In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

ASU Gammage Auditorium
1200 S Forest Ave.
Tempe, Arizona, 85281
United States

Ashwini Chhabra

Ashwini Chhabra Head of Public Affairs at Bird and Former Director of Self-Driving Car Policy Division at Uber Ashwini Chhabra is the Head of Public Affairs at Bird, an electric scooter sharing company. Prior to his current role, he oversaw policy development at Uber, with a focus on self-driving cars. He spends his days thinking about how we can make our streets safer and more hospitable for more people. He has held various positions in the Bloomberg administration, including the Mayor's Office and the Department of Education, and began his career as a corporate lawyer. He holds a BA from Williams College and a JD from Yale Law School.

Charlie Rolsky

ASU Graduate Student

I conduct research in Rolf Halden's lab, within Biodesign's Center for Environmental Health Engineering. Here, I work on marine and aquatic microplastics which have emerged as a major source of concern within many ecosystems and environments. Their identification, fate, and impact are only now starting to be understood and we have developed several analytical tools to help improve upon this. We are collaborating with ASU's Fulton School of Engineering on several projects pertaining to microplastics as well as with many groups around the world. I have also worked for several years on using non-invasive research methods to collect species health information. This includes fecal samples from wild species such as killer whales. Through this information, we can gather all kinds of knowledge pertaining to hormonal activity in the realm of stress, reproduction, and overall species health.

Joshua LaBaer

Dr. Joshua LaBaer Executive Director of the ASU Biodesign Institute and Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics Dr. Joshua LaBaer is one of the nation’s foremost investigators in the rapidly expanding field of personalized diagnostics. His efforts focus on the discovery and validation of biomarkers — unique molecular fingerprints of disease — which can provide early warning for those at risk of major illnesses, including cancer and diabetes. Formerly founder and director of the Harvard Institute of Proteomics, LaBaer was recruited to ASU’s Biodesign Institute as the first Piper Chair in Personalized Medicine in 2009. The Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics (VGPCPD) has a highly multidisciplinary staff of molecular biologists, cell biologists, biochemists, software engineers, database specialists, bioinformaticists, biostatisticians, and automation engineers. VGPCPD applies open reading frame clones to the high throughput study of protein function. In addition, his group invented a novel protein microarray technology, Nucleic Acid Programmable Protein Array, which has been used widely for biomedical research, including the recent discovery of a panel of 28 autoantibody biomarkers that may aid the early diagnosis of breast cancer. LaBaer earned his medical degree and a doctorate in biochemistry and biophysics, from the University of California, San Francisco. He completed his medical residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a clinical fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, both in Boston.

Katina Michael

Katina Michael Director for the ASU Centre for Engineering, Policy and Society Katina Michael is the director for the Centre for Engineering, Policy and Society at Arizona State University. She holds a joint appointment in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the School of Computing, Informatics and Decisions Systems Engineering. Katina is a senior member of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology, and in 2017 was awarded the Brian M. O'Connell Award for Distinguished Service. She is the founding editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society. She researchers the unintended consequences of emerging technologies.

Rolf Halden

Center Director & Professor, Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering

Rolf is a Professor of Environmental Engineering at Arizona State University, where he founded and directs the Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering. His research team is studying the consumption, behavior and health status of urban populations around the world via analysis of chemical and biological agents detectable in the urban water cycle. A recent success story of this work is the nationwide ban by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of ineffective, yet harmful antimicrobial compounds, including triclosan and triclocarban, that were commonly formulated into pharmaceuticals and personal care products.

Sha Xin Wei

Director ASU AME Department

Dr. Xin Wei Sha Director and Professor of the ASU School of Arts, Media and Engineering Sha Xin Wei Ph.D. is Professor and Director of the School of Arts, Media + Engineering in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts + Fulton Schools of Engineering. Dr. Sha is Director of the Synthesis Center for transversal art, philosophy and technology at Arizona State University, and is also a Fellow of the ASU-Santa Fe Institute Center for Biosocial Complex Systems. He lectures in the European Graduate School in Philosophy, Art and Critical Theory. Dr. Sha's core research concerns topological approaches to poiesis, play and process. His art and scholarship range from gestural media, movement arts, and realtime media installation through interaction design to critical studies and philosophy of technology. Trained in mathematics at Harvard and Stanford, Sha pursues speculative philosophy, experimental art, and visionary technologies that are reciprocally informed to equal depth.

Stephen Lockhart

Stephen Lockhart ASU Undergraduate Computer Science Student Steve Lockhart was part of the ASU team that created a robotic guide dog for the visually impaired. In July, the team won ‘First Prize’ at the Intel Cup Undergraduate Electronic Design Contest in Shanghai, China. This accessibility focused project furthered his interest in innovations that help people with disabilities. Currently Steve is working towards his undergraduate degree in Computer Science and plans to graduate this summer. He also volunteers each week at the Mayo Clinic as a therapy dog team with his dog Tex to help improve patients’ well-being.

Timiebi Aganaba-Jeanty

Dr. Timiebi Aganaba-Jeanty Assistant Professor in the ASU School for the Future of Innovation in Society and Former Executive Director of the World Space Week Association Timiebi Aganaba-Jeanty is an assistant professor in the School for the Future of innovation in Society with a courtesy appointment at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. With a background in global space governance, she is focused on how to facilitate increased engagement in space activities and how developing countries and marginalized groups are impacted by emerging technologies. Timiebi is also a fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) based in Waterloo Ontario, where she focuses on environmental governance. In 2017, Timiebi was the recipient of the Young Space Leader Award by the International Astronautical Federation. She is the founder of the Ladies Do Launch Network and is currently writing a book to be published by Springer titled 'Enabling the Spread of Space Benefit'.

Victoria Gilchrist

Victoria Gilchrist Sustainability Expert Victoria recently completed her Master’s in Sustainability Leadership at Arizona State University (ASU). Simply put, sustainability encompasses extant care of people and planet that allows for a viable, livable future for generations to come. Sparked by her previous experience working with forced labor and sex trafficking survivors, Victoria chose to address the hidden world of sex trafficking at sporting events. Her talk proposes a positive application for the extremely powerful, yet highly suspect artificial intelligence technology: using facial recognition to identify victims of sex trafficking at large sporting events. Victoria is a native of Newport News, VA, but considers herself a citizen of the world. She has lived on four continents and traveled extensively in between. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the University of Southern California.