Theme: A Constellation of Insights

A constellation brings together bright and brilliant things, where connecting the dots can lead to fantastical discoveries. While each star can be easily distinguished from its neighbours, it is the collective formation that ultimately produces the picture humans have observed looking up at the heavens.

On March 15th, 2015, TEDxUofT invites you to join our constellation as we connect people, ideas and discoveries to guide our future, just as those that have guided travelers for thousands of years.

JJR MacLeod Auditorium
1 King's College Circle
Medical Sciences Building #2158
Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A8
Canada

Erindale Campus African Students Association

The Erindale Campus African Students Association (ECASA) was founded in 2004 at the University of Toronto Mississauga with the aim of representing Students of African dissent by raising cultural, social, political and intellectual awareness and catering to any student, staff, faculty and member of the University of Toronto community with an interest in African affairs, irrespective of background.

Tunes. Beats. Awesome.

TBA. Tunes. Beats. Awesome. is a co-ed a cappella group affiliated with the University of Toronto. Formed in 2003, its praises have since been sung throughout the Toronto music scene as well as at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, where it has won awards for "Outstanding Soloist", "Outstanding Choreography", "Outstanding Arrangement", "Outstanding Vocal Percussion" and has been ranked amongst the top 15 collegiate a cappella groups in North America. TBA prides itself on maintaining an ever-evolving repertoire filled with in-house arrangements and a wide variety of genres, including pop, rock, R&B, jazz, electronic and everything in-between.

Avis Glaze

Dr. Avis Glaze is one of Canada’s outstanding educators and a recognized international leader in education. As Ontario’s first Chief Student Achievement Officer and founding CEO of the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, she played a pivotal role in improving student achievement in Ontario. Dr. Glaze is a consummate capacity builder in teaching, improving student achievement, leadership development and school system improvement. Her most recent book identifies the research-informed strategies to improve graduation rates for all students regardless of personal, social, economic or demographic factors.​

Carmen Logie

How do social and structural contexts affect HIV? Dr. Carmen Logie’s work explores the impact of these factors on HIV risk and resilience and how we can influence these contexts to prevent HIV infection. In 1994, volunteering at the Wellesley Hospital led her to her current CIHR and SSHRC funded studies: using theatre for change to reduce stigma towards sexual and gender minority communities in Swaziland and Lesotho, examining connections between social environments and HIV vulnerability among sexual and gender minority youth in Jamaica, and exploring arts-based HIV prevention strategies in the Northwest Territories grounded in Indigenous knowledge. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at U of T, and received a Grand Challenges Canada Rising Star in Global Health Award.

Ivan Solano

Adolescence can be a tricky time to navigate, especially for kids with Learning Disabilities. Growing up with learning disability (LD) in a world made for neurotypical people set Ivan on a path of discovering other ways to learn. The challenges of learning with LD and the focus on academic weakness became Ivan’s impetus to help and work with disabled people as a physiotherapist and an ergonomist. He was recently awarded the 2014 DiverseCity Fellows Award by Civic Action which gives him the opportunity to fast track LeaD, a collaborative project for kids with LD. Ivan aims to address concerns on self-esteem and confidence that most school kids with LD face.

Jeffrey Pilcher

Jeffrey Pilcher has been a leading figure in the emerging scholarly field of food history. What should we eat? Where is our food produced, by whom, and why does this matter? Jeffrey Pilcher seeks to put these questions in historical perspective. The author of several books, including Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food, he teaches classes on food in world history at U of T, and is affiliated with the Culinaria Research Project.

Joshua Liu

Dr. Joshua Liu is a physician turned entrepreneur who believes that the future of healthcare depends on the intersection of design, data and technology. He is currently the co-founder & CEO of SeamlessMD, a healthcare technology company advancing patient care in surgery using mobile & web technology. During his medical training, Joshua co-led a project at the University Health Network’s Centre for Innovation in Complex Care on hospital readmission. Joshua was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Healthcare in 2014 and previously a Canadian Top 20 Under 20.

Justin Pang

What does it mean to be human? How is technology changing society and business? These are questions that Justin Pang has been on a journey to answer his entire life. A business leader with over 10 years of experience, Justin is currently a partner leader at Google where he helps multi-million dollar businesses embrace the digital era. Justin was previously a leader at the Clinton Foundation’s HIV/AIDS Initiative where he managed country operations of 25+ offices around the world, and also helped the country’s Ministry of Health secure over 20 million doses of malaria drugs.

Kang Lee

With more than 100 influential papers on the topic, Dr. Kang Lee is a world leading authority on children and lying. His work has contributed to reforms in Canadian law concerning the obtainment of evidence from children. Since 2005, child witnesses under 14 years of age in all criminal cases must undergo a procedure before they testify that is based on the work by his team. He is a University Distinguished Professor at the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study at OISE, here at U of T.

Michael Reid

Where did the universe come from? How will it end? Are we alone in the cosmos? These are some of the most fundamental questions that we can ask. Dr. Michael Reid specializes in making the latest research into to these weighty questions easy for everyone to understand. A frequent guest on radio and television, as well as the instructor for one of the world’s largest university astronomy classes, Dr. Reid focuses on using simple analogies, jargon-free language, and direct engagement with the sky to make the cosmos comprehensible.

Molly Thomason

At only 20 years-old, Molly Thomason’s third record, Columbus Field, captures the undeniable excitement and no-holds barred romance of youth. Think of crazy kids, lots of guitars, and real-life small-town summer nights. Molly performed at NXNE, Luminato Festival, and World Pride in Toronto, and opened for The Trews and Kim Mitchell. Molly has had multiple nominations for Music Nova Scotia and East Coast Music Awards and she won Young Performer of the Year at the 2011 Canadian Folk Music Awards as well as competitions at other festivals. Molly was also named one of Canada’s Top 20 Under 20 by Youth In Motion for her work as a human rights activist.

Samantha Joel

Samantha explores “the science of love”---taking a scientific approach to the age-old question of how romantic relationships work. Decisions such as whether to pursue a particular love interest, whether to commit to a new dating partner, or whether to end a struggling relationship can have a profound influence on the shape that our lives ultimately take. But how do people make these crucial choices? Samantha Joel is currently exploring this research question as a PhD student in the Psychology Department at the University of Toronto. By studying real-world couples using modern scientific methods, Samantha hopes to uncover useful decision strategies that will ultimately lead to happier, healthier relationships.

Scot Wortley and Owusu-Bempah

Dr. Wortley and Dr. Owusu-Bempah are professors at the Centre for Criminology and Socio-legal Studies and Indiana University, respectively. Their research focuses primarily on the intersections of race, crime, and criminal justice. They look at these important issues from a variety of perspectives, including those of the youth and police in Toronto.

Tobias Chen

Tobias Chen explores the synergy between humans and wearables and demonstrates how the future of mediated reality systems can change the way we communicate and collaborate. He is a technologist and futurist born and raised in Vancouver, BC, and currently studying Interactive Digital Media at the University of Toronto. He is a researcher at the Humanistic Intelligence Laboratory, working with Dr. Steve Mann and colleagues on creating both augmented and virtual reality systems through wearable computing and computer vision technologies.