Theme: Revive

Welcome to the 13th Annual TEDxQueensU event: Revive!
The event will be held in the beautiful Kingston Grand Theatre on February 5th and 6th, 2023.

TEDxQueensU aims to inspire and educate the Queen's and Kingston communities by providing a platform for forward-thinking leaders and a space for attendees to discuss and spread innovative ideas. Our speakers deliver their ideas in iconic TEDx talks, influencing attendees to make positive change by enacting their own "ideas worth sharing.” Our Innovation Lab will provide an additional opportunity for delegates to engage with one another during intermissions.

With this being our first year back in person since 2020, we plan to revive the community spirit of our event. We will explore the role of unexpected obstacles in achieving personal growth. We will ponder the factors that motivate individuals to bounce back from challenges in their personal pathways and pay homage to the special human ability to demonstrate resilience in the face of adversity.

The Kingston Grand Theatre
218 Princess Street
Kingston, Ontario, K7L 1B2
Canada

Austin Layng

Austin is a second-year law student at Queen’s University who strives to bring a growth mindset to all his experiences. During his undergrad at York University, he gravitated towards Aboriginal law, and he presented his writing at the Work and Labour Studies conference. In his spare time, Austin likes to stay active physically and mentally by bodybuilding training, meditating, and attending yoga classes.

Calder Schweitzer

Calder Schweitzer carries a lifelong passion for nature and conservation, a love of animals, and a desire to see the world's natural wonders protected in perpetuity. He has a B.Sc. in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from the University of Guelph. Calder now works as the Executive Director of the Thousand Islands Watershed Land Trust, an organization that helps landowners conserve their properties by turning them into privately-help protected areas. Calder has been with TWILT since 2019, and he believes that focused, local-scale conservation work is the key to both conserving the precious biodiversity we have left and protecting us and our communities from the effects of the climate crisis.

Dalitso Ruwe

Dalitso holds a joint appointment as an Assistant Professor of Black Political Thought in the Philosophy and Black Studies Departments at Queen’s University. His research is grounded in the fields of Africana Philosophy, Critical Race Theory and Black Male Studies, and he explores the cultural, socio-political, and legal attitudes that arise in the aftermath of the death of Black males killed by police officers and vigilantes. His work illuminates how social movements are repressed by legal apparatuses from protesting the deaths of Black males. Outside of academic research, Dalitso enjoys playing pool, basketball and watching sci-fi movies.

Dan Desjardins

Dan is the CEO of Distributive, the Kingston-based company developing the Distributive Compute Protocol (DCP), a next-generation distributed computing platform built on web technology. Distributive views computing power as an essential pillar of discovery and innovation, so it is free for academic institutions worldwide and transforms computing power into an equalizer so that all may participate in tomorrow's digital economies. Dan has a PhD in Physics from Queen’s University. Prior to Distributive, Dan served 18 years in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a military search and rescue pilot and as an Assistant Professor of Physics and Space Science at the Royal Military College of Canada. In pursuit of a childhood dream, Dan ranked among the top hundred candidates during Canada’s 2016 astronaut recruitment campaign.

James McNutt

James, from Edmonton and High River, Alberta, is a Cultural Studies PhD Student at Queen’s University. His academic background includes three degrees from Queen’s University: a BA in History, a BEd in History and English, and Master of Education in the History of Education. Additionally, he has a Master’s degree from the University of Toronto in History. Given James’s diverse background, Cultural Studies is a fertile environment to explore his various interests. The primary focus of his research is the history of post-secondary curriculum in Canada and its impact on the wider society, in particular Canadian identity.

Janine Charron

Janine is from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She is the creator of the T.I.G.E.R. method, a breast cancer survivor, the founder of iNSiDE Out STUDiO Barre, a former National Women’s Hockey League and NCAA Division 1 Ice Hockey player, an inspirational speaker and writer, and a mother of three. Janine is a lover of all things tiger-related and chocolate.

Katharine Jekic

Katharine, a third-year astrophysics major at Queen’s University, developed her profound interest in astronomy and physics at a young age. Throughout her years of studying, she understood that university is the playground of the privileged but that interest and daily experience in science is common across the board. Driven by her experiences in STEM, she has a passion for fostering inclusivity and diversity within a community known historically as elitist and exclusive. Katharine’s experience is greatly influenced by her social circumstances, which brings a unique perspective to academia within the social context.

Michelle Chubb

Michelle, aka Indigenous Baddie, uses TikTok & Instagram to educate others about Indigenous life and issues while being a first-time mom. Through the platforms, she shares her culture, talks about the history of Canada while tackling stereotypes, and encourages others to reconnect with their roots.

Naimah Bhuruku

Naimah is a Haitian American woman native of Southern New Jersey. A child of immigrant parents, she was born and raised Muslim. Naimah is a passionate diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility practitioner at NASA. Her journey of seeking a sense of connection and navigating through grief and loss as a cancer survivor/thriver deepened her curiosity of herself and others. These experiences propelled her to live a life aligned and steeped in purposeful presence with balance and unapologetic radical joy.

Sara Nabil

Dr. Nabil is an Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction and Interaction Design at the School of Computing at Queen’s University. She is the founder and director of the iStudio Research Laboratory. Her great passion for interior design coloured her research in interaction design and is driving her innovation of smart homes and interactive furniture in novel ways.