Theme: Surpassing Society

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world”- Mahatma Gandhi.

Society is ever-changing. To live is to change and we humans have changed from the beginning of our existence. We have overcome many hurdles and even now, a period we consider humanity’s peak, we face many issues. Some lingering from the past and some are human constructs but without a solution to many of them. At this point, how would we climb even further? What should we look at about ourselves, that still lingers in the past, holding us back from a better future?

How should we surpass a society that we ourselves created and make a better one?

Dudley H. Davis Center, Grand Maple Ball Room
590 Main Street
Burlington, Vermont, 05401
United States

Gillian Gallagher

Student

Gillian Gallagher is a Second-Year Student at the University of Vermont pursuing a B.S. in Civil Engineering, with a double minor in Mathematics and Green Building and Community Design. Besides Gillian’s general interests in engineering, she is an avid runner, hiker, musician and possesses a strong interest in green design within architecture as well as sustainable systems. She is also interested in the modern day ill effects of climate change are exacerbated by inefficient infrastructure, exponential population growth and overconsumption of natural resources globally. With the increasing expressed concern about both the well-being of the earth’s ecosystems and the future of humanity, society continues to pursue the urgent question: “How can we curb humanity’s destructive environmental practices?”. Her talk will explore the globe’s most pressing environmental concerns, presenting an efficient problem solving and planning system rooted in empathy and comprehensive analysis.

Hayden Rungren

Student

Hayden is a biochemistry major with a linguistics minor and is in the class of 2021. His topic is the way language and media have set up stigma around various mental illnesses and how we can start to eradicate the stigma. In terms of how it relates to the idea of surpassing society, past generations have set up this stigma and perpetuated it through media, language, and even education. According to Hayden, we can use social media platforms, apps, and various forms of education to change the ways people talk about mental illness and to create new perspectives in order to erase the stigma around mental illness.

Mike Kiernan

Founder of Bee the Change

Mike Kiernan is a physician and founder of Bee the Change, establishing habitat for our declining pollinators in solar fields, school yards and public spaces. He is an Instructor in Middlebury College’s School of the Environment in Middlebury, Vermont and Yunnan, China. He lives with his wife and daughters in Weybridge, Vermont.

Sara Klimek

Student

Sara Klimek is currently a freshman in the Rubenstein School of the Environment and Natural Resources studying Environmental Studies. After UVM, she plans on attending graduate school for journalism or law school with a focus in Environmental/Natural Resource Law. Her topic for her TEDx talk this year describes the potential of aquaculture, or fish farming, to close food security gaps in urban environments as she talks about how aquaculture has existed for hundreds of years, but it hasn’t been until recently that humans started to grow on a commercial scale, thus providing employment and food to insecure communities around the globe.

Tuntanut Lohawatcharagul

Student

Non is a Sophomore international student with a neuroscience major and an economics minor. His topic is about a self-sufficient economy, which is an alternative anti-materialistic approach.