Theme: Rethink

Trinity College is hosting its first TEDx event, which includes short talks and TED Talks videos, designed around the theme “Rethink.” We all have grown up with certain misconceptions in different academic fields. For instance, we believe that fortune cookies were invented in China and that strawberry is a berry. The goal of the theme is to rethink our learning’s and perceptions. Hence, our speakers are going to make us rethink music, biology, psychology, and a variety of other topics. These talks will hopefully initiate a dialogue that would cause the global community to evolve their viewpoint.

Trinity College
300 Summit Street
Hartford, Connecticut, 06106
United States

Aaron Mauck

Aaron Pascal Mauck is a Historian of Science specializing in medicine and public health. His research explores the foundations of chronic disease research and treatment in the twentieth century, with a particular focus on the histories of diabetes and heart disease in a global health context. He is particularly interested in developing techniques for integrating historical research into contemporary disease control efforts, through team-based research strategies and new computational methods. From 2010-2012, Aaron was a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of Michigan. He has been teaching in the History of Science Department at Harvard University since 2012.

Dan Román

Speaking with a musical vocabulary that inflects the language of post-minimalism with the traditions of Puerto Rican music, composer Dan Román is a polyglot. His work connects at the roots through rhythm: obsessive ostinatos, juxtaposed patterns that create evolving permutations, the hypnotic character of a steady pulse. The folkloric and popular traditions of Román’s native Puerto Rico find their way into his music in less directly rhythmic ways as well, whether through the lyrical qualities of the Latin American romantic bolero or the Puerto Rican danza. Román’s music has been performed throughout North America, Europe and Latin America, and has been played by ensembles and artists such as Sally Pinkas, the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Robert Black, the New World Trio, the Guitar Ensemble of Chile, the Alturas Duo, and many others. He teaches composition, music theory and electronic music at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.

Joshua Michtom

Joshua Michtom is an Assistant Public Defender in Connecticut, specializing in complex child protection and juvenile delinquency trials and appeals. His writing about race, class, and the law has appeared in Salon.com, the Hartford Courant, TheBillfold.com, and elsewhere. He lives in Hartford, where he raises his two children and leads a funky 20-piece brass band.

Nell Kathleen Gibbon

Nell Kathleen Gibbon is a practicing psychotherapist, journalist, and keynote speaker. She has appeared on television shows such as PBS Nightly News, The Tyra Banks Show, and Entertainment Tonight. She is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and her expert advice has been featured in magazines such as Self, Parents, Time Out New York, and Glamour. Nell holds a Master’s Degree in Clinical Social Work from New York University, a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Columbia University, and a Bachelor’s Degree from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She has post-graduate training in reproductive psychiatry and maternal mental health through Weill Cornell’s Post-Graduate Medical School and the Postpartum Stress Center in Pennsylvania. Nell maintains a private practice in New York City, and in Fairfield County’s Westport, Connecticut.

Sandra Lopez Leon

Dr. Sandra Lopez Leon is a medical doctor, scientist, author, and visual artist. She graduated from the Erasmus University in the Netherlands with an M.S., an ScD, and a Ph.D. in Genetic Epidemiology. In 2014, the United States Government recognized her as an outstanding researcher for her work focused on identifying genes associated with mental disease (mood disorders, anxiety, ADHD, alcoholism, and sleep disorders). Dr. Lopez Leon has published her work in high impact scientific journals and has presented at international scientific meetings. She is the author of the book “Genetic determinants of depression”. She has lived in Mexico, Israel, the Netherlands and Spain, but she currently lives in the U.S. where she is conducting scientific research for a multinational company.

Sandra Lopez-Leon

Dr. Sandra Lopez Leon is a medical doctor, scientist, author, and visual artist. She graduated from the Erasmus University in the Netherlands with an M.S., an ScD, and a Ph.D. in Genetic Epidemiology. In 2014, the United States Government recognized her as an outstanding researcher for her work focused on identifying genes associated with mental disease (mood disorders, anxiety, ADHD, alcoholism, and sleep disorders). Dr. Lopez Leon has published her work in high impact scientific journals and has presented at international scientific meetings. She is the author of the book “Genetic determinants of depression”. She has lived in Mexico, Israel, the Netherlands and Spain, but she currently lives in the U.S. where she is conducting scientific research for a multinational company.

Timothy McCarthy

Timothy Patrick McCarthy is an award-winning scholar, teacher, and activist. He holds a joint faculty appointment in Harvard’s undergraduate honors program in History and Literature and at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he is the founding director of the Sexuality, Gender, and Human Rights Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. He is also the Stanley Paterson Professor of American History in the Boston Clemente Course in the Humanities in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Dr. McCarthy received his B.A. with honors from Harvard University and his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in History from Columbia University.