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).

ISEC
805 Columbus Ave
Boston, Massachusetts, 02120
United States

Alicia Payne

Fifth year Northeastern student Alicia Payne is studying political science and urban studies with a concentration in American political institutions. She is the Director of Northeastern’s chapter of Strong Women, Strong Girls Inc., a college mentoring organization that works in Boston Public Schools to mentor girls in third-fifth grade on feminism and female empowerment. Alicia has been interested in feminism and female empowerment since she joined the organization during her freshman year. This year she achieved her dream of wearing the school mascot uniform (Paws the Husky), but accidentally scared group of 10-year-olds into tears by jumping out from behind a corner during the process.

Amirah Aly

Former Northeastern student Dr. Amirah Aly is working on developing therapeutic approaches for treating Huntington Disease. As a pharmacy student at Kuwait University, Amirah realized that she wanted to be involved with medical research that has the potential to provide patients with better treatment options and to help improve their quality of life. This led her to join the Waszczak lab at Northeastern University, where she earned her PhD in Pharmacology. In her free time she enjoys hiking, biking the seawall, and trying Vancouver’s best coffee and donut shops.

Bobette Buster

Bobette Buster is the Writer/Producer of the feature documentary, Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound, to be released 2019, with Karen Johnson and director, Midge Costin. She is also a Professor of the Practice of Digital Storytelling, Northeastern University (Boston), and the author of DO STORY: How to Tell Your Story So The World Listens (Do Book Co.UK, 2013; Chronicle Books (US)), now in its 9th printing (translated into five languages), and DO LISTEN: Understand What’s Really Being Said, Find A New Way Forwards, Do Book Co (UK) 2018; Chronicle Books (US). Bobette’s lectures on “Sound + Storytelling” and “Deconstructing Master Filmmakers” has put on the Visiting Faculty of Pixar Studios, Disney Animation, Catholic University of Milan, La Fémis (Paris) as well as many film and business programs worldwide. In addition, Bobette leads workshops on “How to Tell Your Story So the World Listens” to corporations in-house, including Google (Dublin, London), the BBC, and Animation Ireland. Bobette discovered her passion for storytelling while gathering the oral history of her Kentucky family’s and their neighbors’ Revolutionary War Land Grant farms heritage, a collection now housed in the Kentucky Museum Archives. She holds a BS Speech from Northwestern University (Evanston) and an MFA from the University of Southern California’s Peter Stark Producing Program. She worked as a creative story executive in Hollywood for Tony Scott, Ray Stark and Larry Gelbart, while also creating the first MFA course for Feature Film and Television Development at USC, where she was an Adj. Professor from 1992 - 2015.

Claire Coletti

Founder and CEO of BauBau Claire Coletti works towards fostering neighborhood connections through architecture. As an undergraduate at Northeastern Claire realized the potential for cooperative housing in America, especially her home city of Boston, and how it can be used as an alternative model for equitable ownership. Her startup BauBau emerged as an idea while she was studying in Berlin and working on a “baugruppen” building; this project required making a home for a diverse neighborhood of people consisting of young German families, the elderly and alone, Syrian refugees, and local students. Claire is currently her master’s degree in Architecture.

Heidi Kevoe-Feldman

Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern, Dr. Heidi Kevoe-Feldman (Ph.D. Rutgers University) uses conversation analysis to examine interactions in organizational settings such as 911 emergency dispatch centers. Recent projects include studies of how callers overcome institutional barriers when seeking help, how dispatchers handle hysterical callers, and techniques negotiators and dispatchers use to talk suicidal callers down. She is also an advanced Emergency Medical Dispatcher and continues to shadow dispatchers as part of her research program. She dedicates her success to her husband, Brad, daughter Annabelle, and family for supporting her love of learning.

Mary Steffel

Assistant professor of marketing at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business Dr. Mary Steffel (Ph.D. Princeton University, University of Florida) serves on the Office of Evaluation Sciences at the General Services Administration and has served on the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team, where she helps to translate and test evidence-based insights into concrete recommendations for how to improve government. Her hobbies include performing choral music and participating in half marathons. One of her favorite places to visit is New York City.

Minhal Ahmed

Minhal is a senior Bioengineering student with a minor in Mathematics. An aspiring physician-scientist, Minhal's mission in life is to empower people to live their healthiest lives through healthcare and biomedical research. He is fascinated by new evidence linking the bacteria in our gut to various unexpected aspects of our health, including psychological disorders like anxiety and depression. Through his background in bioengineering, Minhal seeks to develop tools that will help us answer challenging questions about how our microbial inhabitants communicate with our mind.

Nalani Genser

Northeastern alumna Nalani Genser uses her experiences in consulting, business strategy, and employee experience work to bring a people-first lens to building and scaling teams and organizations that push themselves to constantly refine and evolve. Nalani’s passion for this topic stems from a mix of personal work experiences, and her current role leading a team focused on employee well-being at a 50 personal Boston startup as Head of People & Employee Experience at Mavrck. In her free time she enjoys learning how to bake, taking boxing classes, and getting crafty with hands-on projects.

Salar Shahini

GIS Director and Data Scientist for a fast-growing startup called StreetScan, Salar Shahini and his team aim to enable the future of transportation with a mobile sensing technology and a Smart City GIS application. StreetScan, the brainchild of a research project born in the Civil Engineering department of Northeastern University by a group of engineers & scientists, has served over 90 municipalities and transformed what was once an idea to a real-world solution.

Victor Velazquez

Northeastern alumnus and founder and CEO of DeFrame, Victor Velazquez developed his passion for art and entrepreneurship at a young age, starting his first venture at the age of 15, a small printing company from his own bedroom. DeFrame has been named one of the ten startups disrupting museums by MuseumNext, was selected as one of the 100 most disruptive startups at the 2017 South Summit Startup Competition, and was featured as one of the 100 most promising startups at Hubweek 2018 Demo Day. His hobby is to to run “a lot”. Last November he ran the longest race he’s done so far: a 31 miles trail race but since he got lost 3 times in the woods, he ended up running 36+ miles. He still managed to finish 3rd place, running an hour faster than the previous course record.

Victoria D’Agostino

Through bioengineering research, Northeastern senior Victoria D’Agostino hopes to solve critical problems in global healthcare. Victoria believes healthcare can be improved by decentralization: moving away from healthcare “hubs” such as hospitals to bring care directly to patients. She has the idea to develop a self-test for sexually transmitted diseases. Victoria became interested in this topic as an undergraduate intern working with oncologist Dr. Cesar Castro at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she studied human papillomavirus and its link to cervical cancer. Victoria will be enrolling as a PhD candidate in fall 2019 and aspires to be a professor one day. She is happiest outdoors, and on weekends you can find her camping, hiking, roller blading, snowboarding, and ice skating.