Speakers and Performers

Michael Sanders 

    Official TEDxHGSE MC - Performer, publicist, communications and media advocate, Michael is a master's candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education concentrating in arts, education and media. He is also a research assistant at Sustain Arts, a research based data project based out of the Kennedy school's Hauser Institute for Civil Society. 

   Michelle Barmazel

Stanford Business School graduate and current Harvard KennedySchool MC/MPA Candidate shedding new light on gifted education. 

     Vanessa Beary

Doctoral candidate, Kauffman Dissertation Fellow, and Presidential Scholar at Harvard Graduate School of Education interested in entrepreneurship education in developing countries with large youth populations.

   Ebony Bridwell - Mitchell

Harvard University Assistant Professor interested in understanding how organizations work — their internal processes and how they produce the outcomes they do.

    Antonio Buelher 

Stanford Business School graduate, current Harvard School of Education MA Candidate and Founder of Peaceful Streets Project- an all-volunteer, nonpartisan, grassroots effort for police accountability. 

    Jonathan Chang

Harvard Kennedy School Mason Fellow passionate about entrepreneurship and social change.

    Shawn Cheung

Harvard Kennedy School MPA candidate and Founder of Raising The Village, a non-profit organization that works with communities, for communities, by initiating sustainable recovery projects in some of the hardest-to-reach regions of Africa.

    Amy Edmondson

The Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School is well known for her work on teams.

    Eliott Ephrati

The master’s candidate for technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Design is an accomplished violinist and inventor.  

  Annie Gaughen 

The young adult author of the SCARLET trilogy and the Director of Girls' Leadership Boston GLOW is passionate about empowering teen girls.

    Mark Hecker

Alumnus of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and founder of Reach Incorporated, a non-profit organization creating innovative after-school programs.

    Barbara Hou

Barbara Hou is President and founding member of the Asian Women's Leadership University (AWLU) Project and adoctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.

    Gaurav Keerthi 

Commander for the Republic of Singapore Air Force, Television personality, author, Harvard Kennedy School Master’s student and passionate debate advocate.

Max Klau 

A Harvard Graduate School of Education Alum who currently serves as the Vice President of Leadership Development at City Year, Inc., a national service program headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

    Evan LaBelle

Entrepreneurially minded high school student. 

    Richard Liuzzi

Former Peace Corps Coordinator, current Master’s student at the Harvard School of Education, educational entrepreneur devoted to developing models for community-based education.

    Taylor Morris

Violinist and fiddler, current master's student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a focus on teaching creativity in music for youth.

    Ayodeji Ogunniyi 

Mr. Ayo is a high school English teacher and youth ministry leader with a dedicated passion to improving the lives of underprivileged youth by engaging them in learning more about themselves and the world around them through creativity and exploration.  

    Dimitris Papanikolaou 

Ph.D. candidate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a fellow at the Graduate Consortium on Energy of Harvard University’s Center for the Environment explores how technology, policy, and design create ecosystems that expand our limits of learning, making, and doing.

     Usman Riaz

TEDGlobal Fellow and musician making a worldwide mark with his astonishing technique.

    Amy Robinson

Creative Director of EyeWire, a game to map the brain from Sebastian Seung‘s Computational Neuroscience lab at MIT.

Lornex Rono

Lornex Rono is currently a Junior in Boston Public Schools, having recently moved to the U.S. from Kenya to escape the effects of political and ethnic conflict. In just one year, Lornex has moved from being an English Language Learner to an AP student. She is a Boston Scholar Athlete, Track Team All Star, Varsity Policy Debater, a member of Student Government, all while maintaining Straight As.

    Eric Rosenbaum

Research assistant and Ph.D. candidate in Media Arts and Sciences in MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten Group.

    Scott Ruescher

Author, poet, coordinator of the Arts in Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and teacher in the Boston University Prison Education program.

    Dimitar Sasselov

Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University and director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative.

    Mahek Shah 

A consultant, physician, and former investment banker, specializing in the intersections between healthcare, technology, and design.

    Victor Shnayder 

Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, currently managing projects at edX.

    Michelle Skinner

 Founder of Commonlit and M.A. Candidate in Education Policy and Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

    Josh Wexler

 CEO and co-founder of The Occom Group, created workshops on the Ideation Framework at the Harvard iLab.