Theme: Inspire, Educate, Empower

The inaugural TEDxUSFSP will be on Friday November 13, 2015 from 4pm to 9pm in the USC Ballrooms. The experience will include a pre-function event, 8 speakers from the USFSP community, and featured TED Talks.

TEDxUSFSP will showcase unique voices from the USFSP community with insights from a wide range of disciplines that reflect our 2015 theme “Inspire, Educate, and Empower.” Our goal is to bring together bright minds to give talks that are idea-focused, and on a wide range of subjects, to foster learning, inspiration and wonder – and provoke conversations that matter.

University Student Center Ballroom
200 6th Ave. South
St. Petersburg, Florida, 33701
United States

Dan Meyer

Sword Swallower

Ever want to be a superhero and do the impossible in your life? Dan Meyer believes no matter how wild our dreams or how strong our fears, we each have the potential to be superheroes, do the impossible, and change the world. As Director of a humanitarian aid agency helping orphans in Kazakhstan, winner of the 2007 Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine at Harvard, and leading expert in the world's oldest and most dangerous art, Dan is passionate about inspiring people to do the impossible and change the world. Dan will describe his quest to push boundaries, do the impossible and change the world, and empower YOU to do the impossible in YOUR life!

Erin Seibert

Music Therapist

Erin Copeland Seibert, MT-BC (Board-Certified Music Therapist) graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Therapy, with a concentration in vocal performance. Currently, she is pursuing her Master of Arts in Music Therapy through Berklee College of Music. She is also a member of the National Institute for Infant and Child Medical Music Therapy, NICU-MT. Erin was trained in medical music therapy and has worked with a variety of individuals in many settings, including the NICU, rehabilitation, psychiatric care, intellectual and developmental disabilities, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and hospice care. Her deepest music therapy passions lie in education and advocacy of the profession. Erin is focusing her master’s degree in Complementary and Integrative Medicine with the intention of changing how music therapy is included in healthcare. You can follow her blog musictherapytime.com to learn more.

Jennifer Snyder

Director of Digital/Adjunct

Jennifer Snyder, Phd is the Director of Digital Initiatives at the Florida Humanities Council where she builds digital platforms to help connect communities across the state. In 2015, Dr. Snyder built Florida Stories, a free downloadable walking tour for Apple and Android devices that can hold up to 20 community tours. Her latest project, thinkFlorida, is a free, open source software system that connects small town museums across the state. thinkFlorida is currently in the prototype phase and is being user tested in the St. Petersburg History Museum and the Polk County History Center.

Kathleen Gibson-Dee

Instructor/QEP Director

Kathleen Gibson-Dee is a math instructor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg where she is also the Director of The Quality Enhancement Plan, an initiative to support student learning and success through innovative teaching methods. Before her career in academia, Kathleen was poet, singer/songwriter, artist, and composer, performing internationally on stage, radio and television, recording award winning family albums and publishing three children’s books. Kathleen and her husband live in a sustainably built home on a small island, growing organic groceries. They believe in compassion as a guiding principle, and who wouldn’t, when you see the interconnectedness of everything that is?

Liz Prisley

Visiting USFSP Faculty/Spoken Word Poety

Liz Prisley is poet, performer, and educator who uses spoken word poetry to promote literacy and self-expression. She is the Education Director of Heard Em Say Youth Arts Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering youth through arts education, and a coach of the Heard Em Say poetry slam team. Since August of 2014 she has been a Teaching Artist for the “Slammin’ and Jammin’: Poetry Out Loud” grant program in Pinellas County high schools, teaching spoken word workshops and facilitating the county’s first district-wide poetry slam. Currently, Liz is also a Visiting Assistant Professor at USFSP where she teaches First Year Composition. She earned her master’s in Rhetoric and Composition from Virginia Tech and her Bachelors in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida. In addition to her passions for writing, speaking, and feminism, she has an insatiable hankering for frozen yogurt.

Manuela Baron

USFSP Student

After traveling the world, Manuela Baron found her passion for living sustainably. The effects of plastic she encountered led her to reduce her trash so significantly that she no longer keeps a trash can in her home. She shares tips and recipes on living s zero waste lifestyle as The Girl Gone Green.

Mark Lombardi-Nelson

Associate Solutions Specialist

Mark is an alumnus from the University of South Florida of South Florida, St. Petersburg Entrepreneurship Program and a current team member at FairWarning. He is 1 of 8 children and shares a love for the world and all it has to offer. How he describes himself is: Musician, Dancer, Chef, Creator, Adventure Seeker, Community Builder, Lifestyle Architect, and Superman in training.

Victoria Beltran

Health Educator

Victoria M. Beltran, MPH, CHES is the Health Educator at the USFSP Wellness Center and is also an Adjunct Instructor. She received her B.A. in Psychology from New York University, her Master of Public Health degree from Emory University, is a Certified Health Education Specialist, and received a certification in Sexuality Education from the University of Michigan. Victoria has worked at the CDC, non-profit organizations, and hospitals. She believes that health promotion enhances the college experience by helping young adults become better students through overall better health and wellness. As a trained sexuality educator, she believes that everyone has the right to have a healthy and pleasurable sex life throughout the entire lifespan.