16th head football coach in the storied 127-year history of the Nittany Lion program on January 11, 2014. A two-time All-Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) quarterback at East Stroudsburg University, Franklin has demonstrated the ability to recruit, teach and motivate talented student-athletes throughout his coaching tenure. Franklin graduated from East Stroudsburg in 1995 with a degree in psychology. He also earned a master's degree in educational leadership from Washington State University.

Jane Richlovsky

Jane Richlovsky is an artist, art studio developer, and cultural space advocate. Her paintings have been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the United States, including the Fetherston Gallery, Atelier 31, Pratt Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, Museum of Northwest Art and the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington; Lois Lambert Gallery, JoAnne Artman Gallery, and A Shenere Velt Gallery in California; The Painting Center in New York City; Heineman-Myers Contemporary Art in Maryland; and Butte-Silver Bow Arts Foundation in Montana. She is the recipient of grants from the George Sugarman Foundation, the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the King County Arts Commission, USA Projects, and Artist Trust. Her work is included in the collection of the King County International Airport and in private collections around the world. She is a part-time lecturer at the University of Washington and has taught painting and drawing at numerous arts institutions.

Jeannine Gramick

Sister Jeannine Gramick has been a Roman Catholic nun for more than 50 years. While obtaining her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, she became involved in a pastoral outreach to lesbian and gay Catholics. Her religious community assigned her to LGBT ministry in 1977. She has spoken and written extensively on the subject. Her books include Homosexuality in the Priesthood and Religious Life, The Vatican and Homosexuality, Building Bridges, and Voices of Hope. In 1999, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared that she should cease her ministry. She said, “I chose not to collaborate in my own oppression” and continues to advocate for LGBT people with the approval of the Sisters of Loretto. Her ministry is documented in the film, "In Good Conscience: Sister Jeannine Gramick's Journey of Faith," by the Peabody and Emmy award-winning director, Barbara Rick.

Jeffrey Jensen Arnett

Jeffrey Arnett is a professor in Clark University’s Department of Psychology in Massachusetts. Starting with his Bachelor in Science in Psychology at Michigan State University, Arnett’s education continued with a Masters and a Ph. D. from the University of Virginia. Arnett has held a lot of professorships and research positions with a variety of universities across the United States. Arnett coined the phrase emerging adulthood, the phase of life between adolescence and full-fledged adulthood. Arnett has also authored three publications including a book about the heavy metal subculture and teens. In addition to his background in academia, Arnett has appeared on television and given speeches to further his theory of emerging adulthood.

Jemele Hill

Jemele Hill is a co-host for His & Hers, formerly Numbers Never Lie, with Michael Smith.Hill joined ESPN in November 2006 as a national columnist on ESPN.com. Before joining ESPN, Hill worked as a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel I and a sports writer with the Detroit Free Press. Hill began her career in 1997 as a general assignment sports writer for the Raleigh News & Observer.In 2007, Hill won the first annual McKenzie Cup, which is given in tribute to groundbreaking sports editor Van McKenzie, at the annual Poynter Media Summit. She also received an honorable mention in the 2007 edition of Best American Sports Writing. In 1998, Hill won first place in sports feature writing at the North Carolina Press Association. Hill is also a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.A native of Detroit, Hill attended Michigan State University and graduated in 1997 with a degree in journalism and a minor in Spanish.

John Roe

John Roe is a professor in Penn State's department of mathematics. Born and educated in England, John came to PSU in 1998 where he has helped invent new kinds of mathematics, taught inspiring courses, and served as department head from 2006-2012. He is passionate about helping students use mathematical tools to gain insight into pressing real-world questions, especially related to ecological and environmental sustainability. Outside the university, John is a rock-climber, a guitarist, an enthusiastic but messy cook, and a blogger on topics related to faith, mathematics and the environment.

Meera Dolasia

Meera Dolasia is the CEO, publisher and editor of DOGO Media, a next-generation online network empowering kids to engage in a fun, safe, and social environment. She is also the editor of DOGOnews, which she was driven to found in 2009 after discovering a lack of reliable and safe news source for her then-elementary age kids. Growing up in Mombasa, Kenya and Mumbai, India, Meera is fluent in four languages--Hindi, Gujarati, Swahili and English. Meera holds a BSc in Financial Services from the University of Manchester and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Prior to founding DOGO Media. Meera led the product management team at Seneca Capital Management, where she was responsible for all portfolio positioning strategies and investment communications.

Ritesh Agarwal

Ritesh Agarwal earned his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1996, and a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Chicago. He received his PhD in physical chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 2001. After completing his PhD., Ritesh was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard where he studied the optical and photonic properties of semiconductor nanowires. His work led to the development of electrically-driven single nanowire lasers and avalanche photodiodes. Ritesh is currently a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include understanding and engineering light-matter interactions at the nanoscale using a variety of one- and two-dimensional semiconductors, plasmonic nanocavities, and studying phase transitions and electronic memory switching at the nanoscale.

Scott Fried

Scott Fried is a health educator, international public speaker and writer. He has touched more than a million people across the US and in numerous other countries through his lectures, publications, and humanitarian work. His message for teens, young adults, parents, teachers and professionals is a powerful one of love, responsibility, sacredness and self-respect. By dealing with such diverse topics as eating disorders, suicide, self-mutilation, bullying, coming out, addiction, safer sex and broken hearts, he shares the pain and doubt that are part of the adolescence and teenage years.

Suzy Scherf

Suzy Scherf is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist. She received her PhD from the Univ. of Pittsburgh and did her post-doctoral training in the medical school at Pitt and also at Carnegie Mellon University. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Penn State University. She uses multiple neuroimaging techniques to study brain development in typically developing children and adolescents as well as those with autism. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Alliance for Autism Research, and Pennsylvania Department of Health and Human Services. Currently, she is working on understanding how children and adolescents perceive and interpret social signals and how pubertal development and emerging functional specificity of the developing brain supports this process.

Xavier D'Leau

Xavier D’Leau is a blogger and digital content creator from New York City by way of the San Francisco Bay Area. He writes and vlogs about the everyday musings of what it is to be a Black in the city at TheXDExperience.com. X. D. takes his social commentary to his hit podcast “2 Guys And A Girl” on iTunes. On the business front, X. D. owns his own Digital Creative Services agency under The X. D. Experience umbrella and represents some of the leading entities on the web. Notably, X. D. sat as the social media manager for Brooklyn Council Woman, now Public Advocate, Leticia James where he managed her social media properties and increased her web presence. X. D. also represented filmmaker Patrik-Ian Polk (Punks, Noah’s Arc and The Skinny) and sat as the Director of Marketing for Polk’s Tall Skinny Black Boy Productions. X. D. now sits as the executive producer of the multi-award winning web series Quarter Century.