Theme: Fuse

What happens when you bring together ideas across the most diverse fields and disciplines? What happens when you catalyze change, revolutionize thought, and change paradigms? You ignite the fuse.

Mershon Auditorium
1871 N High St
Columbus, Ohio, 43210
United States

Bart Elmore

Environmental Historian

Bart Elmore studies the past in order to understand how we can live more sustainably on this planet. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Bart is assistant professor of environmental history and a member of the Sustainability Institute at Ohio State University. He is the author of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism (W. W. Norton, 2015), a global ecological history of the world’s biggest soft drink brand. From 2016 to 2018 he was a Carnegie Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, and he currently serves as the the editor of the Histories of Capitalism and the Environment book series at West Virginia University Press. He is writing two new books: Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and the Future of Food (W. W. Norton, forthcoming) and The Land Where the Sun Never Sets: The American South and Global Ecological Change (UNC Press, forthcoming).

Bharat Bhushan

Scientist | Trail Blazer | Professor

Dr. Bharat Bhushan is an Ohio Eminent Scholar and Howard D. Winbigler Professor, and Director of Nanoprobe Laboratory for Bio- & Nanotechnology and Biomimetics at Ohio State University. He served as an ASME/AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow, U.S. Congress in 2013-14. He holds two M.S., a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, MBA, and four honorary doctorates. His research interests include scanning probe techniques in bio/nanotribology, bio/nanomechanics and bio/nanomaterials characterization and applications to bio/nanotechnology and biomimetics. He has authored 9 books, 800 papers (Google Scholar’s 1745 Highly Cited Researchers, h-index - 120+ with 70k+ citations, i10-index - 725+; Web of Science h-index - 90+; Scopus h-index - 95+), and 25 patents. He is co-editor of several books and journals. He has given more than 400 keynote presentations on six continents. He is the recipient of numerous awards and international fellowships and a member International Academy of Engineering.

Forrest Schoessow

Geographer | Explorer | Scientist

Forrest Schoessow is an explorer in pursuit of knowledge of Earth’s interconnected natural and human systems. His curiosity has led him to serve via Americorps in the Montana wilderness, work as a farmhand in the Bolivian jungle, teach in South Korea, hitch-hike across Eurasia, and ramble about most of the United States. In 2015, Forrest led a crew of three on the Mississippi River Survey Expedition, canoeing ~2350 miles down the Mississippi River from its headwaters in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Following this adventure, he completed a Master of Science in geography in the College of Natural Resources at Utah State University. Forrest is currently pursuing a doctorate in geography at Ohio State and leads the Mountain Drone Team at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. His research leverages technology and engineering advances to transform the way scientists observe the rapid changes affecting alpine water systems.

Gabby Wittbrod

student

Student at ohio state

Harley Blakeman

Entrepreneur | Author | Felon

Just three weeks after Harley Blakeman's 18th birthday he was arrested for Drug Trafficking and sentenced to a year in prison in Georgia. After graduating from The Ohio State Universities Fisher College of Business with honors in 2017, He realized how incredibly hard it was to find employers who were willing to overlook a felony conviction from 5 years prior. Since that time, He has set out on a mission to get 1,000 employers to adopt more background-friendly hiring practices. Blakeman is now an Author and Social Entrepreneur with a focus on reducing recidivism rates in America. He is the Founder of HonestJobs.co, a Fair-Chance online job board that is helping employers fill more job openings in a tight labor market while doing good for the community. Through his company and his book, Grit: How to get a job and build a career with a criminal record, he has helped thousands of formerly incarcerated job candidates find gainful employment.

Jasmine Roberts

Audacious Professor | Author | Advocate

Jasmine Roberts is an educator, writer, and strategic communication professional. She earned her bachelor's degree at the University of Michigan and her master's degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She joined the School of Communication at The Ohio State University in 2012, where she teaches upper level undergraduate courses in the areas of communication campaigns and strategic communication writing In conjunction with her communication expertise, Roberts is also an open education leader and advocate. She strives to ensure universities and colleges nationwide implement accessible and affordable learning practices. In her spare time, she’s chasing the next adventure.

Jeremiah Stinnett

Higher Education Professional | Social Change Agent

Jeremiah (Jerry) Stinnett was born and raised in Del City, Oklahoma. He then received a Bachelor of Arts in Human Relations with a minor in English: Writing & Masters of Education in Adult and Higher Education with an emphasis in Student Affairs from the University of Oklahoma. He now works full-time for the office of Student Life Social Change at The Ohio State University. His work focuses on supporting low-income and marginalized communities by creating opportunities and access through education. During his studies at the University of Oklahoma, he worked with the implementation and facilitation of a Freshman Diversity Experience. He also served as a full time staff member for the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education in 2016, 2017, and 2018. While Jeremiah has many interest areas, his primary focus is advocating against the erasure of Arab-American identity and creating opportunity for deeper identity development.

Jonathan Branfman

Gender Studies Researcher | Sex-Educator | Children's Author

Jon is a PhD candidate in OSU’s department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS). He researches race, masculinity, and Jewish identity in pop culture, and will graduate this spring. Jon also coordinates the WGSS department’s innovative sex-ed program, which covers pleasure, health, safety, and consent for all genders and sexualities. To improve the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA) youth, Jon has also published the children’s book “You Be You! Explaining Gender, Love, and Family.” The book is now translated into more than 17 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish. Jon especially thanks MacRorie Dean, who first proposed and co-designed the WGSS sex-ed program in 2013. Jon also thanks his fellow WGSS sex-educators and the WGSS faculty and staff who have supported this sex-ed program from its beginning.

Lucille Toth

Dancer | Scholar | Immigrant

Lucille Toth is an Assistant Professor of French at OSU-Newark. Trained in contemporary dance, her research interests lie at the intersection of dance, literature, medical humanities and migration studies. Originally from a small village in the south of France, she left her country when she was 21 years old to study francophone literature in Montreal, Canada. She eventually moved to California to do her PhD before landing in Ohio. In addition to being a scholar, Lucille also gives workshops in the US, in Canada and in Europe on the ways in which movements and voice intertwine and influence each other. As a choreographer and women’s rights advocate, she is currently working on "On Border(hers)," an all-women dance project based on the testimonies of 15 Ohio-based female immigrants.

Matthew Sullivan

Educator | Explorer

Dr. Matthew B. Sullivan studies how ‘nanoscale’ viruses impact Earth’s ecosystems. While his research has been oceans-focused, his lab has pioneered many methods and informatics advances needed to “see” viruses in natural environments. This has led to global maps of the ‘virosphere’ and illuminating ‘viral dark matter’, numerous approaches to link and explore virus-host interactions, and realizations that viruses not only kill their microbial hosts, but also manipulate them in myriad subtler ways. This ‘oceans toolkit’ has revolutionized the study of viruses in nature and is now being applied throughout the global oceans, as well as in soils and humans. Matthew earned his Ph.D. from MIT and WHOI in 2004, co-founded the UA Ecosystem Genomics Institute, and is recognized as a Moore Foundation Investigator, Kavli Frontiers in Science Fellow, and co-director of the Microbial Communities Program at OSU’s Infectious Disease Institute. Come explore the hidden world of viruses!

Michael Stamatikos

Astrophysicist | Educator | Science Advocate

Dr. Michael Stamatikos is an Assistant Professor of Physics & Astronomy at The Ohio State University and an astrophysicist affiliated with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Stamatikos is the Founding Director of the SciDome and The Works’ first Chief Science Officer. He has won OSU’s Best New Undergraduate Research Mentor (2016), Teaching Excellence (2017) and Service (2017) awards. Stamatikos gives frequent invited public lectures and has been featured in The Columbus Dispatch, Daytime Columbus and The Newark Advocate. Stamatikos leads research in high-energy particle astrophysics featuring gamma-ray bursts and has won the Bruno Rossi Prize in 2007 & 2011 from the American Astronomical Society for major advances in their scientific understanding. Stamatikos has also been widely recognized for his work on Swift, which ranked as the best NASA science mission in 2014 & 2016. He has co-authored 180 peer-reviewed scientific articles and is an invited reviewer for NASA science proposals.

N. Michael Goecke

Jazz Trombonist | Educator | Natural Health Advocate

Prof. Spira (aka Dr. N. Michael Goecke) is a jazz trombonist, ethnomusicologist, university lecturer, bandleader, entrepreneur, and natural health advocate. He holds a BM degree in jazz trombone performance (cum laude) and a MM in jazz studies (summa cum laude) from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, as well as a MA in African American and African Studies and a PhD in musicology from the Ohio State University. Courses he's instructed include Survey of African-American Music, Music of World Cultures, and Introduction to Jazz. He has shared the stage with some of the world's most notable musicians, including Columbus saxophone legend Gene Walker, jazz pianist Bobby Floyd, multi-instrumentalist Foley McCreary, funk music innovator George Clinton, and many others. He is the founder and CEO of Mucus-free Life LLC, where he publishes several books related to natural health, including his best-selling annotated version of Arnold Ehret's Mucusless Diet Healing System.

Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine

Spoken Word Poet | Activist | Feminist Scholar

Sabrina Jamal-Eddine is an Arab American spoken word poet, human rights activist, and feminist scholar double majoring in Nursing and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies. Sabrina is passionate about harnessing creativity, innovation, and the power of the narrative to progress toward societal equity. Locally, Sabrina has founded a spoken word poetry-hiphop literacy program for incarcerated male youth and a music program at an affirmative action preschool. Internationally, Sabrina has taught women’s health and English through music in India and has studied international healthcare systems in Ethiopia. Sabrina has interned for Senator Edna Brown at the Ohio Statehouse, externed at Duke University Hospital on the GI/Melanoma/Thoracic Oncology Clinic, and helped lead a mentorship program for incoming freshman women of color.

Zeynep Saygin

Cognitive Neuroscientist

Dr. Saygin is a professor at The Ohio State University and director of the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab (zeynepsaygin.com). She received her Sc.B. in Neuroscience from Brown University, and her Ph.D. from MIT. She is interested in the origins of the human mind and investigates how mind and brain change with experience and maturation. She uses noninvasive neuroimaging methods (MRI) to predict the cognitive and pathological development of neonates, infants, and older children longitudinally across their lifespan. Dr. Saygin is the recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in Neuroscience.