Theme: Turning Point

TEDxStanford 2015: Turning Point brought to the stage some of Stanford's most accomplished pioneers in the arts, science, medicine and social sciences for an incomparable day of short talks and world-class performances.

From how neuroscience can make an old brain young, to why cybersecurity is different than any other security threat we have ever faced; from the glory of slow-motion flight in birds, to the development of new drone technology; from listening to people who literally "talk to God," to an adoption journey unlike any other, TEDxStanford presenters shared their untold turning-point stories.

Stay tuned for videos of talks from the event.

Speakers:
Abraham Verghese
Alice Lyman Miller
Alli McKee
Amy Zegart
Ben York
Brian Epstein
Carla J. Shatz
David Lentink
Etosha Cave
J.D. Schramm
Jonah Willihnganz
Linda Darling-Hammond
Nik Sawe
Richard Thompson Ford
Rosemary Knight
Tanvi Jayaraman
Tanya Marie Luhrmann
Yubing Zhang

Performers:
Frank Olivier
Ram's Head Theatrical Society
Rachael Sage
Robert Moses' Kin
St. Lawrence String Quartet
Stephen M. Sano
Tucker Bryant

Cemex Auditorium
Knight Management Center
641 Knight way
Stanford, California, 94305
United States

Robert Moses' Kin

Since founding Robert Moses' Kin in 1995 in San Francisco, choreographer and artistic director Robert Moses has collaborated with prominent dancers, musicians, composers, sculptors and many others to realize the concept of dance as a unifying form of art, an art form that speaks broadly from a specific place. Robert Moses' Kin has earned a host of awards, including four Isadora Duncan Awards (IZZIES). Since 2005, Moses has been artist-in-residence at Stanford, where he has been on the dance faculty since 1995. He has taught nationwide, and conducts movement and performance workshops internationally. Robert Moses' Kin Jeremy Bannon-Neches Brendan Barthel Crystaldawn Bell Vincent Chavez Katherine Disenhof Norma Fong Jackie Goneconti Carly Johnson Dexandro "D" Montalvo Victor Talledos

St Lawrence String Quartet

Abraham Verghese

Abraham Verghese is a critically acclaimed, best-selling author and a physician with an international reputation for his focus on healing in an era when technology often overwhelms the human side of medicine. In February 2014, he received a Heinz Award from Teresa Heinz and the Heinz Family Foundation. The Heinz awards given annually celebrate the enduring spirit of hope and the power of innovation.

Alice Miller

Alice Lyman Miller also taught for 15 years at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. Before coming to Stanford in 1999, Miller was a China analyst in the CIA and taught at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. She is co-author of Becoming Asia: Change and Continuity in Asian International Relations Since World War II (Stanford University Press, 2011), and is working on a new book, tentatively entitled The Evolution of Chinese Grand Strategy, 1550-Present.

Alli McKee

Alli McKee is passionate about people. An entrepreneur and a student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, she is committed to developing leaders and empowering young entrepreneurs. Before Stanford, Alli worked at Bain & Company before teaching entrepreneurial leadership and creative arts to students from 44 different countries at African Leadership Academy. Her professional and personal experiences in South Africa rekindled her interest in race issues, which she focused on as an American studies major at the University of Virginia. When she came home to another racial crisis in the United States, she wanted to do something about it – start talking.

Alli McKee

Amy Zegart

Amy Zegart is the co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Amy Zegart's research interests include intelligence agencies, organizational dynamics and national security, and Zegart is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.. The National Journal featured her as among the 10 most influential experts in intelligence reform. Zegart served on the Clinton administration's National Security Council staff and as a foreign policy adviser to the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign A former Fulbright scholar, Zegart received a bachelor of arts degree in East Asian studies magna cum laude from Harvard University and a masters degree and doctorate in political science from Stanford.

Ben York

Ben York is the co-creator of READY4K!, a text messaging program for parents of preschoolers that has been highlighted in the New York Times, PBS NewsHour and Education Week. He is an Institute of Education Sciences Fellow and a Karr Fellow at the Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA) at Stanford University. Ben holds a bachelor of arts degree in economics, summa cum laude, from the University of Colorado at Boulder, as well as a master's degree in political science from Stanford. He expects to earn his doctorate in education from Stanford in the spring of 2015. Ben has worked in investment banking, venture philanthropy and public education.

Brian Epstein

Brian Epstein received his doctorate in philosophy from Stanford University, his master's in philosophy from Oxford University, and graduated summa cum laude with an AB in philosophy from Princeton University. Epstein's research interests include philosophy of social science, metaphysics and philosophy of language, focusing in particular on issues in the theory of reference and the ontology of social kinds. He also has interests in conceptual schemes, the philosophy of music and the philosophy of economics. Between degree programs, he worked at a number of technology startups and consulting firms. His interests outside philosophy include music and sound production, hiking and photographing ducks. Epstein is the author of The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social Sciences, Oxford University Press, 2015.

Carla Shatz

Carla Shatz is the Sapp Family Provostial Professor, David Starr Jordan Director of Stanford Bio-X and professor of biology and of neurobiology. She conducts research on how experiences change brain circuits during early critical periods of learning and development. Her work revealed that long before birth, the baby's brain is testing and validating neural circuits. Shatz's research has also revealed new and unexpected connections between the nervous and the immune systems. Shatz has served as president of the Society for Neuroscience, and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and the American Philosophical Society. She has received numerous honors and awards, and was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society of London for improving natural knowledge.

David Lentink

Lentink's multidisciplinary lab studies biological flight, particularly bird flight, as an inspiration for engineering design. Lentink holds bachelor of science and master of science degrees in aerospace engineering (aerodynamics, Delft University of Technology), and a doctorate in experimental zoology cum laude (Wageningen University). While working on his doctorate, he studied insect flight at the California Institute of Technology. His postdoctoral training at Harvard was focused on studying birds. Lentink's publications range from technical journals to Nature and Science. He is a member of the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, recipient of the Dutch Academic Year Prize and was recognized in 2013 as one of the 40 scientists under 40 by the World Economic Forum.

Etosha Cave

Etosha Cave is finishing her doctorate in mechanical engineering at Stanford in the lab of Associate Professor Thomas F. Jaramillo. She is also a co-project lead at Cyclotron Road, a new program to advance technologies beyond the research lab. There, she is developing her doctoral work: the conversion of CO2, water and electricity into high-value chemicals using metal catalysts. Cave is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and a Ford Fellow. Before attending Stanford, she interned for five months at the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica. Cave received her bachelor of science degree in engineering from Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, where she was a member of the inaugural class.

Frank Olivier

"Frank Olivier, aka ""Funny Frank,"" developed his unique offbeat brand of humor in San Francisco, first on the streets entertaining tourists, and then in the Bay Area's comedy clubs. He was soon sharing the bill with Dana Carvey, Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg and others. While on vacation in New York, theater producers spotted his talents and quickly signed him. He performed his act for three years in the Broadway touring hit show Sugar Babies. Olivier's television appearances include The Tonight Show, Just for Laughs and Comic Strip Live. He also headlines at Las Vegas and comedy and theater festivals. He is also known for his grace in handling volunteers onstage, and has brought up such luminaries as Henry Kissinger, Bill Murray, Sandra Day O'Connor, Kid Rock, Clarence Thomas, George Shultz, and hundreds of CEOs.

J.D. Schramm

J.D. Schramm is an advisor to TEDxStanford and regularly uses TED talks in his teaching. In 2012 he co-founded LOWkeynotes, which supports GSB students in creating and delivering TED-like talks in front of their peers. An avid TEDster for years, Schramm's talk "Break the Silence for Suicide Attempt Survivors" has been viewed by more than 1.3 million people. He holds an MBA from New York University and an EdD from the University of Pennsylvania. And at 50, Schramm is just beginning to experience the joys and challenges of raising children.

Jonah Willihnganz

Jonah Willihnganz is the Bruce Braden Lecturer of Narrative Studies at Stanford and Director of the Stanford Storytelling Project, an arts program that sponsors courses, grants, an acclaimed event series, and the award-winning radio program State of the Human. He holds an MFA from Hollins University and a PhD in English from Brown University, has published fiction, essays, and literary criticism, and is a former fellow of the Stanford Humanities Center. He is also co-founder of LifeWorks, a new initiative at Stanford that helps students cultivate natural human capacities such as courage, resilience, compassion, and deep attention.

Linda Darling-Hammond

Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University. She has conducted research on policy issues affecting teaching and schooling, and has advised government policymakers and practitioners. Darling-Hammond is the former president of the American Educational Research Association, and former leader of President Barack Obama's education policy transition team. She was named one of the nation's 10 most influential people affecting educational policy over the past decade, and has written over 400 publications. Darling-Hammond began her career as a public school teacher and has co-founded a preschool and day care center as well as a public high school. She received her BA (magna cum laude) from Yale University, and an EdD in urban education (with highest distinction) from Temple University, as well as honorary degrees from 14 universities.

Nik Sawe

Nik Sawe is an environmental neuroeconomist and a doctoral candidate in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources. Nik Sawe is also a graduate fellow at both the Haas Center for Public Service and the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society. His work adapts neuroeconomics – the study of financial decision-making in the brain – to environmental applications: from consumer responses toward eco-labeling, to how we value natural resources and what motivates us to protect threatened ecosystems. In concert with behavioral economics experiments and national surveys, neuroimaging via fMRI allows Sawe to understand how people neurally route and process information during environmental decisions, offering a more holistic and nuanced view of the decision process for environmental policymakers.

Nik Sawe

Nik Sawe is an environmental neuroeconomist and a doctoral candidate in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources. He is also a graduate fellow at both the Haas Center for Public Service and the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society. His work adapts neuroeconomics – the study of financial decision-making in the brain – to environmental applications: from consumer responses toward eco-labeling, to how we value natural resources and what motivates us to protect threatened ecosystems. In concert with behavioral economics experiments and national surveys, neuroimaging via fMRI allows Sawe to understand how people neurally route and process information during environmental decisions, offering a more holistic and nuanced view of the decision process for environmental policymakers.

Rachael Sage

Rachael Sage is a soulful vocalist, innovative multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and producer. Rachael Sage has become one of the busiest touring artists in independent music, performing worldwide with her band The Sequins. Sage has shared stages with Sarah McLachlan, A Great Big World, Colin Hay, Shawn Colvin, Marc Cohn, The Animals and Ani DiFranco. She has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and received numerous songwriting awards including The John Lennon Songwriting Contest (Grand Prize) and several Independent Music Awards. Her songs have appeared on MTV, HBO, the Fame soundtrack, and in the current season of Lifetime's top reality series, Dance Moms. MPress Records recently released Sage's latest full-length album, "Blue Roses," which features members of Daft Punk, Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen's bands, and a duet with Judy Collins.

Ram's Head Theatrical Society performs 'Hairspray'

Ram’s Head Theatrical Society is Stanford’s oldest and largest student theater organization. This past April, they performed Hairspray in Memorial Auditorium, which was directed by Ken Savage (B.A.’14, M.A. ‘15), produced by James Sherwood (’17), and costume designed by Asia Chiao (’15). Hairspray follows the story of Tracy Turnblad, a high school student in 1962 Baltimore who dreams of being a dancer on the Corny Collins Show. Once on the show, Tracy dreams of bringing the civil rights movement to the studio by integrating the network. Ram’s Head’s production featured an ensemble of 39 performers, and state of the art theater technology.

Richard Ford

Richard Thompson Ford

Rosemary Knight

Knight's passion is Earth imaging – how to use advanced technologies to see below the ground, to depths of hundreds of meters. The founding director of the Center for Groundwater Evaluation and Management, she works with her research group and other collaborators to find new ways of mapping and monitoring our groundwater resources. After obtaining her doctorate in geophysics at Stanford, she joined the faculty at the University of British Columbia, returning to Stanford in 2000.

Stephen M. Sano

Stephen M. Sano is professor and chair of the Department of Music, and the Harold C. Schmidt Director of Choral Studies at Stanford University, where he directs the Stanford Chamber Chorale and Symphonic Chorus. Sano holds masters and doctoral degrees in both orchestral and choral conducting from Stanford, and a bachelor's degree in piano performance and theory from San Jose State University. His choirs have performed with the world's leading artists including the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge; master flamenco guitarist Paco Pena; and the Kronos Quartet. Sano received the 2005 Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford. Winner of numerous piano competitions, his interests also include Hawaiian choral music, Hawaiian slack key guitar and North American Taiko. Sano's most recent slack key recording "Songs from the Taro Patch" was on the preliminary ballot for the 2008 Grammy Awards.

Tanvi Jayaraman

Tanvi Jayaraman's previous work with special-needs girls in Coimbatore, India, and a trip to rural Nicaragua contribute to her unique perspective on how small-scale efforts can create meaningful social change. She recently coordinated the first university-wide bystander intervention training initiative titled, "Stanford, It's On Us: We Will Not Standby," as the Susan Heck intern at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, which piloted the national "It's On Us" campaign at Stanford. She hopes to take forward her passion for women's health, and continue to support issues of community and domestic violence, mental health and identity through such initiatives.

Tanya Luhrmann

Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Watkins University Professor in the Stanford Anthropology Department. Luhrmann's work focuses on the way that objects without material presence come to seem real to people, and the way that ideas about the mind affect mental experience. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and received a John Guggenheim Fellowship award in 2007. When God Talks Back was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. It also was awarded the 2014 Grawemeyer Award for the best book in religion, from the University of Louisville and the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Tucker Bryant

Tucker Bryant is a 21-year-old spoken-word artist and self-proclaimed ramen connoisseur hailing from the United Kingdom. Through his writing, he aims to confront questions of identity as they relate to race, class and gender, while also cracking open conversations about the personal politics of love, loss and mental health. He is particularly interested in spoken word poetry's potential to marry rhythm and live energy with more traditional features of storytelling to create intimate connections between artists and their audience. His work, which has garnered over 200,000 views online, will be published in the forthcoming anthology Tandem III.

Yubing Zhang

Yubing Zhang is a first-year MBA student at Stanford University. A series of transformational moments have led Zhang to completely change her understanding of fear and courage, redefine her comfort zones and push herself to the edge. She has experienced the unlimited potential that exists when we break through our comfort zones, and is dedicated to inspiring others to do the same. Zhang has lived in six different countries and worked in four different industries. She holds a master of science degree from the University of Oxford and a bachelor's degree from the University of Hong Kong. Zhang has served as an entrepreneur for the Bank of China, launched a vocational training program for victims of domestic abuse in Cambodia and founded a platform that supports and coaches everyday people to share their passion, ideas and extraordinary stories through talks and performances.