Theme: "Ideas worth spreading."

TEDxYouth@CherryHillHSEast was designed and produced by members of the Cherry Hill East community. Students enrolled in the Research in Science program at Cherry Hill East have worked to put together a program that will inspire the audience to think about some ideas that challenge the direction of our future. Please join us to listen, think and discuss ideas that matter, rather ideas worth spreading.

Cherry Hill High School East
1750 Kresson Road
Cherry Hill, New Jersey, 08003
United States

Ben Horton

Professor

I aim to understand and integrate the external and internal mechanisms that have determined sea-level changes in the past, and which will shape such changes in the future. Fundamental to this aim is bridging the gap between short-term instrumental records and long-term geological reconstructions and geophysical predictions.

Jean Smolen

Jean Smolen received a B.S. in Chemistry from Chatham College where she first became interested in environmental issues, inspired by Chatham alumna, Rachel Carson. Jean completed her Ph.D. in Environmental Chemistry with Professor Alan T. Stone at Johns Hopkins University. She then moved south for a post-doctoral position at the EPA Ecosystems Research Lab in Athens GA where she first started doing experiments with natural waters and sediments. Jean was hired as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia PA. Since that time, she was promoted to Associate Professor and served as Director of the Environmental Science Program. Within the past year, Jean became associate dean of the Math, Natural Science, and Computer Science Division in the College of Arts and Sciences. Jean has mentored over 20 undergraduates in her research lab, many of whom have gone on to graduate programs in Chemistry.

Jonathan Schaffer

Philosopher/Professor

I received my Ph.D. from Rutgers in 1999, and have since worked at the University of Houston, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the Australian National University, before returning to Rutgers in 2011. My main research area is metaphysics, and I have focused on the notion of fundamentality, and tried to revive the classical monistic idea that what is fundamental is the cosmos as a whole. I have further research interests in epistemology, in which I have advanced contrastive ideas of knowledge, as well as in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of science.

Nikhil Sharma

I am a senior at Cherry Hill High School East. Throughout the past few years, I have conducted several statistics-based research projects. I am interested in gaining a better understanding of qualitative topics by studying quantitative data. I've created dashboards to help students identify their college choices and to help NBA general managers understand the performance of their players. All of this research has led me to question the validity of numbers and what they can tell us. In this TEDx talk, I explore the conflict between measurables and unmeasurables and attempt to decide which is more valid.

Shyam Handa

Shyam Handa is a senior at Cherry Hill High School East. When entering high school, many people told Shyam to be as well-rounded as possible. He listened. During Shyam's high school career, he conducted impressive research on myocardial ischemia reperfusion, he raised over $28,000 for the Ronald McDonald House of Southern New Jersey, he participated in tennis, he played piano, and he was the co-captain of the Cherry Hill East Ethics Team. When it came time for college acceptances, though, he noticed an interesting trend. He began to think that maybe being well rounded is a detriment when applying to Ivy League schools. He did some research, and this is what he found...