Theme: TEDxUCIrvine 2017 Winter Premiere

Welcome to TEDxUCIrvine's first event of the new year! We are proud to host an afternoon filled with creativity and innovation to celebrate another fresh beginning to reinvent ourselves. TEDxUCIrvine 2017 Premiere will feature renowned thought leaders from the Irvine community to share their latest ideas, obsessions, and advice. Our goal is for you to leave the event feeling inspired, motivated, and ready to jumpstart (and maintain) your 2017 resolutions.

Crystal Cove Auditorium
A, 311 W Peltason Dr.
Irvine, California, 92617
United States

Armin Schwegler

Professor of Spanish Linguistics

Professor Schwegler’s research emphasizes the study of Latin America from a linguistic, social, and historical perspective. For three decades, this has led him to explore in depth the precise African origins of Hispanic communities whose roots are found in the transatlantic slave trade. Using population genetics (DNA) research to complement humanistic investigations, his work shows that “lost history” can indeed be reconstructed with precision. To that end, he has traveled widely and afar, and published several books and over 60 research articles

Mark Deppe

Acting Director

Working closely with student leaders, staff, faculty, and industry partners, Mark is thrilled to lead the way for the first official eSports program at a public research institution. Recognizing the opportunity to build on UCI’s strong gaming culture and take advantage of the massive world of eSports, Mark began developing a vision and plan for the UCI eSports program in 2015. Since coming to UCI in 2010, Mark has been advising student leaders and coordinating some of UCI’s largest and most successful events including coordinating six consecutive Guinness World Records. He helped create Soulstice – UCI’s premier talent show – and has taken other campus traditions to new heights. Mark has a B.S. in psychobiology from UCLA and a MBA at Cal State Fullerton Mihaylo College of Business and Economics. In his spare time Mark enjoys playing games with friends, spending time outside, and hanging out with his family.

Richard Matthew

Professor of Planning, Policy and Design, and Political Science

Richard A. Matthew is Associate Dean for International Programs and Professor of Planning, Policy and Design at the University of California at Irvine. He is also the founding Director of the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs (www.cusa.uci.edu), the Director of the Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation (http://blumcenter.uci.edu/), and co-Principal Investigator of both the NSF-funded FloodRISE Project (http://floodrise.uci.edu) and a NOAA-funded project on sediment, flooding and poverty. His research focuses on understanding and addressing challenges at the intersection of environmental degradation, extreme poverty and violent conflict. Over the past twenty years, he has done extensive fieldwork in conflict and disaster zones in Cambodia, the DRC, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Swaziland. His research is widely diffused beyond academic outlets to support the efforts of practitioners in the conservation, humanitarian and governance communities.

Ryan Foland

Communications Strategist

Ryan Foland is a master communicator and was named a Top Youth Marketer in 2016 by Inc. He coaches leaders worldwide on the art of simplifying spoken and written messaging for greater impact. Ryan works for the Office of the Vice Provost at UC Irvine and is Managing Partner at InfluenceTree.com. Ryan also writes for Influencive and has appeared in publications like Entrepreneur, HuffPost, Fortune, and more. An entertaining speaker and emcee, he serves as a public speaking mentor for a variety of thought leaders.