Theme: Reframe

Get ready for our most ambitious conference to date. We're bringing speakers from across the country and from our own Cornell community in a one-of-a-kind event featuring talks and performances that will entertain, inspire, inform, and move you. Hope to see you there!

Alice Statler Auditorium
7 East Avenue
Ithaca, New York, 14853
United States

Andrew Rosenblatt

Junior in Arts and Sciences at Cornell University

Andrew Rosenblatt is a third-year undergraduate studying biological sciences and public policy at Cornell University. Before coming to Cornell, Andrew researched novel methods for early cancer detection by identifying a cancer cell’s unique metabolic signature using fluorescent microscopy in the lab of Enrico Gratton and Michelle Digman at the University of California, Irvine. In college, Andrew has continued to pursue scientific inquiry in the lab of Tobias Dörr, studying new ways to overcome antibiotic resistance in cholera. His TEDxCornell talk centers on the rise of drug-resistant bacteria and the future of medicine.

Chandler Pfaff

Hotel School Student at Cornell University

Prior to Cornell, Chandler deferred his enrollment for 2 years to do volunteer service as a full-time missionary. When he arrived on Cornell's campus, he had already developed a strong passion for service that resonated with the hotel school culture. After completing his freshman year, he traveled independently to Jordan to engage in humanitarian efforts with Syrian refugees. He spent weeks living with locals and working in a camp on the Syrian border. Since returning to campus, he has taken with him the lessons learned from those experiences and applied them to his life at Cornell. Chandler still tries to give back in meaningful ways to those around him.

Howard Zucker

NY State Commissioner of Health

Howard Zucker is Commissioner of Health for New York State. He trained in pediatrics (Johns Hopkins), anesthesiology (University of Pennsylvania), pediatric critical care/pediatric anesthesiology (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) and pediatric cardiology (Boston Children's Hospital) and is board-certified in 6 specialties. Dr. Zucker was a pediatric anesthesiologist at Montefiore and ran the pediatric ICU at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He has held academic appointments at Yale, Columbia and Einstein medical schools, Georgetown law and on the NIH faculty. He served as a White House Fellow, HHS Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health, Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization and IOP fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Zucker worked at Massachusetts General Hospital to create a community peace index for use in international conflict regions, created the nation's Medical Reserve Corps, developed a talking book on health for Afghan women.

Maryanna Saenko

Venture Capitalist

Maryanna Saenko is an early-stage venture capitalist with an interest in robotics, quantum computing, blockchain, aerospace, and the future of food. Previously she was at Khosla Ventures, and prior to that at DFJ, where she worked to focus on frontier technology investments. She was also an investment partner at Airbus Ventures where she led a series of venture investments strategically aligned with Airbus’ future-of-aerospace initiatives. Before Airbus, Maryanna was a consultant at Lux Research and a research engineer at Cabot Corporation.

Mason Peck

Former NASA Chief Technologist

Dr. Peck is an Associate Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University and the Director of Cornell's Space Systems Design Studio. His research interests include space-systems architecture and satellite dynamics and control. From late 2011 through early 2014 he served as NASA's Chief Technologist in Washington, DC. In that role, he acted as the agency's chief strategist for technology investment and prioritization and advocate for innovation in aeronautics and space technology. His lab focuses on fundamental research in space technology that can be advanced through flight experiments.

Michael Graziano

Princeton Professor of Neuroscience

Michael Graziano is a scientist, author, and ventriloquist, who has studied the brain for over thirty years. His TEDxCornellUniversity talk focuses on how a collection of neurons might perceive subjective consciousness in itself and other agents, how consciousness is a part of our social selves, and how we might build conscious machines in the future.