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).

Schermerhorn Symphony Center
1 Symphony Place
Nashville, Tennessee, 37201
United States

Alex Jahangir

Dr. Alex Jahangir is an orthopaedic trauma surgeon and a professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medicine, and Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is vice-chair of orthopaedic surgery and director of the division of orthopaedic trauma, as well as, the executive medical director of the Vanderbilt Trauma, Burn, and Emergency Surgery Patient Care Center. Alex was appointed to the Nashville Metropolitan Board of Health in 2017 and served two terms as chair. In March 2020, he was named chair of the Nashville Covid-19 Taskforce by Mayor John Cooper. In this capacity, Alex led the response to the Covid-19 pandemic for Nashville including the development and implementation of policies that mitigated the spread of the virus, increased access to testing and assessment for all in the community, established a robust public health infrastructure, and served as a principal source of information to the public regarding the Covid-19 pandemic in Nashville. He served as head of the Task Force for the entire two years of the Task Force’s existence. Alex Jahangir was born in Tehran, Iran in 1978, six months before the Iranian revolution overthrew the Shah and installed the Islamic republic. Growing up in Iran, Alex’s first memories were of a war torn country that was filled with air raid sirens and his mom taking him and his younger brother to shelter when fighter jets flew overhead because of the 8 year Iran-Iraq war. In 1984 Alex’s parents, desiring a more secure and safe future for Alex and his brother, made the decision to give up the life they knew and immigrate to the United States. They decided to move to Nashville, Tennessee, the city where Alex graduated high school and returned to after finishing his medical training. Alex lives in Nashville with his wife Helen, a speech-language pathologist, and their three daughters. His upcoming book, Hot Spot: A Doctor’s Diary From the Pandemic, chronicling his and the Nashville COVID-19 Task Force’s efforts to protect the city and its people throughout the pandemic is scheduled for publication by Vanderbilt University Press in Fall of 2022.

Bob Kabeya

The story of Miloe begins in the pews of a church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Where Bobby Kabeya’s family would congregate every Sunday was a place where community and rhythm entwined. Every week as parents sang in the choir, Kabeya remained transfixed by the percussion section’s ability to keep the entire congregation on its feet. The sonic imprint of those days in the Congo stayed palpable when the Kabeyas made the 7000 mile journey to Minneapolis to join their father, who had been granted asylum three years prior. Suddenly dropped into the land of such punk legacies as Husker Dü, The Replacements, and Soul Asylum and Prince, Bobby’s musical destiny had perhaps unwittingly been cut out for him. Almost immediately he joined his high school band as a percussionist, fashioning its utility closet as a makeshift practice space for the first iterations of his own band to jam out. Midway through high school, he began producing his own material as Miloe, a name cheekily abstracted from Coldplay’s indie-pop behemoth Mylo Xyloto.

Carl Wockner

Australian export now based in Nashville, TN, USA - Carl Wockner was recently awarded “Musician of the Year” by the LiveWire Prestige Awards, Global winner of the IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards USA) and Finalist Nominee for the Independent Music Awards USA. Featured in multiple TV and Film appearances and boasts a fast growing YouTube Channel, Carl Wockner is becoming known as one of the worlds most engaging and talented solo performers. His signature vocals and guitar flavor matched with his off-the-cuff live looping agility combined with award winning songwriting really submerge the listener into a musical experience unique to each individual performance.

Christopher Slobogin

Chris Slobogin has authored more than 200 articles, books and chapters on topics relating to criminal law and procedure, mental health law and evidence. Named director of Vanderbilt Law School’s Criminal Justice Program in 2009, Professor Slobogin is one of the five most cited criminal law and procedure law professors in the country over the past five years, according to the Leiter Report. Particularly influential has been his work on the Fourth Amendment and technology and his writing on mental disability and criminal law, appearing in books published by the Cambridge, Chicago, Harvard, NYU and Oxford university presses and in journals such as the Chicago Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern Law Review, Pennsylvania Law Review, Stanford Law Review and Virginia Law Review. Slobogin has served as reporter for three American Bar Association task forces (on Law Enforcement and Technology; the Insanity Defense; and Mental Disability and the Death Penalty) and as chair of both the ABA’s task force charged with revising the Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards and the ABA’s Florida Assessment team for the Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project

Construct Nashville

Construct is a street styles based dance studio and community in Nashville, Tennessee, founded by Miriam Kraatz and Quincy Ellison in 2016. Dancers: Quincy Ellison, Anthony Allen, Junsung Park, Micky Yang, Eddie Qian, Irvin Cannon, Miriam Kraatz. Presenters: Micky Yang, Eddie Qian, Irvin Cannon, Miriam Kraatz.

Cristina Spinei

Cristina Spinei (pronounced spin-AY) is a Juilliard-trained composer and performer who has written for numerous orchestras and chamber ensembles. She is best known for her work with dance, having been commissioned by Joffrey Ballet, Nashville Ballet, Parsons Dance, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and many more. Growing up with dreams of becoming a dancer, Spinei has channeled her love for dance into a devotion to musical movement, resulting in a style infused with “lyricism and rhythmic vitality.” (Nashville Scene). Cristina has made her home in Nashville since 2014 and has since established herself as one of Music City’s most versatile, forward-thinking musicians: Nashville Arts dubbed her “gifted and engaging,” while The East Nashvillian praises her “adventuresome imagination.” Self-described as “minimalish,” Cristina anchors her musical ideas in melody, movement, and loops. Though she frequently adopts repeating patterns when writing, her music evokes more dance than trance, combining her love for beautifully crafted melodies and movement-heavy rhythms.

Daisha McBride

Daisha McBride, The Rap Girl, has channeled her performing abilities, affably clever personality and college-level industry studies into her own version of artistic and professional equilibrium in Music City. The moniker that Daisha McBride embraced right out of the gate, The Rap Girl, isn't an inside-joke nickname or cute handle. It's more like a sweeping claim to singularity, which she's backed up by cultivating a distinct persona and promotional savvy alongside her chops, and by playing up her crossover compatibility in the process. Growing up in Knoxville, a mid-sized East Tennessee city in the Smoky Mountain foothills, McBride was diligent about practicing classical violin, but also built a reputation for spitting bars in her high school cafeteria, listening to pop, rock and country besides. Even back then she was learning how to both turn heads in, and adapt to, her cultural environment. Nashville music discovery radio station WNXP picked McBride’s LP Let Me Get This Off My Chest, which dropped in November, as their Record of the Week. Near the end of the year, she announced that she had placed multiple songs in major TV shows on networks including Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Amazon Prime, BET, MTV, and VH-1.. McBride sold out a headlining show at Acme Feed & Seed on Nashville landmark, Broadway. She was an official music artist for festival such as A3C, SXSW, Newport Folk Festival, Nashville Pride Festival, Kentuckiana Pride, and Tribecca Film Festival. Daisha was a headlining performer at the Nashville Grammy Chapter Nominee Celebration and has been highlighted in publications such as Forbes, NPR, Complex, Revolt TV, Genius, and Redbull.

Danielle Krysa

Danielle Krysa (Canada) has a BFA in Visual Arts, and a post-grad in graphic design. She is the writer behind the contemporary art site, The Jealous Curator (est.2009), and has curated art shows all over North America. Danielle is also an artist herself, and her narrative mixed media work is held in private collections worldwide. She is the author of several art books, including “Creative Block”, “Your Inner Critic Is A Big Jerk”, “A Big Important Art Book - Now with Women”, and a children’s book titled “How To Spot An Artist”. Danielle has had the great pleasure of speaking at TEDx, PIXAR, Creative Mornings, and was interviewed in a series of video segments on Oprah.com about breaking through creative blocks and self-doubt.

Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza

Dr. Roberto is passionate about the politics of radical difference and the ways that our collective differences might shed light on how we become a better body together. Roberto Che Espinoza, PhD has been described in a myriad of ways: a scholar-activist, scholar-leader, thought-leader, teacher, public theologian, ethicist, poet of moral reason, and word artist. Among these ways of describing Dr. Roberto, they are also a visionary thinker who has spent two decades working in the borderlands of church, academy, & movements seeking to not only disrupt but dismantle supremacy culture and help steward the logic of liberation as a nonbinary Transqueer Latinx. Dr. Roberto enfleshes a deep hope of collaborating in these borderland spaces where their work seeks to contribute to the ongoing work of collective liberation. Dr. Roberto is the Founder of the Activist Theology Project, a Nashville based collaborative project that is dedicated to social healing. Dr. Roberto is also on faculty at Duke Divinity School teaching at the intersections of queer theory & theology/ethics. Dr. Roberto was named 1 of 10 Faith Leaders to watch by the Center for American Progress in 2018. He has been featured in fashion magazines and appeared on many different podcasts, including Pete Holmes’ You Made it Weird. As a scholar-activist, Dr. Roberto is committed to translating theory to action, so that our work in the borderlands reflect the deep spiritual work of transforming self to transforming the world. As the Founder of the Activist Theology Project, Dr. Roberto is committed to the work of social healing through the politicizing of public theology initiatives, and writes & creates both academic & other valuable resources, including digital resources. Dr. Roberto is a non-binary Transman; Latinx; and, adult on the Autism spectrum who calls Nashville, TN home. They are the author of Activist Theology, 2019, published by Fortress Press and “Body Becoming: A Path to Our Liberation,” published by Broadleaf Press 2022. Dr. Roberto's next book-length project focusses on Belonging & Freedom.

Drew Lynch

Comedian and Actor Drew Lynch is one of the most beloved voices in comedy. He initially captured the hearts of America in 2015 with his Golden Buzzer performance on Season 10 of America’s Got Talent (NBC), where he finished in second place. Since then, Drew has amassed a following of millions on social media and has been touring the country nonstop performing standup to sold out audiences of dedicated fans.

Dustin Gibson

Dustin Gibson is a published astrophotographer and entrepreneur. He is a co-owner and CEO of Oceanside Photo & Telescope, the largest telescope retailer in the world with multiple appearances on the Inc. 5000 list. Dustin has assisted multiple professional government and educational institutions, including NASA, JPL, and MIT. Gibson is also an appointed council member of the Middle Georgia Economic Advisory Council. He is involved in multiple organizations that work towards transforming astronomy and astrophotography, including co-founding Radian Telescopes and OurSky AI.

Jane Landers

Jane Landers is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. She is Director of the Slave Societies Digital Archive and since 2015 has served as the U.S. member on UNESCO’s International Scientific Committee for the Slave Route Project. Landers’ award-winning monographs include Black Society in Spanish Florida and Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions and she is the co-author or editor of five other books dealing with the history of African and Indigenous resistance in Florida and the Atlantic World. Her research has been supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the British Library Endangered Archives Programme, among others.

Michael McRay

Michael McRay is an accomplished writer and seasoned facilitator. He’s the author of multiple books, including his 2020 award-winning publication I Am Not Your Enemy: Stories to Transform a Divided World. He works with organizations around the world as a storytelling and conflict resolution consultant. Michael holds a Master’s in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation from Trinity College Dublin’s Belfast campus and executive certification in Public Narrative from Harvard’s Kennedy School. He lives in Nashville, TN with his family.

Mosheh Oinounou

Mosheh Oinounou is an award-winning journalist who has 20 years of experience as a reporter and executive producer at CBS, Fox News, Bloomberg TV, Conde Nast Entertainment and CNBC where he covered elections, wars, natural disasters and produced interviews with dozens of world leaders, including five American presidents. He was the executive producer of the CBS Evening News and also launched the network's 24-hour streaming news channel. He is founder of Mo News, a curation service that breaks down headlines on the @mosheh Instagram account with nearly 250K followers and multiple social platforms. Since March 2020, Mosheh Oinounou has been breaking down the news for his community–from the latest with COVID-19 to politics, business headlines, international news and pop culture. In 2019 he also founded Mo Digital consulting firm where he advises companies and brands on digital content strategy, brand messaging and communications.

Roberto Che Espinoza

pent two decades working in the borderlands of church, academy, & movements seeking to not only disrupt but dismantle supremacy culture and help steward the logic of liberation as a nonbinary Transqueer Latinx. Dr. Roberto enfleshes a deep hope of collaborating in these borderland spaces where their work seeks to contribute to the ongoing work of collective liberation. Dr. Roberto is the Founder of the Activist Theology Project, a Nashville based collaborative project that is dedicated to social healing. Dr. Roberto is also on faculty at Duke Divinity School teaching at the intersections of queer theory & theology/ethics. Dr. Roberto was named 1 of 10 Faith Leaders to watch by the Center for American Progress in 2018. He has been featured in fashion magazines and appeared on many different podcasts, including Pete Holmes’ You Made it Weird. As a scholar-activist, Dr. Roberto is committed to translating theory to action, so that our work in the borderlands reflect the deep spiritual work of transforming self to transforming the world. As the Founder of the Activist Theology Project, Dr. Roberto is committed to the work of social healing through the politicizing of public theology initiatives, and writes & creates both academic & other valuable resources, including digital resources. Dr. Roberto is a non-binary Transman; Latinx; and, adult on the Autism spectrum who calls Nashville, TN home. They are the author of Activist Theology, 2019, published by Fortress Press and “Body Becoming: A Path to Our Liberation,” published by Broadleaf Press 2022. Dr. Roberto's next book-length project focusses on Belonging & Freedom.

Song House

Living in Nashville, TN, Tyler is a producer, songwriter, artist developer, entrepreneur, and founder of the musical group, Song House. With over 2 billion combined views and streams, Tyler has established himself as a pioneer in the independent music space. He has collaborated with big pop acts such as Jason Duruelo, The Beach Boys, Jason Marz, Earth Wind and Fire, and others. Some of his most notable appearances include Elvis Duran’s Artist of the Month, and Ward was even featured on NBC’s Today show hosted by Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb and broadcast nationally, where he performed live his single “Yellow Boxes.” Most of Tyler Ward’s career has been spent as a musician, so he has a unique understanding of what it means to be a creator today. This understanding is evident throughout everything Song House does.

Southern Word

This performance by poets Gabriela Gonzales and Christian Ezell is presented in partnership with Southern Word, a non-profit organization which equips young people with the tools to shape, refine, and project their voice and story. Southern Word reached more than 7,500 youth last year by placing writer and music mentors in Tennessee schools and community organizations. Stories saved Gabriela's life, writing has saved her, and so she has a passion for sharing the passion for the written word with young people as a writing mentor. Her poem "Sunday Morning Girl" was nominated for 2020 Best of the Net. Presented in partnership with Southern Word, a non-profit organization which equips young people with the tools to shape, refine, and project their voice and story. Southern Word reached more than 7,500 youth last year by placing writer and music mentors in Tennessee schools and community organizations. Christian Ezell is a 20 year old artist based out of Nashville, Tennessee. When he's not writing poems or rapping, he's gaining experience to relay from the pen to the pad.

Thema Bryant

Dr. Thema Bryant is the president-elect of the American Psychological Association, the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology with more than 120,000 members (apa.org). Dr. Thema Bryant completed her doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Duke University and her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical Center’s Victims of Violence Program. Upon graduating, she became the Coordinator of the Princeton University SHARE Program, which provides intervention and prevention programming to combat sexual assault, sexual harassment, and harassment based on sexual orientation. She is currently a tenured professor of psychology in the Graduate School of Education and Psychology at Pepperdine University, where she directs the Culture and Trauma Research Laboratory. Her clinical and research interests center on interpersonal trauma and the societal trauma of oppression. She is a past president of the Society for the Psychology of Women and a past APA representative to the United Nations. Currently she serves as the elected Vice President and Racial Equity Officer for her neighborhood council in Los Angeles. Dr. Thema also served on the APA Committee on International Relations in Psychology and the Committee on Women in Psychology.

Yola Carter

Yola released her critically acclaimed debut album Walk Through Fire in February 2019. Nine months later, she achieved breakout success, hailed as a Black British genre fluid rising star, landing four GRAMMY® nominations including Best New Artist. Her anthemic new album Stand for Myself, received two GRAMMY® nominations for Best Americana Album and Best American Roots Song, was released in summer of 2021. It is a sonic mix of symphonic soul and classic pop tracing a musical thread to Yola’s most eclectic musical inspirations. It declares that it is only when we stand for ourselves, and acknowledge our complexity, that we can be truly alive. She will resume her headline U.S. tour later this year, with shows including New York’s Webster Hall. Yola also made her acting debut as Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Baz Luhrmann’s musical drama exploring the life of Elvis, played by Austin Butler, alongside Tom Hanks, Kelvin Harrison Jr and Alton Mason.