Theme: CERTAINTY

Join UCLA Residential Life and UCLA Extension on Saturday June 4 to experience CERTAINTY, the TEDxUCLA 2022 conference, at UCLA’s Northwest Campus Auditorium

UCLA Northwest Campus Auditorium
350 De Neve Dr
Los Angeles, California, 90024
United States

Adriana Galván

Psychology, Adolescent Brain Development

Dr. Adriana Galván, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at UCLA whose expertise is in adolescent brain development. She received her B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University, and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Cornell. She is the Director of the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory. Her research focuses on characterizing the neural mechanisms underlying adolescent behavior with an eye toward informing policy (e.g., juvenile justice). Her research is generously funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, Jacobs Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation. Using a multimodal approach that combines brain imaging, task-based behavior, physiological assays, and daily diary methods.

Burton Tabaac

Doctor and Associate Professor of Neurology

Burton J. Tabaac, MD FAHA Burton is an associate professor of neurology at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, dedicated to the cutting-edge treatment and prevention of cerebrovascular diseases. He is a graduate of the fellowship program in vascular neurology at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, MD (2019). After graduating from AUC School of Medicine, where he earned his MD (2014), Tabaac completed a neurology residency at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson in New Brunswick, NJ. There, he was humbled to have been selected as a three-time recipient of The Arnold P. Gold Foundation’s Humanism and Excellence in Teaching Award (2016, 2017, and 2018).

Christian Busch

Professor, Social Scientist

Prof. Christian Busch (PhD) is the bestselling author of The Serendipity Mindset: The Art & Science of Creating Good Luck – “a wise, exciting, and life-changing book” (Arianna Huffington) that “provides excellent practical guidance for all” (Paul Polman, former CEO, Unilever) – and an internationally known expert in the areas of innovation, purpose-driven leadership, and serendipity. He is the director of the Global Economy Program at New York University's SPS Center for Global Affairs and a Visiting Fellow at the LSE's Marshall Institute. He co-founded Leaders on Purpose and Sandbox Network, and co-directed the LSE’s Social Innovation Lab.

Joan Ifland

Joan Ifland, PhD, MBA Dr. Ifland (PhD, MBA) has been focused on recovery from food addiction from 1999 with the publication of her first popular book to 2018 with the publication of her textbook, Processed Food Addiction: Foundations, Assessment, and Recovery (CRC Press) and on to the present with the establishment of online peer support, The Addiction Reset Community (ARC). The textbook is one of the first academic publication describing how to diagnose and treat processed food addiction, as well as establishing the scientific basis for the disease.

Laura Ritchie

Professor, psychology of music and musician

Laura Ritchie, PhD Dr. Laura Ritchie uses cymatics as a tool to challenge our thinking. Bio:Dr Laura Ritchie is Chair of Learning and Teaching at the University of Chichester. She is vibrant in her teaching, research, music-making, and in life. Laura’s musical background is as a classical cellist, originally training in Chicago with Hans Jensen before coming to the UK to pursue her Masters and PhD (psychology of music) at the Royal College of Music. As a musician Laura spans genres and has performed both as a classical recitalist and as a member of The Mummers on Jools Holland and at Glastonbury. Laura is also a Chartered Psychologist and her recent book Yes I Can: Learn to use the Power of Self-efficacy (2021) is practical, about self-beliefs and noticing possibilities in our everyday lives to create a real sense of ‘yes’. Laura’s enthusiasm is contagious and inspires people to realize their goals through positive achievement and reach beyond their dreams.

Lexi Montée

Marketing, Business

Lexi Montée is a marketing and strategy leader specializing in brand building, marketing & PR, business development, and sales. She is the Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Happiest Baby (maker of SNOO, the first robotic bassinet that calms crying and increases sleep), where she helped scale the company from ideation through launch and into a successful global company. Lexi is a passionate human rights activist and investor in purpose-driven startups. And her new favorite title she earned this year is mom.

Paul Barber

Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Ph.D., Integrative Biology Our laboratory integrates genetics, ecology, oceanography and geology to understand the processes that promote speciation in marine environments, creating marine biodiversity hotspots. For the past decade, we have focused on the fish and invertebrates of the coral reefs of the Coral Triangle, the global epicenter of marine biodiversity. Through a comparative approach, we are examining the relative importance of tectonic history, physical oceanography, and organismal ecologies in limiting genetic connectivity and promoting evolution and lineage diversification. Our recent work focuses on integrating empirical models of connectivity with predictions from geographically explicit models of contemporary and historical ocean currents. We work closely with conservation organizations such as Conservation International to translate our basic science into information that can help guide conservation planning, protecting these endangered reef ecosystems. We are also interested in the role of natural selection and adaptation in shaping population genetic patterns, particularly the role of the genetic basis of energetic performance of mitochondrial in size selective mortality of marine larvae.

Rob Greenfield

Environment and Sustainability

Rob Greenfield is an activist and humanitarian dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable and just world. He embarks on extreme projects to bring attention to important global issues and inspire positive change. His work has been covered by media worldwide including National Geographic and he’s been named “The Robin Hood of modern times” by France 2 TV.

Russell Lehmann

Poet and motivational speaker

Russell Lehmann is an award-winning and internationally recognized motivational speaker and poet contextualizing autism, mental health, disabilities, and the overall human condition. His words have been featured in the USA Today, LA Times, NPR, Yahoo! News, Success Magazine and archived in the Library of Congress. A graduate of MIT’s “Leadership in the Digital Age” course, Russell sits on the national Board of Directors for The Arc and is a council member for the Autism Society of America. Russell has also been the Youth Ambassador for the mayor of Reno, Nevada, and a member of the Nevada Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities as well as the Nevada Commission on Autism Spectrum Disorders. Russell is also a contributor for Psychology Today.

Seohyun Lee

Human rights advocate

Seohyun Lee was born and raised in central Pyongyang and received the most “prestigious” education in North Korea as a daughter of a high-level government official. In 2008 she enrolled at Kim Il Sung University and studied abroad at China Dongbei University of Economics and Finance. However, after experiencing a series of brutal purges by the Kim Jong Un regime, her family defected to South Korea and finally resettled in the United States in 2016. She has immersed herself in North Korean human rights issues as a human rights advocate, commentator, and YouTube creator (PyongHattan). She was awarded the 2022 North Korea Freedom Scholarship from the Bush Foundation. She will begin her graduate studies in Fall 2022 at Columbia University’s School of Public Affairs (SIPA) with her ultimate goal of freeing the North Korean people.