Theme: Paradox

We live in a world of opposites, contradictions and absurdities. Yet, in the space between, we find something beautiful: paradox.

Gainesville and the University of Florida lie at the center of crossroads of art, science, politics, education and faith. People from all points on the spectrum contribute to the community we claim as ours.

How can we create real conversations in a city with 100,000 inhabitants from all walks of life? How can we make a room meant for nearly 2,000 feel like an intimate conversation?

TEDxUF 2020: Paradox will help answer those questions. At this FREE TEDx Conference, you’ll make genuine connections with other UF and Gainesville community members, enjoy TEDx talks given by accomplished local speakers, and become inspired to make a change in this paradoxical world.

Hosted online via Zoom
33 Tigert Hall
Gainesville, Florida, 32611
United States

Alexandria Brady-Miné

Alexandria Brady-Miné is an internationally recognized social entrepreneur and activist on a mission to empower over one million young people to become changemakers by 2021. She founded the Human Projects at the age of seventeen. Now three years later, the Human Projects has worked with over 650,000 individuals in 118 countries to empower young leaders to solve human rights issues in their own communities. Funded by organizations including General Motors, T-Mobile, and the Jane Goodall Institute, Alexandria is dedicated to continuing to build and rapidly scale innovative human rights educational programs that equip young people with the tools they need to make a difference.

Delaina Parrish

Ms. Parrish is a 2020 Marketing graduate from the University of Florida with double minors in retail and entrepreneurship. While at UF, she helped redefine the culture of inclusion through personal advocacy and leadership for thousands of students with unique abilities. For that role, she is a much sought-after spokesperson on campus and within Florida, utilizing high tech augmentation communication. Delaina’s voice engages audiences with topics ranging from transitioning to college, adaptive fashion, life inspiration, and disability inclusion. Ms. Parrish has formed relationships with international brands such as Vera Bradley, Tommy Hilfiger and Zappos Adaptive, and is a brand ambassador for NuMotion Mobility, Tobii Dynavox, and Runway of Dreams, for whom she has modeled Tommy Hilfiger adaptive fashion on the runway of New York. Through these unique experiences and mentorships, Delaina has expanded “Fearless Independence, LLC” into a collaborative branding and entrepreneurial business. She hopes her dream employer is listening to this talk, and invites to the corporate table!

Ethan Kutlu

Ethan Kutlu is a PhD candidate in the University of Florida’s Linguistics department, and a proud member of the Brain Cognition and Development Lab in Psychology. He is trained as a cognitive scientist and specializes in language use, specifically in places where more than two languages coexist, as well as on the outcomes of the interactions of these languages, their speakers, and their social networks. Ethan is particularly interested in impacts of language on visual perception and has been receiving training to understand these mechanisms in infants and adults using different behavioral and brain imaging techniques. Aside from his research, Ethan taught for over 3 years in the Linguistics department and was named an Anderson Scholar Faculty Honoree and received the 2019-2020 Graduate Student Teaching Award. Ethan also serves as the diversity leader in many organizations such as the Society for Research in Child Development and the Linguistic Society of America.

Imre Bartos

Dr. Imre Bartos received his PhD from Columbia University, where he subsequently remained as a lecturer and then research scientist, before joining the faculty at the University of Florida. His broad field of interest is multi-messenger astrophysics. He primarily studies extreme cosmic processes related to the formation and evolution of black holes. Dr. Bartos is a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the LISA Consortium and is an associate member of the IceCube Collaboration. He also serves as an associate member of the Commission of Astroparticle Physics of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. Dr. Bartos was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and the University of Florida’s Excellence Award, both in 2020. He was part of a Grand Challenges Explorations Team supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He was the recipient of the Allan M. Sachs Teaching Award, and was a finalist for Columbia’s IMRE BARTOS, PH.D. Presidential Teaching Award. As a member of the LIGO Collaboration, he was the co-recipient, among others, of the 2016 Breakthrough Prize, Gruber Prize, Einstein Medal, and the Bruno Rossi Prize.

Kevin Jones

Dr. Kevin S. Jones is a Distinguished Professor and holds the Fredrick N Rhines Chair in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) at UF. He received his BS in MSE from the University of Florida in 1980 and his MS and PhD in MSE in 1987 from the U.C. Berkeley. He has spent the past 33 years as a professor at the University of Florida studying electronic materials. He has published over 400 technical articles. He is a fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS), the American Society of Materials (ASM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He has won many awards including the 1990 Presidential Young Investigator Award from NSF, the 2013 North American SEMI Award and the 2018 North America Award for Outstanding Contributions to Materials Education. In 2018 he was named the UF Teacher/Scholar of the Year and in 2020 he was awarded the National Outstanding Materials Educator Award by ASEE.

Rik Stevenson

Dr. Robert L. Stevenson, Jr., is a Visiting Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of Florida. Dr. Stevenson holds two Master’s Degrees from Fuller Theological Seminary, a Doctorate in Divinity from the Southern California School of Ministry, and a Ph.D. from Michigan State University in African American and African Studies. His research examines the role of suicide by drowning as a form of resistance during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. He is a certified scuba diver and has been involved in multiple underwater expeditions. His maritime interests are in the research and recovery of sunken slave vessels.

Sarah Goff

Sarah Goff is the executive director and co-founder of The Repurpose Project: a non-profit junk shop, creative-reuse center, and architectural salvage operation in Gainesville, Florida, that is developing innovative ways to reduce waste and keep hard-tosalvage material out of the waste stream. Sarah grew up on the island of Kwajalein, in the Marshall Islands where she spent her childhood collecting trash and shell on the beach to make art. She saw firsthand the issues of trash and plastic in the ocean and now watches as her beloved childhood home, which stands just six feet above sea level, disappears because of climate change and sea-level rise. After graduating from Kwajalein High School, Sarah moved to Sarasota, Florida, and earned a BA in Natural Science and Fine Art from New College of Florida. She then moved to New York City and earned a fashion design degree from Parsons School of Design. The Repurpose Project is a perfect combination of her passions: art, science, and a larger life-purpose of making the world a better place.

Taylor Williams

Taylor Williams is the creative director of Guts & Glory GNV, a live storytelling organization, and the lead facilitator of Guts & Glory Creative Consulting. She has been studying and performing improv comedy and storytelling for over 11 years, and has been a speaker for 20. She got her start in New York City where she trained with Upright Citizens Brigade and worked as a commercial actress. She offers trainings and keynotes around communication, storytelling, public speaking, and company culture, and also serves as an event host and emcee. She holds an advanced certificate in Design Thinking and Communicating for Impact, allowing her to use human-centered design in the consulting work she does. She is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Florida in the College of Journalism in the undergraduate and graduate programs (focusing on storytelling, communication, personal branding podcasting,) and serves as a consultant with UF MBA programs. She is currently writing a book about public speaking. Taylor is a graduate of UF, with a BA in business and an M.Ed. and Ed.S. in mental health.

Valeria Kleiman

Born in Argentina, Dr. Valeria Kleiman received her undergraduate Physical Chemistry degree from the Univ of Buenos Aires, and her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois @ Chicago. After working in National Laboratories in Washington D.C., Dr. Kleiman moved to Gainesville to start her independent professorial career in 2001, where she is currently a faculty in the Department of Chemistry at UF. Dr Kleiman has received several national and international awards and has been named visiting professor in universities in Spain and Argentina. Her research area of expertise is ultrafast laser spectroscopy of light-harvesting materials, exploring fundamental studies to understand how synthetic materials interact with light. The goal of her investigations is to understand the intrinsic properties of materials that could be used to improve harvesting of solar light to generate clean, renewable and sustainable forms of energy. Her research work has been primarily funded by the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation and her work involves collaborations with scientists in the US, France, and her native Argentina. Her scientific and life experiences have led her to pursue new teaching horizons, developing an interdisciplinary course which combines her heritage as a Latina with her chemistry expertise (Chemistry in the Cocina Latina). She is the current academic co-director of two UF programs facilitating student opportunities to take classes and perform research abroad, in more than 10 different countries.