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).

Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts Performance Hall
915 East 60th Street
Chicago, Illinois, 60637
United States

Ben Glover

Ben Glover is a third-year Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies major from South Florida. He is a huge fan of rap music and is also a rapper himself, going by the stage name Chief Wicked. Recently, he released his second mixtape, Pink Waves, and last week he shot a music video with Atlantic Records for one of its songs. When he graduates he plans to pursue a career in rap music full-time.

Björn Olafsson

Björn Jóhann Olafsson is a second year at the University, studying Psychology, Cinema and Media Studies, and Human Rights. Björn has been conducting cognitive research at the Center for Decision Research for the past year. Before college, he designed and implemented an original behavioural science research project - eventually winning an award from the American Psychological Association at the state level. He is most interested in the ways that psychology connects to various other fields of study. This summer, Björn hopes to conduct original research about the psychology of empathy in light of recent global events. Apart from his studies, Björn is a competitor for the University of Chicago Mock Trial program. He also curates Theater [24], a thrice-annual 24-hour theater festival, and has worked on a number of student-made films, plays and scripts. He is currently the Social Chair for Hitchcock House where he has also served as an Orientation Aide and Treasurer. Björn was a leader of the first-place team in the UChicago Scavenger Hunt 2016. When he enjoys a respite from University life, Björn enjoys creating trivia games for Sporcle, eating copious amounts of Twizzlers while watching bad movies, and puns. He is rarely seen without sporting a curious pair of socks.

Chicago Folklore Ensemble [N/A]

From the Serbian mountains of blood and honey to the passionate coasts of Argentina, rattling buses tearing through Thai countryside and back to sweet home Chicago, embark on a journey around the world atop a carpet of music and story, narrating the sounds, tastes, and emotions stored in the memories of Chicago immigrant musicians. Chicago Folklore Ensemble performs traditional music and personal stories collected from Chicago immigrants in a dramatic show featuring string quartet and storyteller. Audiences are swept along a journey of melody, laughter, tears, and joy, realizing the human behind each story, the worlds contained in each song.

Chicago Folklore Ensemble [No last name--group title]

From the Serbian mountains of blood and honey to the passionate coasts of Argentina, rattling buses tearing through Thai countryside and back to sweet home Chicago, embark on a journey around the world atop a carpet of music and story, narrating the sounds, tastes, and emotions stored in the memories of Chicago immigrant musicians. Chicago Folklore Ensemble performs traditional music and personal stories collected from Chicago immigrants in a dramatic show featuring string quartet and storyteller. Audiences are swept along a journey of melody, laughter, tears, and joy, realizing the human behind each story, the worlds contained in each song.

Diane Redleaf

Diane L. Redleaf is the founder and Legal Director of Family Defense Center. A child and family advocate since graduating from Stanford Law School in 1979, Ms. Redleaf has worked over three dozen major systemic reform cases on behalf of families, been involved in over 60 cases with published opinions, including a large number of precedential appellate decisions, spearheaded major legislative and regulatory University of Chicago Law School and client counseling at the Loyola University School of Law. Ms. Redleaf began her career at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago (LAF). There, she started the Children’s Rights Project in 1984, and she remained a supervisory attorney until 1996. From 1991 to 1996, she was the Sidley & Austin Fellow at LAF, coordinating extensive pro bono work with Sidley & Austin attorneys. Faced in 1996 with severe congressional restrictions on work legal services attorneys could perform for clients, she formed and co-led, with LAF’s Litigation Director Robert Lehrer, a public interest law firm dedicated to continuing social policy and child welfare litigation (“Lehrer & Redleaf”). In August 2005, Ms. Redleaf opened the Family Defense Center, working 20% time as the Center’s sole attorney. In 2010, the Center won the first “Excellent Emerging Organization Award” from the Axelson Center on Nonprofit Management. The Center now has six full-time attorneys. Over 100 lawyers handled pro bono cases with the Center in 2016 alone, donating legal services valued at over $3 million. A 2012 Chicago Tribune profile of Ms. Redleaf quoted the DCFS spokesperson as saying, “we have a better, fairer child welfare system because of her advocacy.” She has received several prestigious awards, including the KLEO “Angel” Award in 2013, the Chicago Bar Foundation Alliance for Women’s Founders’ Award in 2014 which is given to accomplished women leaders for mentoring others, and in 2016, she was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award by her alma mater, Carleton College, on the occasion of her 40th college reunion.

Herschella Conyers

Herschella G. Conyers is a Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Before joining the law school, she served as an assistant public defender, supervisor, and deputy chief in the Office of the Cook County Public Defender from 1986 to 1993. During her time at the Public Defender’s Office, Professor Conyers worked in both Cook County municipal and felony divisions including conflicts and capital litigation. A South Side Chicago native, Professor Conyers became interested in criminal defense and juvenile justice after doing her law school clinical work at the Criminal Defense Consortium of Cook County, in Woodlawn. As a Clinical Professor of Law, Professor Conyers currently co-directs the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Clinic. She also teaches the Intensive Trial Practice Workshop and a seminar entitled “Life (and Death) in the Law”. Professor Conyers is actively engaged in criminal and juvenile justice policy. She most recently organized several symposia bringing together judges, educators, and other community leaders to discuss the criminal and juvenile justice systems and violence in minority communities. In 2013, Professor Conyers received the Edith Sampson Award from the Illinois Judicial Council for her work in advocating for juveniles in the legal system. She is a nationally recognized leader in trial skills: lecturing and training students, lawyers, and judges around the country. She is faculty and a board member of the National Criminal Defense College. She has also lectured and taught trial skills at Harvard, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Training, the New York State Defender’s Association and numerous public defender offices and bar associations around the country. Professor Conyers received both her J.D. and her B.A. from The University of Chicago.

Jacqueline Russell

Jacqueline Russell (Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Chicago Children’s Theatre) served as the previous Executive Director of Lookingglass Theatre Company, during which time she led the company’s build and move into Lookingglass’ current performance space in the Water Tower Water Works. Prior to that, she served as Lookingglass’ Director of Education and Outreach. Before joining Lookingglass, she spent five years as creator of Children’s Programs at Old Town School of Folk Music. In addition to leading CCT’s main stage and education programs, Russell is the creator of the Red Kite Project, a CCT program dedicated to bringing theatre into the lives of children with special needs. In 2010, she was appointed by the U.S. State Department to serve as Cultural Envoy to Canada, and was honored with the 2013 “Hero of the Year Award” from the Chicago chapter of Autism Speaks. She was named “Tastemaker” by Time Out Chicago Kids, and has three times been highlighted in New City’s “Players” list of “People Who Really Perform for Chicago.” Jacqueline spent her early childhood in Beirut and is originally from Houston, Texas.

Kevin Coval

Kevin Coval is a poet and community builder. As the artistic director of Young Chicago Authors, founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, and professor at the University of Illinois- Chicago—where he teaches hip-hop aesthetics—he’s mentored thousands of young writers, artists, and musicians, including Chance the Rapper. He is the author and editor of 10 books, including The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop and Schtick, and co-author of the play, This is Modern Art. His work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Drunken Boat, Chicago Tribune, CNN, Fake Shore Drive, Huffington Post, and four seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. The Chicago Tribune has called him “the voice of the new Chicago” and the Boston Globe says he’s “the city’s unofficial poet laureate.” Coval’s forthcoming collection, A People’s History of Chicago drops in April 2017 on Haymarket Books.

Kristian Hammond

In addition to being Chief Scientist, Kris is a professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University. Prior to Northwestern, Kris founded the University of Chicago’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His research has always been focused on artificial intelligence, machine-generated content and context-driven information systems. Kris previously sat on a United Nations policy committee run by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Kris received his PhD from Yale.

Madeleine Grynsztejn

Madeleine Grynsztejn is Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Under her leadership, the MCA has become a new model for 21st-century contemporary art museums—an artist-activated, audience-engaged space for generating art, ideas, and conversation around the creative process. She has balanced this creative vision with her commitment to sustainable financial growth and driving cultural tourism. Grynsztejn has curated many major exhibitions on renowned contemporary artists including Doris Salcedo, Luc Tuymans, Olafur Eliasson, and curated the work of Alfredo Jaar for the Chilean Pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2013. Prior to the MCA, Grynsztejn was Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where she curated the critically-acclaimed traveling exhibitions Take your time: Olafur Eliasson and The Art of Richard Tuttle, which received a “Best U.S. Monographic Museum Show” award from the Association of International Art Critics. Previous to SFMOMA, Grynsztejn was Curator of Contemporary Art and curator of the 1999/2000 Carnegie International, a globally focused quadrennial exhibition, at the Carnegie Museum of Art. She was also Associate Curator and acting department head for 20th-century painting and sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago where she curated Affinities: Chuck Close and Tom Friedman and About Place: Recent Art of the Americas. Grynsztejn was born in Lima, Peru, and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and London, England. She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and received her BA in art history and French from Newcomb College of Tulane University, and her MA in art history from Columbia University. She is a former Helena Rubenstein Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and a 2007 graduate of the Getty Foundation’s Museum Leadership Institute. She has been a lecturer, interviewee, moderator, and panelist on film, TV, radio, web, and other public forums on art-related topics including exhibitions on view, museological practices, and general culture topics. Grynsztejn was recently knighted by French President François Hollande to the National Order of the Legion of Honour of France. She is a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), and the International Committee for Museums (CIMAM), and has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Galeria de Arte Nacional in Caracas.

Priyanka Prakash

Priyanka C. Prakash is an MBA student and an acclaimed Classical Musician, trained for 18 years in Indian Carnatic Music. With strong cultural and artistic roots in the Indian subcontinent, she explores two dualities – One, of being a global citizen through performing art & music; and Two – of converging the two worlds of Business & Music. Winner of the Governor’s Award for Classical Music & over 17 coveted awards for Music, she has performed 220+ concerts across India, United Kingdom and United States. At Chicago Booth, she specializes in advanced Finance, and graduates with concentrations in Finance & Analytic Finance. Priyanka is passionate about community building and giving back: she was involved with a student-driven outreach program in India that raised Art awareness among 1,500+ school children. At Booth, she is a Career Advisor, working to mentor first year students. She was recently selected as a student speaker at the Chicago Booth CFO Conference, speaking on Millennial Perspectives to a group of 75+ global CFO’s. She was selected among top-20 from 3,000+ applicants to present a paper at the World MBA Summit in 2016. She is a big proponent of the UChicago interdisciplinary wisdom – and strives to integrate Art, Finance and Community Engagement.

Shirley Engelmeier

For over two decades, Shirley has advised Fortune 500 companies and emerging organizations on creating inclusive, high performance leaders and enterprises. Prior to founding InclusionINC, Shirley held senior management positions in global consumer product organizations Brown & Williamson and Frito-Lay. She is a systems thinker and one of the leading pioneers around workplace initiatives that improve business results through engagement and inclusion. In Engelmeier’s latest book, Becoming an Inclusive Leader, she addresses the new leadership skills, experience and tools necessary to succeed in an increasingly diverse and participative world that will generate positive business results globally. Since founding InclusionINC, she has introduced significant corporate training, leadership development, strategic business constructs (such as the Key Employee Demographics Required For Growth™ (KEDRG), customized web-based assessments, strategic and customized metrics and solutions for Learning Over Time®. She is a frequent speaker at universities, national HR, leadership, workplace and business strategy conferences in the US and abroad. A highly regarded business strategist, Shirley has consulted with C-Suite executives globally on workplace Initiatives across a broad range of industries that include Michelin, Mortenson Contruction, Cargill, PetSmart, Hershey’s, ESPN, Denny’s/Advantica, 3M, Caterpillar, U.S. Bank, JM Smucker and others.Shirley earned her B.S. degree from the University of Minnesota and resides with her family in Minneapolis.