Theme: Building Energy

Join us for our fifth annual TEDxDuke event on Sunday March 29th at 1pm in Baldwin Theater! We have an exciting lineup of nine speakers, all addressing the theme of “Building Energy”. They range from current Duke students, faculty, alumni and local community members. We invite you all to join us to explore the types of energy that drive us-- social energy, community energy, physical energy, and motivational energy! Tickets are on sale at https://tickets.duke.edu/Online/Article/tedxduke15, and please check out our Facebook and Twitter pages for continual updates. In the meantime, check out talks from past TEDxDuke events on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_dntIeY3CnZyZpey0vNCAIRWe44YCy42

Baldwin Auditorium
1336 Campus Dr
Durham, North Carolina, 27705
United States

Charles (Charlie) Welch

Conservation Coordinator, Duke Lemur Center

Charlie Welch has worked for conservation in Madagascar on behalf of the Duke Lemur Center (DLC) for over 25 years, including 15 years living in the Tamatave region of eastern Madagascar. While living in Madagascar, Welch and his wife Andrea Katz collaborated with government entities to develop Park Ivoloina and Betampona Nature Reserve into multifaceted community-based conservation projects, which continue to function and thrive today. In 2004 Welch and Katz were awarded “Chevalier de l’Ordre N

Charlie Welch

Charlie Welch has worked for conservation in Madagascar on behalf of the Duke Lemur Center (DLC) for over 25 years, including 15 years living in the Tamatave region of eastern Madagascar. While living in Madagascar, Welch and his wife Andrea Katz collaborated with government entities to develop Park Ivoloina and Betampona Nature Reserve into multifaceted community-based conservation projects, which continue to function and thrive today. In 2004 Welch and Katz were awarded “Chevalier de l’Ordre National” by the government of Madagascar for their long term conservation efforts. Now based at DLC, Welch oversees a new DLC independent project in northeastern Madagascar, SAVA Conservation (DLC-SC). DLC-SC follows the same model of community-based conservation, and includes component activities such as environmental education, reforestation, fish farming, family planning, research and more.

Derek Leadbetter

Currently demonstration manager (for physics lecture demonstrations and community outreach - local schools and other events) and teaching labs co-manager in Duke Physics Dept.

Laurence Nemeh

Lawrence Nemeh is a senior double majoring in political science and Middle Eastern studies with a minor in theater studies. A self­described “foreign policy nerd, SNL fan girl and a passionate Blue Devil from Scottsdale, Arizona,” Lawrence is currently interning at the Duke Office of News and Communications and the Undergraduate Admissions Office. He is the co­-president of Duke University Improv (DUI), a council member of American Grand Strategy (AGS), and volunteers with local Arab refugees with Church World Service. He participated in the Duke in Chicago Arts Entrepreneurship program last summer, interning at iO (formerly known as improvOlympic) and taking improvisation classes at The Second City. Upon graduation, Lawrence hopes to continue his arts entrepreneurship initiatives and move back to the Windy City.

Lawrence Nemeh

Duke Student

Lawrence Nemeh is a senior double majoring in political science and Middle Eastern studies with a minor in theater studies. A self­described “foreign policy nerd, SNL fan girl and a passionate Blue Devil from Scottsdale, Arizona,” Lawrence is currently interning at the Duke Office of News and Communications and the Undergraduate Admissions Office. He is the co­-president of Duke University Improv (DUI), a council member of American Grand Strategy (AGS), and volunteers with local Arab refugees w

LC Johnson

LC Johnson is an award winning blogger, entrepreneur, educator, and activist and the creator and editor of the website, Colored Girl Confidential. Since launching CGC, the blog has been twice recognized by Forbes magazine as a top 100 website for women; and, LC has been featured in Black Enterprise, Forbes, Huffington Post, Duke Alumni Magazine, Policy Mic, and several other local and national publications. She can usually be found reading, writing, or watching HGTV with her husband and dog, Pumpkin. To date, LC has trained more than 500 women on the subjects of branding, blogging, new media, and entrepreneurship, and at the end of 2013, Campbell's Soup Co. named her one of the top five innovative female leaders of her generation.

Mark Hecker

Mark Hecker is a social worker and educator with extensive experience in secure, residential, school-based, and community-based settings, working primarily with teenagers facing significant academic and social challenges. Gifted in connecting with difficult-to-engage adolescents, Mark was the 2006 DC Social Worker of the Year, the youngest person ever so honored. Frustrated by the lack of available academic support for teens who had fallen behind, in 2009, Hecker founded Reach Incorporated, an organization that trains teens to be elementary school reading tutors. Mark is a 2011 Echoing Green Fellow and a 2013 Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network Fellow. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Duke, a master’s in Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master’s in Education from Harvard University.

Rob Cotter

Rob is Chief Designer and CEO of Organic Transit, maker of the ELF, the most efficient vehicle on the planet. Built in Durham, NC the ELF is a new category in urban transportation, is solar assisted and gets the equivalent of 1800 mpg. ELF is the first in a line of vehicles that fill the space between a bicycle and a car. Rob has worked for Porsche, BMW, McLaren, AMG and Shimano. With DuPont and GE, he developed new ways of molding plastics and composite materials. He directed the American Solar Cup, the first solar car race in the US. He also served as an advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown, a Creative Director and a documentary producer. He also worked with Anita Roddick, CEO of The Body Shop launching environmental and human rights campaigns.

Rob Phocas

Energy & Sustainability Manager, City of Charlotte, NC

Serving an organization of 7,000+ and a City of nearly 800,000, Rob supports a variety of internal and external programs and projects in the energy, environmental and sustainability arenas. Initiatives underway internally include the implementation of the City’s Internal Environmental Operations Plan, which sets, tracks, measures and reports out on goals from fleet to energy efficiency, employee commuting to green procurement practices.

Suhani Jalota

Student at Duke University

Suhani is an international student from Mumbai and a junior with majors in Economics and Global Health. She is compelled by women’s stories and driven by change and dynamic structures. She has researched and designed implementation strategies in urban slum and rural communities for four years on projects ranging from adolescent girl health, water and sanitation, and social protection policies. Her passion lies in connecting talent to opportunity. She firmly believes in thinking big!

Timothy Johnson

Associate Professor of the Practice in Energy and the Environment

Timothy Johnson is an Associate Professor of the Practice in Energy and the Environment at Duke and Chair of the Nicholas School’s Master of Environmental Management Energy and Environment program. Tim’s teaching and research address public decision making as it relates to topics at the intersection of energy system planning, design of the built environment, and natural resource management.

Vijay Menon

I'm a statistician, a writer, and a backpacker. In my four years at Duke, I've visited over 25 countries, spent two summers working in the tech industry at Microsoft, dabbled in NBA analytics, and been published in the Economist's letters. After graduation, I'll be working in Seattle as a product manager for Xbox specializing in analytics. I consider myself a T-shaped individual -- having interests in many fields -- and I hope to continue learning more via the gateway of travel.