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).

Queen's University Belfast
Riddel Hall
185 Stranmillis Road
Belfast, Antrim, BT7 1NN
United Kingdom

Barbara Bray

Barbara elevates the food system in pursuit of safe, nutritious and sustainable food for everyone. Her work delivers food safety in food supply chains and nutrition strategy for businesses, alongside leadership and educational roles in her public engagement activities. Prior to working as a consultant, Barbara worked in the Ugandan agri-business sector, before spending fourteen years in technical roles within the European chilled foods sector. She became a Registered Nutritionist with the Association for Nutrition following an MSc in Human Nutrition. Her leadership roles have included being a director of the Oxford Farming Conference and representing the Private Sector Mechanism in speeches at the UN Committee for Food Security in Rome. She is also a Fellow and committee member of IFST and a trustee of the Nutrition Society. In 2017, Barbara was awarded a Nuffield Farming Scholarship and travelled to Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Israel, UK and USA to study international food and farming systems. In 2019, Barbara was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list for her 'Services to Food Nutrition’. Barbara is currently researching diets to protect health in a doctoral training programme at the Centre for Public Health at Queen’s University Belfast.

Bill Neely

Bill Neely has been a broadcast journalist for 40 years, beginning at BBC N. Ireland. He helped launch sky news before working for Britain’s main independent news company, ITN for 25 years, as Washington correspondent, Europe correspondent and international editor. He spent 7 years as chief global correspondent. Of the leading us tv network NBC news. He has covered major international events from the fall of the berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, to wars, earthquakes, summits and Olympic games. He has interviewed leaders across the world and reported on dozens of elections. He runs marathons, does triathlons, loves wine and football, and is a lifelong supporter of Leeds united. He is married with two daughters and lives in Richmond, outside London

Bushra Kalakh

With more than 11 years of teaching experience, Bushra finds an opportunity to learn and teach in every life encounter. After building professional experience, she pursued her dream to continue higher studies in the field she is passionate about, translation, by earning the master’s degree in Translation Studies in 2018 and currently working on her Ph.D. at Queen’s University Belfast in the same field. Being a translator and conducting research in this area has opened doors for her to meet more people, engage with local communities and learn about people’s experiences. Her research interests revolve around translation as a form of activism and covers the work done by activists to tell narratives of suffering related to human rights. She aspires to be a good storyteller who can translate understandable views that bring people closer together.

Cat Barter

Queen's University Belfast Alumna

Chris McFall

Chris is a Senior Manager at PwC working in our Operate business. He has worked in PwC for 7 years now across a variety of different roles, having worked previously at Citibank for just under 3 years. He would describe himself as being innovative, versatile and hard-working with a real passion for helping people. He is hugely people focused and across the last 4 years he has found himself moving into roles which allowed him to coach, mentor, support and positively influence individuals and teams around me. He is extremely interested in understanding human behaviour and how it can be used positively to allow individuals to be self aware of their emotions to use them to influence and impact. He currently works as a Chief of Staff to the People & Operations director in Operate which he finds a challenging and diverse role which allows me to contribute and support the overall People strategy. Outside work, he is a husband and father. He is married to his beautiful wife Lucy who he has been with for 10 years, married for 4. His daughter is called Emilia, aged 1 ½ and he loves nothing more than spending time with my family.

Clare Galway

Queen's University Belfast Alumna

Fiona Murphy

Fiona Murphy is an anthropologist based in Queen’s University Belfast. As an anthropologist of displacement, she works with Stolen Generations in Australia and people seeking asylum and refuge in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Turkey. She has a particular passion for creative and public anthropologies and is always interested in experimenting with new forms and genres.

Fionnuala Fagan

Queen's University Belfast Alumna

Fionnuala Fagan-Thiébot

Queen's University Belfast Alumna

Ian Greer

Ian Greer has been President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast since August 2018. He has extensive experience of university innovation driving regional economic growth, including cross-sector developments such as the Northern Health Science Alliance, a collaboration of eight Universities and NHS partners, and is the cofounder of the Health Innovation Research Alliance for NI. He is a strong advocate for University social responsibility including widening participation. He leads the innovation pillar of the Belfast Region City Deal, driving innovation in key sectors for the local economy - creative industries, health innovation, data science & analytics, and advanced manufacturing. He is currently President of Universities Ireland, promoting collaboration across the island. By way of background, he is a medical graduate of the University of Glasgow, with his research and clinical career in obstetrics & gynaecology. He has held senior leadership positions in several UK Universities, and was Vice President of the University of Manchester, immediately before moving to Queen’s.

Isaac Gibson

Isaac Gibson is an award-winning Northern Irish DJ, producer and sound designer. He has more than ten years of experience in the music industry and is currently studying a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at the School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen's University Belfast. His work focuses on music technology, socially engaged sonic arts and sound design. More specifically, the use of creative arts and music-based interventions in palliative hospice care to improve a patient's mental health, well-being and quality of life. In recent years, he has worked on the music and sound design of many short films and theatrical productions presented at the Lyric Theatre, the MAC Theatre and various other international institutions.

Katie Ní Chléire

Katie Ní Chléire is the President of Queen’s Students’ Union, and was previously the Vice President Welfare. She graduated with a Bachelor of Social Work from QUB in 2020, and has previously worked with young people in care for two years as a Residential Support Worker. Katie also works for Student Minds, the UK Student Mental Health Charity, as a University Mental Health Charter Assessor, which involves assessing UK universities on their mental health policy and service provision. She is deeply passionate about mental health, wellbeing, and suicide prevention, and her work in Queen’s Students’ Union involves campaigning and lobbying for increased support for student mental health. Katie is also an activist, campaigning on social justice issues including reproductive justice, climate action, and Irish language rights.

Nidhi Simmons

Nidhi Simmons is a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). She received the B.E. degree in Telecommunications Engineering from India in 2011, the M.Sc. degree in Wireless Communications and Signal Processing from the University of Bristol in 2012, and the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Queen’s University Belfast in 2018. From January 2019 until August 2020, she worked as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Wireless innovation at QUB. During this time, she also devised a new framework for realising ultra-reliable low-latency communications in future wireless networks such as 6G. To fund this research, she attracted a five-year fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering worth £500k in September 2020. She has authored 9 IEEE journals and letters, and 9 IEEE conference papers. She is also a reviewer for several IEEE transactions and letters, and a member of the IEEE and Women in Engineering. Aside from her academic accomplishments, Nidhi is deeply involved with promoting Women in Engineering and STEM. She regularly takes part in open days, PhD indication events, delivers talks to school children and participates in science festivals. She was also a speaker at the Women in Business Women in Tech conference 2022.

Olinda Santin

Olinda’s academic background is in the area of psychology and public health. Her research aims to understand the impact that cancer can have both on patients and their families. She is interested in listening to the experiences of patients, carers and health care professionals and working together to develop solutions and improve cancer services both at home and internationally. She studied BSc Psychology at QUB and graduated in 2006. Olinda then undertook a PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health at QUB. Her PhD was about understanding the long- term impact that cancer can have on individuals who have had colorectal cancer. She later went on to complete a MSc in Health Psychology in Ulster University. Since 2010, I’ve worked in various research and academic positions in QUB. Olinda’s focus has always been to improve supportive services for those affected by cancer. She now leads a programme of international research focused on supporting informal carers and is the research lead for the Chronic Illness and Palliative Care research group in the School of Nursing and Midwifery.

Richard English

Richard English is Director of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security, and Justice at Queen's University Belfast, where he is also Professor of Politics. His books include the award-winning studies Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003) and Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (2006). His most recent books are Does Terrorism Work? A History (2016), The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism (co-edited, 2019), and The Cambridge History of Terrorism (edited, 2021). He is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), an Honorary Fellow of Keble College Oxford, a Faculty Affiliate at the University of Chicago, and an Honorary Professor at the University of St Andrews. In 2018 he was awarded a CBE for services to the understanding of modern-day terrorism and political history. In 2019 he was awarded the Royal Irish Academy's Gold Medal in the Social Sciences.