Theme: New Beginnings

When you think of starting something new, what feelings are evoked?…perhaps an exciting new business or maybe a new life? This event is all about new beginnings and the inherent joys and possible challenges of starting something from scratch.

The Dimension Mill
642 N Madison St
Bloomington, Indiana, 47404
United States

Ashley Butler

Ashley Butler is a physician and the founder and CEO of MySherri, a premium boutique home management company that employs and deploys an excellent workforce designed to normalize support at home while reducing the guilt and shame associated with asking for help. Butler’s years of experience with food and housing insecurity propels her to ensure that each of her employees achieves their own balance with a living wage, paid time off, and growth opportunities at MySherri.

Cassidy Puckett

Dr. Cassidy Puckett is a former middle school technology teacher and sociologist who studies the relationship between technological change and inequality in education, occupations, and healthcare. Her research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is the author of Redefining Geek: Bias and the Five Hidden Habits of Tech-Savvy Teens (UChicago Press) which takes a close empirical look at what it means to be good with technology, unpacking what is often thought of as the “natural” ability of younger generations.

Nikki Pope

Nikki Pope is in-house counsel at NVIDIA, where she leads the company’s Trustworthy AI initiative. Her interest in criminal justice reform began when she joined the Advisory Board of the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University, where she was also interim executive director for one semester when the executive director was on sabbatical. In 2015, Nikki co-authored a book, “Pruno, Ramen, and a Side of Hope: Stories of Surviving Wrongful Conviction,” that was subsequently turned into an audiobook narrated by Whoopi Goldberg and Bill Kurtis, with a cast of 20 additional voices. In 2018, she co-founded The Pruno Fund, a nonprofit that helps exonerated people manage transitioning back into society after being incarcerated.

Robert Kunzman

Rob Kunzman is a former high school teacher and now professor of Curriculum Studies and Philosophy of Education at Indiana University. His scholarship explores the moral and civic purposes of schooling. He also teaches courses in the Hutton Honors College, including “What Is a Good Education?” and “Failure, and How We Can Learn From It.”

Stephanie Wang

Dr. Stephanie Lu Wang is an Associate Professor at Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. She is one of the Poets & Quant’s Best 40-Under-40 Business School Professors in 2022. She is a mother of two boys and a spouse of a serial entrepreneur.