TEDxUCIrvine Speakers – Flashcards

Les McCabe Daniel Wehrenfennig Graham Freeman

Cissy Wu Richard Matthew Kenny Azama Jin Puertollano

Fransisco J. Ayala Sasha Strauss Timothy Young Thomas Eppel Jay Famiglietti

Nizan Friendman

Mark Bachman Angelia Trinidad Sharine Wittkopp Richard Matthew James McGaugh Sama Wareh Michael Yassa Bill Tomlinson Jeremy Hohn

Michelle Khine Ben Lee Vincent Xu Eric Meeks Bogdan Rusu Annessa Stagner Sarah Eichhorn Mahtab Jafari Warren Wiechmann Al Valdez Omeid Heidari

- Music Glove: A Music-Based Hand Rehabilitation Device - Developed sensor-based medical devices / specifically wearable, minimally obtrusive devices for rehabilitation - conducted research studies with stroke, and spinal cord injury population - BME Graduate Student - co-founder and president of Flint Rehabilitation Device - devices that aid in motor repair and human sensing. - VERVE - Kickstarter, successfully funded - complete control over how to interpret the sensor information and convert it into meaningful keystrokes

- Principal Investigator of the MIDAS lab (Microelectronic Integrated Devices and Systems) - focuses on the development of miniaturized integrated sensor systems for use in human systems, industrial systems, and consumer electronics. - Research topics - Microelectronic integrated devices and systems, biomedical microdevices, microfluidics, sensor systems, assistive technologies, human-computer interface, human systems, sustainable design

"Inventing Inventors" Selected as Top 35 Innovators under 35 (MIT Technology Review, 2009) Founder of Shrink nano-technology

"Science and religion are not a contradiction, and they don't need to be." Ex-priest Author of 12 books and 650 articles on genetics.

"The Leap of Faith" Finance chair, 2013-2014 Learned & practiced English with TED talks

MD/PhD student on environmental toxicology Studies how our genes may affect the way our body responds to air pollution

Traveled by plane for over 1 million miles Has done extensive field work in conflict zones in South Asia and East, Central, and West Africa "The Power of the Middle Class" "I do believe wealth is unevenly distributed among the classes, but ingenuity is spread among all classes."

Green building! Interviewed in multiple "60 Minutes" specials Founded idea that new memories are vulnerable to give opportunities for enhancement Recent work involves a population called HSAMs

Was diagnosed with ADD in the 1980s Alumni of UCI and was the school mascot Career is based on branding: business and personal.

E-Sports, the Future of Competition Now a web developer at Connected Learning Alliance Considered Halo as a jock's game and Starcraft as a gentleman's game Most viewed TEDxUCIrvine talk with over 42k views

"I have the feeling that by the time our children get to college, their passion has been crushed by a mountain of largely irrelevant material, and their curiosity has been replaced by the fear of failing an exam." Professor of the Paul Merage School of Business Named in Business Week as one of the most popular business professors at UC Irvine When he asked a student "Can you name a country that starts with 'U'," they responded with "Europe"

"An Introduction to Battle Mentality in Street Dance" Major: Cultural Anthropology | Minor: International Studies Multiple dance groups: BBoys Anonymous, Kaba Modern, and Urban Motus Currently a private dance tutor As well as an educator: (introduces the origins and movements of hip hop culture to elementary and middle school students)

UCI Ambience "The Art of Gloving" Talk aimed to change the perception that gloving is linked to drugs and raves

Diagnosed with stage IV cancer Wrote a memoir, Grief to Grace, when she was told she had a time limit Yourstorymatters.net Interviews those who have overcome tough obstacles to inspire others

Talked about creating his own study abroad experience, rather than being upset about not having the romanticized beauty of it all Was part of a musical duo called Jin & Gray (With 1 EP) Also performed after his talk with "Coming Home" which was inspired by his trip

Sold all of his possessions for a 1-way ticket to Thailand Was stranded on a boat with no food/water for 30 hrs "Comfortability Killed the Traveler"

Was the president of Semester at Sea In 2014, was also announced the new president and CEO of Global Green USA Top 3 endorsed skills in LinkedIn: Program development, non-profits and public speaking

University-based organization that promotes conflict analysis and resolution (Executive Director) Directs the Certificate Program in Conflict Analysis and Resolution Work has been published by the Peace Review, the University of California Press, and Communication Theory

Finalist in competition for Best Job in the World - adventurer, dreamer, and visual story teller He is from South Africa! Co-founder of Nomads in Touch

Sama Wareh is an artist, author, humanitarian, and filmmaker. Besides participating in art exhibits across the country and educating the public on environmental education locally, Wareh, author of "How to Draw 60 Native California Plants and Animals" finds most happiness in her humanitarian work. Her relief work came to fruition during the beginning of the Syrian Conflict, back in 2011 and her spirit was forged out of the all too familiar feeling of "feeling helpless". Wareh's initial trip defined the steps needed to bring peace back to Syria. She designed a sustainable art therapy program and helped found a school for Syrian Refugee Children on her next trip.Wareh was the recipient of the OC Register's 40 Under 40 OC Metro award, and has been on NPR, BBC, German Radio, and other media outlets for her work in Art Therapy and Syria. Wareh's art and in depth blog can be found on her website at www.warehart.com

Michael Yassa is an Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. He is interested in how the brain learns and retrieves information. Particularly how long-term memory mechanisms work and how these mechanisms are altered in aging and neuropsychiatric disease. Dr. Yassa examines neural mechanisms of memory from a network perspective using advanced neuroimaging and neuropsychological techniques. The central questions in his work are: (1) What are the neural mechanisms that support learning and memory? (2) How are memory circuits and pathways altered in the course of aging, dementia, and neuropsychiatric disorders and how do these changes inform our understanding of memory function? and (3) How can we identify early preclinical biomarkers that can distinguish between normal and pathological age-related changes (e.g. Alzheimer's disease) so that we can better design diagnostic and therapeutic tools.

Before joining UCI as the Chancellor's Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MEA), Dr. Madou was Vice President of Advanced Technology at Nanogen in San Diego, California. He specializes in the application of miniaturization technology to chemical and biological problems (BIO-MEMS). He is the author of several books in this burgeoning field he helped pioneer both in Academia and in Industry. He founded several micromachining companies and has been on the board of many more. Some of Dr. Madou's recent research work involves artificial muscle for responsive drug delivery, a compact disc-based fluidic platform and carbon MEMS, the two latter fields were pioneered by Dr. Madou. At UCI Dr. Madou works on carbon-MEMS, a CD based fluidic platform, artificial muscle for responsive drug delivery and integrating fluidics with DNA arrays as well as researching label-free assays for the Molecular Diagnostics platform of the future. He currently leads UCI's efforts in Advanced Manufacturing and in Educational Outreach in Advanced Manufacturing. To find out more about those recent research projects, visit www.biomems.net

Eric Meeks is a second-year MBA Student at UC Irvine's Paul Merage School of Business with a focus in marketing. He created his first mobile application, "Weight Stacker," as an experiment to learn what it really takes to get started making and marketing apps. His journey led him to the conclusion that the tools exist for even the most novice to build and promote their visions with enough passion and determination. Programming computers from a young age, Meeks went on to get his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Rochester. He believes that if more people learn to write code, more innovative ideas will come to fruition. Therefore, computer programming should be a requirement of basic education for all students.

Jay Famiglietti is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, where he teaches in the Earth System Science and Civil Engineering departments. As Founding Director of the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling, he and his research team use satellites to track water availability and groundwater depletion on land, and have been working for many years towards improving hydrological prediction in climate models like those used in the IPCC. Before joining UCI in 2001, Famiglietti was a faculty member in Geological Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, where he helped launch the UT Environmental Science Institute. Famiglietti, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, has briefed U.S. and world leaders on global water issues, and he appears as a featured expert in the 2012 water documentary 'Last Call at the Oasis.' He and his research group have published numerous papers and reports, and their work has been featured in several major international newspapers and magazines.

Bogdan Rusu graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine in June 2013. At UCI, he served as president of the AIChE chapter (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) and as president of the PowerSave Campus Program. Bogdan has strong interests in engineering, energy efficiency and sustainability, and worked with organizations such as the Alliance to Save Energy, Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison. Bogdan represented UCIrvine at a number of different events and competitions, and his latest achievement was assembling a team of 10 students to present on energy efficiency solutions on the White House Campus in Washington D.C. in March 2013 to Department of Energy representatives, including Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy - David Danielson.

Annessa Stagner is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Irvine. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History summa cum laude from West Texas A&M University in 2001, and completed a Master of Arts specializing in U.S. Foreign Relations at Ohio University. Her dissertation is entitled "Defining the Soldier's Wounds: U.S. Shell Shock in International Perspective, 1915-1940." She has presented her research at national and international conferences and has two articles in press: one in the Journal of Contemporary History and the other as a book chapter for Duke University Press.

Sarah Eichhorn is the Assistant Vice Chair of Undergraduate Studies in Mathematics at University of California, Irvine. Dr. Eichhorn received her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Arizona in 2004. Her original research area was in dynamical systems applications to planetary science and geodesy, however she has recently started dabbling in computational game theory due to the interesting, accessible undergrad research projects in this field. Dr. Eichhorn currently has several NSF undergraduate training grants which supported 40 undergraduate student researchers this past summer. Dr. Eichhorn has won several teaching awards including MAA's Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2011.

Mahtab Jafari fell in love with teaching and science when she was in 5th grade in elementary school. As the Director of Pharmaceutical Sciences Undergraduate Program at the University of California, Irvine, she developed the first undergraduate degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences in the UC System and helped found the Department. She has a diverse research background in basic, translational, and clinical sciences. Currently, the focus of her research is to slow aging, extend lifespan and improve health span, using human cultured cells, fruit flies and mice as her model systems. Dr. Jafari is the recipient of many teaching awards including the 2008 UCI Teaching Award, the 2008 UCI Chancellor's Award for Fostering Undergraduate Research, and the 2011 UCI Pharmaceutical Sciences Overall Outstanding Professor award. She received the UCI Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine Discovery Award in 2012 and has also been selected among "20 Women to Watch in Orange County" by OC Metro Business Magazine.

Warren Wiechmann has served since 2010 as the Associate Dean of Instructional Technologies, responsible for directing the School of Medicine's iMedEd Initiative. The iMedEd Initiative is a comprehensive digital overhaul of the medical school curriculum that uses the iPad as the centerpiece for curricular innovation and reform. Dr. Wiechmann's background as an emergency physician with a business school education and web development expertise has helped him craft this unique role for technology within the traditional medical curriculum.

Al Valdez is a nationally recognized trainer and consultant in the areas of youth violence, gang sociology and behaviors, gang investigations/prosecutions, parent/teacher awareness issues, prevention/intervention models and occult/ritual crimes. He is on staff at several local colleges where he designs and teaches advance officer/supervisor training programs. He is also a consultant to the California and U.S. Departments of Justice, as well as the U.S. Military, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and Customs and Border Patrol. He has written and published over 80 articles and 12 books on gang histories, customs and practices and related issues. Doctor Valdez also authored the gang monograph that is used by the California Attorney General's office to educate the public and law enforcement. Valdez awarded the "Professor of the Year" for the University of California, Irvine in February, 2009 and in 2012 he was selected for an honorary membership into the Golden Key International Honor Society, UC, Irvine for his work with students

John Spirko has over 15 years of experience in leading product innovation efforts in the Software and Services industry. He is also the founder and CEO of a Fitness-generated electricity start-up called "Fit for Green." He has a passion for directing development, marketing, and sales activities needed to make technology based solutions effective for a market. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and an MBA from the University of California, Irvine.

Omeid is a Nursing student at the University of California, Irvine. His hobbies include playing and watching soccer, reading, and biking. His favorite book books include "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and "Saturday" by Ian McEwan. As a nurse, Omeid hopes to specialize in either pediatrics or critical care in either the Emergency Department or Intensive Care. After working for a few years and establishing himself as a staff nurse, Omeid hopes to pursue and advanced practice nursing degree. He has been researching with the Public Health department over the last two years and recently initiated his own research project to deliver age appropriate and culturally competent Reproductive and Developmental health education to middle school students. He wants to one day own two dogs: a corgi named Ralphie and a German shepherd named Bear. His favorite TED talk is "We need to talk about an injustice" by Bryan Stevenson.