Theme: In the Moment

TEDxStanford is an immersive all-day experience that brings to the stage some of Stanford's most accomplished pioneers in the arts, technology, medicine and social sciences for an incomparable day of short talks and world-class performances. From students embarking on world-changing research to artists and performers at the peak of their careers, to tech wizards creating Silicon Valley magic, and scholars shedding light on today's most pressing issues, we'll share a little of Stanford's secret sauce during an unforgettable day at an unforgettable place.

Cemex Auditorium
Stanford University Graduate School of Business
655 Knight Way
Stanford, California, 94305
United States

Cardinal Calypso

Ever since he was a toddler, Abrefah has had an affinity for banging on things. During the 9th summer of his parents' futile resistance, they finally gave in and enrolled their son in steeldrum lessons. Through middle school and high school Abrefah traveled around the Pacific Northwest playing with the bands OK 2 Botay and Bram Bratá before coming to Stanford where he continued with Cardinal Calypso. He has also participated in Panorama — the national steelpan competition in Trinidad and Tobago — with PCS Nitrogen Silver Stars. After graduating in 2015 with a BS in Earth Systems, Abrefah joined the Stanford Music Department as a lecturer for the Cardinal Calypso Steelpan Ensemble.

Stanford TAPS

Spring Awakening the musical, artistic directed by Vice President for the Arts, Harry J. Elam, Jr., is based on Frank Wedekind's controversial 1891 play of the same name, Spring Awakening. It is an electrifying contemporary musical with a pop/rock score and a rebellious spirit. Winner of eight Tony Awards, the musical follows the interweaving lives of a group of adolescents as they navigate issues of sexuality, morality, and adulthood. With book and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik, Spring Awakening is a touching expose of lost innocence and coming of age. The cast will perform The Bitch of Living. In October 2016, Spring Awakening was the first production in the newly renovated Roble Studio Theater.

Anna Lembke

Dr. Lembke received her undergraduate degree in Humanities from Yale University and her medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine. She completed a residency in Psychiatry, and a fellowship in mood disorders, both at Stanford, and is currently Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and commentaries, and is author of the book: Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop (Johns Hopkins University Press, November 2016).

Benjamin Williams

Williams is a software engineer, entrepreneur, and professional hip-hop dancer. He enjoys problem-solving and thinking creatively, and uses both to advocate for diversity in STEM. As a software engineer, he has worked at Google, Walker & Company Brands, and beginning this summer will join, The New York Times. Before developing his passion for tech, Williams performed for the Chicago Bulls’ halftime shows and with premier hip-hop dance troupes around the U.S. He also produced a documentary surveying gun violence on the South and West sides of Chicago. From this experience, he developed a strong belief in service and community engagement as the best agent for societal change.

Beverly Daniel Tatum

Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, president emerita of Spelman College, is the 2017 Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor at the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University. She is the author of several books including the best-selling Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Other Conversations about Race. A thought-leader in higher education, she was a 2013 recipient of the Carnegie Academic Leadership Award and the 2014 recipient of the American Psychological Association Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology. She and her husband, Dr. Travis Tatum, are the parents of two sons.

Bill Burnett

After years of drawing cars and airplanes under his Grandmother’s sewing machine, Bill Burnett went to college where he discovered that there were people in the world who did this kind of thing every day (without the sewing machine), and they were called designers. Thirty years, five companies, and a couple thousand students later, Burnett is still drawing and building things, teaching others how to do the same, and quietly enjoying the fact that no one has discovered that he is having too much fun. As Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford, he runs undergraduate and graduate programs in design, both interdepartmental programs between the mechanical engineering and art departments. Burnett worked on design of the award-winning Apple PowerBooks and the original Hasbro Star Wars action figures. He holds a number of mechanical and design patents.

Caroline Winterer

Caroline Winterer is Professor of American History and Anthony P. Meier Family Professor in the Humanities at Stanford, where she is also Director of the Stanford Humanities Center. She studies how people in the past understood their world. Her most recent book is American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason (Yale University Press, 2016). She received an American Ingenuity Award from the Smithsonian Institution for mapping the social network of Benjamin Franklin.

Cody Coleman

Coleman is a first generation student who aims to leverage his passion for computer science to improve education and society as a whole. He is a first year Computer Science PhD student at Stanford University, and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellow. He graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a BS and an ME in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. During his M.Eng., Coleman worked with Prof. Isaac Chuang and the Office of Digital Learning on identifying and characterizing subpopulations in MITx and HarvardX courses.

Dustin Schroeder

Dustin Schroeder is an assistant professor of Geophysics in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences. He works on the fundamental problem of observing and understanding the configuration and evolution of ice sheet boundary conditions using ice penetrating radar. His work informs estimates of future sea level rise and the habitability of icy moons. Before coming to Stanford, he was a radar engineer with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech. He is a science team member for radars on NASA’s Europa Clipper and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter missions. He received his PhD in geophysics from the University of Texas at Austin.

Elizabeth Jameson

Elizabeth Jameson is an artist specializing in the intersection of art and science. As a person living with Multiple Sclerosis, she uses neuro-technology to transform her brain scans into a vibrant, unique form of portraiture that celebrates the imperfect body and brain. Jameson collaborates with scientists, health care providers, and those living with illness to spark conversations and deepen the complex narrative of disability and disease. Today she focuses on how art and design can assist in honoring the human experience of illness, specifically in clinical spaces such as the waiting room. Ms. Jameson’s most recent project, #FacingMS, uses art, storytelling and technology to access the untapped potential of time spent in waiting rooms. Her work is shown at major universities, hospitals, and neuroscience centers throughout the world.

Graham MacIndoe

Graham MacIndoe, a photographer, is co-author with Susan Stellin of the memoir Chancers, published in 2016. Alternating between their two points of view, they chronicle Graham’s struggle with heroin addiction, arrest, incarceration, and recovery, as well as his fight to avoid getting deported back to Scotland. After he won his case, they were awarded a fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation for their project American Exile, a series of interviews and portraits showing families divided by deportation. Their work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, New York magazine, TheAtlantic.com, and elsewhere. They both teach at The New School in New York City.

Jack Bowen

Bowen graduated from Stanford with honors in Human Biology and earned a masters degree in Philosophy. He has published four philosophically themed books: If You Can Read This: The Philosophy of Bumper Stickers, The Dream Weaver, and a college-level philosophy textbook. His most recent book, Ethics and Leadership in Sport, comes out in July, 2017. Bowen was a 2-time water polo All-American and NCAA MVP and the alternate goalie on the 2006 Olympic Team. He has coached water polo at Menlo School for the past 17 years where he teaches philosophy. He is on the board of the Institute of Sports Law and Ethics where he blogs on the philosophy of sport.

Jennifer Granick

Jennifer Stisa Granick is the Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. She is the author of a forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press entitled American Spies: Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, and What To Do About It. Granick teaches, practices, speaks, and writes about computer crime and security, electronic surveillance, security vulnerability disclosure, encryption policy, and the Fourth Amendment. Before teaching at Stanford, Granick spent almost a decade practicing criminal defense law in California.

Jessica Jackley

Jessica Jackley is an award-winning social entrepreneur and author of the widely acclaimed book CLAY WATER BRICK: Finding Inspirations from Entrepreneurs Who Do the Most with the Least. She is best known as the co-founder of Kiva, the world’s first and largest P2P micro lending website. She also co-founded Pro-Founder, a crowdfunding platform for U.S. entrepreneurs, and Kin & Co., a consultancy helping organizations support women and working families. She is an investor and advisor with Collaborative Fund, a board member for Habitat for Humanity, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Jackley holds degrees from Bucknell University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, as well as a certificate in Global Leadership and Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their three sons, where she currently serves as Social Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Southern California.

Kelly Vicars

Kelly Vicars is an artist and creative producer. In 2016, she and her team at Dream Logic produced "The Art of Dying," a 3-day immersive art show featuring artists from around the world who are using virtual reality, augmented reality, music, and interactive experiences to explore what it means to be mortal. Vicars works on large-scale experiential art projects incorporating storytelling, visual art, and experience design. She is an award-winning poet and graduated from Stanford in 2013 with a degree in cultural anthropology and a minor in creative writing.

Kevin Bleyer

Kevin Bleyer is a Stanford grad and an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning writer. He spent the last decade as a writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and the previous decade for Dennis Miller and Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. As a speechwriter, Bleyer contributed to the (funnier) speeches of President Barack Obama, including all his addresses to the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. The bestselling author of Me the People, Bleyer is the co-author, with Governor Bill Richardson, of How to Sweet-Talk a Shark, recounting the pair’s humanitarian mission to North Korea. As the cofounder of Pilot Media, he has skewered headlines direct from Kyrgyzstan and Macedonia and beyond.

Kori Schake

Dr. Kori Schake is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and teaches Thinking About War at Stanford. She has been profiled in publications ranging from national news to popular culture including the Los Angeles Times, Politico and Vogue Magazine, and is the editor, with Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, of the book Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military. She has served in various policy roles including at the White House for the National Security Council, at the Department of Defense for the Office of the Secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the State Department for the Policy Planning Staff. Her book on the history of the Anglo-American hegemonic transition is forthcoming (2017) from Harvard University Press.

Manu Prakash

Manu Prakash is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. He leads a curiosity driven research group in the field of physical biology and global health. A physicist and a prolific inventor, his inventions include a $1 origami paper microscope, a $5 chemistry lab, a 20-cent centrifuge, and a smartphone add-on for oral cancer diagnosis. Prakash has been distinguished as a Terman Fellow (2011-2013), a Pew Scholar (2013-2017), a top innovator under 35 by MIT Technology Review (2014), a Brilliant 10 by Popular Science (2014), a MacArthur Fellow (2016), an HHMI-Gates Faculty Scholar (2016-2021) and a Chan Zuckerberg Investigator (2016-2021).

Marily Oppezzo

Marily Oppezzo is a behavioral and learning scientist who studies how peoples’ physical and mental environments can positively impact learning and health behaviors. Her background at the intersection of education, psychology, and health science puts her in a unique position to research health — specifically sedentary behavior, from an interdisciplinary perspective. Oppezzo earned a Masters in Nutritional Science, with thesis research at the Stanford General Clinical Research Center. She studied pathophysiology of disease progression at Palo Alto Veteran’s Affairs Hospital while earning her license as a Registered Dietitian; and her doctorate in educational psychology at Stanford. Opprezzo is finishing her post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford’s Prevention Research Center in health behavior change and chronic disease prevention.

Mary Ellen Hannibal

Mary Ellen Hannibal is a long-time journalist focused on natural history and literature. Her most recent book, Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction, was named one of 2016’s best non-fiction books by the San Francisco Chronicle. She is a recipient of the National Association of Science Writer’s Science and Society Award, among other honors, and is currently a Stanford media fellow.

Michael McFaul

Michael McFaul is Professor of Political Science, Director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Dr. McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014). He has authored several books, including Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can and, with Kathryn Stoner, Transition.

Nicholas Bloom

Nicholas (Nick) Bloom is the William Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow of SIEPR, and a Co-Director of the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research focuses on management practices and uncertainty. He previously worked at the UK Treasury and McKinsey & Company. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the recipient of awards including an Alfred Sloan Fellowship, the Bernacer Prize, the European Investment Bank prize, the Frisch Medal, the Kauffman Medal and a National Science Foundation Career Award. He has a BA from Cambridge, an MPhil from Oxford, and a PhD from UCLA.

Reza Aslan

Reza Aslan is an internationally renowned scholar of religions and writer whose books include the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, and the International Bestseller, No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. Aslan teaches creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. His writing has been published in The New York Times, Slate, The Daily Beast, The Christian Science Monitor and The Washington Post, and he makes frequent appearances on TV and radio shows as a religions and political analyst. He is also a Consulting Producer for HBO’sThe Leftovers, and the host and executive producer for the CNN original series, Believer. His fourth book, god, will release this fall.

Sahar Habib Ghazi

Sahar Habib Ghazi is the managing editor at Global Voices, a trusted international community of 1400 editors, writers, and translators who report on untold stories in more than 167 countries. Ghazi has lived half her life in the U.S. and half in Pakistan, reporting for The New York Times, DawnNews TV and Geo News TV. In 2009, she produced The Disposable Ally, the first documentary series on U.S. and Pakistan relations. Ghazi was a Knight Journalism fellow at Stanford University in 2011. As a multi-media journalist, editor and podcaster, Ghazi aims to disrupt unjust dominant narratives about marginalized communities.

Susan Stellin

Susan Stellin, a reporter, is co-author with Graham MacIndoe of the memoir Chancers, published in 2016. Alternating between their two points of view, they chronicle Graham’s struggle with heroin addiction, arrest, incarceration, and recovery, as well as his fight to avoid getting deported back to Scotland. After he won his case, they were awarded a fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation for their project American Exile, a series of interviews and portraits showing families divided by deportation. Their work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, New York magazine, TheAtlantic.com, and elsewhere. They both teach at The New School in New York City.

Zachary Ostroff

Zachary Ostroff is a Stanford University student of Earth Systems with the aim of carving a path towards mitigating climate change through artistic pathways. In 2017, Ostroff has been leading development of the world’s first 3D-printed, compostable, recyclable surfboard. He premiered "Vote for Home" the first web video series to feature well-known musical artists discussing the current impact of climate change on hometowns in the United States, while helping register viewers to vote in the upcoming 2016 US election. Ostroff performed for President Obama and the UN in New York City during COP20 and made his debut performance as a leader at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. He was also featured in the HBO Series Masterclass performing with Joshua Bell in New York and London.