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).

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

Bart Elmore

Environmental historian (Professor)

Bart first became passionate about environmental justice while trekking and paddling through the woods and streams of North Georgia. He soon discovered he wanted to be an educator when teaching in Savannah, Georgia, and then went north to study environmental history, which he now teaches with an eye towards finding lessons from the past that can create a more ecologically sustainable future.

Carter Phillips

Experienced Supreme Court advocate (Lawyer)

Carter Phillips, an OSU alum, has argued more cases in private practice before the US Supreme Court than anyone in history. He clerked for Chief Justice Warren Burger, argued his first Supreme Court case in January 1982 and has argued a total of 88 times before the Court.

Chinese Folk Music Orchestra Ohio State University

Chinese Folk Music Orchestra

Chinese culture has evolved and been passed down for thousands of years, and folk music is one of the most important representations of Chinese culture. Chinese Folk Music Orchestra are using music to express Chinese culture and belief, with traditional Chinese instruments combined with some western instruments.

Douglas Crews

Professor

Dr. Crews is a biological anthropologist specializing in evolutionary biology and human adaptability, as illustrated by senescence, frailty, stressor responses, and allostatic load within and across ecological and sociocultural settings, including Samoa, Japan, Kuwait, Poland, and the United States. His publications include Human Senescence: Evolutionary and Biocultural Perspectives (Cambridge, 2003); Genes, geographic ancestry, and disease susceptibility: applications of evolutionary medicine to clinical settings” (Evolutionary Medicine and Health: New Perspectives, 2008); “Senescence” (Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Sciences, 2019).

Elena Foulis

Professor Anthropology/Public Health (Professor)

Elena Foulis is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She is an oral historian who is committed to amplifying the voices of the Latine Community in Ohio.

Iman Ansari

Architect, Historian, Educator (Professor)

Iman Ansari’s work focuses on the historical and contemporary relationship between architecture and medicine. He is interested in how various things—gases, fluids, particles, humans, and non-humans—move and interact with and within buildings, and how architecture can provide a better framework to rethink and reimagine those interactions.

Jiaxin Yang

Chinese Folk Music Orchestra

Chinese culture has evolved and been passed down for thousands of years, and folk music is one of the most important representations of Chinese culture. Chinese Folk Music Orchestra are using music to express Chinese culture and belief, with traditional Chinese instruments combined with some western instruments.

John Low

Associate Professor

Dr. Low is a citizen of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, associate professor at the Ohio State University, and Director of the Newark Earthworks Center.

Lauren Pond

Documentary Photographer

Lauren Pond is a documentary photographer whose work focuses on religion in the United States. She uses her camera to share the nuanced stories of communities across the country and to illustrate how religion intersects with everyday human experience.

Meta Brown

Economist (Assocaite Professor)

Meta Brown is a member of OSU’s economics department faculty; her previous posts include the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the University of Wisconsin, and Stony Brook University. Meta’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and has appeared in the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies, and OSU’s own Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.

Morgan Podraza

Graduate Student (Pop Culture Scholar)

Introducing educator and pop-culture scholar Morgan Podraza. From comics and movies to toys and memes, her work explores how we play with media and how those experiences shape our relationships with ourselves and one another.

Richard Giang

Food Culturist & Storyteller (Undergrad Student)

The way that Richard best communicates is through a shared meal. Being born of Vietnamese immigrant refugee parents, he seeks to share in his food culture and others in creative and innovative ways with the goal of producing a level of interconnectedness and understanding throughout the community.

Scott Gaudi

Astronomer, Astrobiologist, Astropolitician

An astronomer by training, Scott works with NASA, industry, the astronomical community, and the public to help develop the next generation of great space observatories designed to answer some of humanity’s most profound questions.

Umit Ozkan

Professor, Researcher

Umit Ozkan teaches Chemical Engineering at Ohio State. Her research focuses on catalysis and electrocatalysis, with applications relevant to energy, environment and sustainability.