TEDxUCDavis

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• AJ Bleyer

  Trying to marry his passion for cars and cameras, AJ began shooting automotive videos with his high school friends. His work caught the attention of local car dealerships, and at the age of 22, he left his job at Apple to pursue filmmaking full-time. He founded Advent Films and quickly became a trusted shooter for many of the world’s most prestigious brands, including Ferrari, McLaren F1, Aston Martin, NASA, Red Bull, Riot Games, Amazon, and more.

• Andrew Wetzel

  Andrew Wetzel is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UC Davis. A theoretical astrophysicist, he uses the world’s most powerful supercomputers to generate simulations that model the formation of galaxies. He is particularly interested in understanding how our galaxy, the Milky Way, came into being. Originally from North Dakota, Andrew earned his undergraduate degree at Harvey Mudd College, his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley, and he pursued postdoctoral research at Yale, Caltech, and Carnegie Observatories. In January, the Biden White House selected Andrew for a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers early in their careers.

• Chris Froh

  Percussionist Christopher Froh specializes in promoting and influencing the creation of new music through critically acclaimed performances and dynamic lectures. To date, he has premiered over 150 chamber and solo works by composers from 17 countries. His collaborations include some of the most significant composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Chaya Czernowin, David Lang, Steve Mackey, John Adams, George Crumb, Liza Lim, Matthias Pintcher, and Keiko Abe. Froh has also worked extensively, realizing percussion scores of player piano and fixed-media pieces by Conlon Nancarrow. This project culminated in a solo recital at the Whitney Museum in New York City and featured solo performances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Alice Tully Hall. Froh’s performances have garnered exceptional critical praise. The New York Times heralded his interpretations of modern repertoire as “entrancing,” “alluring,” and “vividly wrought.” The Chicago Tribune has praised his “unfailing virtuosity,” while the San Francisco Chronicle described his performances as “tremendous” and “fierce and uncompromising.” The San Francisco Classical Voice writes of his playing, “Percussionist Christopher Froh has been an invaluable presence in the Bay Area … enlivening the contemporary music scene with performances of exceptional musicality and virtuosity.” Froh has performed works for solo percussion at venues around the world, including Alice Tully Hall, the American Academy in Rome, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, the Harris Theater in Chicago, the Hagia Irene in Istanbul, the Kennedy Center, and concert halls throughout Japan. He has been featured with leading voices in chamber music, including Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music at Menlo, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. As an orchestral musician, he has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Honolulu Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall. Strongly committed to developing diverse and underrepresented voices in the performing arts, Froh has created visionary outreach programs targeting underserved communities. His workshops, lectures, and classes have shared the immediacy and relevance of music with homeless and housing-insecure populations, children of migrant farmworkers, and at-risk youth. Froh is a faculty member at the University of California at Davis, where he teaches percussion and chamber music.

• Dan Firstenberg

  Dan Firstenberg is a student at UC Davis studying Computer Science and Statistics, originally from Redmond, Washington. He loves a good challenge, loves learning, and loves people—so his talk is a reflection of all three. It was shaped by many moments of diving into the deep end of life, hours of reflection, and countless conversations with friends about everything and nothing. At its core, it’s about what it means to work toward becoming the best version of yourself, every single day. As always, it’s a beautiful day to be a beautiful day

• Jade Tso

  Jade Tso is a medical student at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, where she is a part of the Academic Research Careers for Medical Doctors (ARC-MD) Program and the UC Davis Center for Global Surgery. She is a Paul Farmer Research Collaborator at the Harvard Program in Global Surgery and Social Change. As an undergraduate at Duke University, she initiated a community-based nutrition project in Argentina. She spent 6 years organizing with the grassroots advocacy arm of Partners in Health and served on the National Steering Committee. After college, Jade began working at Advance Access & Delivery as the Zero Tuberculosis Initiative’s Data for Action Fellow before acting as Program Manager. While in medical school, Jade has served as the co-director at Paul Hom Asian Clinic, a student-run clinic for low-income and uninsured Asian immigrants in Sacramento. As a former American Medical Women’s Association Global Health Fellow (2021-2023) and Alpha Omega Alpha Student Research Fellow, Jade worked on a pilot project implementing a stomach cancer screening program and assessing barriers to care for endoscopy in Roatan, Honduras. In her research year, she is studying financial toxicity among cancer surgery patients in Northern Thailand. An aspiring “attorney for the poor” and global surgeon, Jade is passionate about framing healthcare as a human right and proving that high standards of care can be provided in low-resource settings.

• Leigh Bardugo

  Leigh Bardugo is the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Familiar and the Ninth House series, and the creator of the Grishaverse, which spans the Shadow and Bone trilogy (now a Netflix series), the Six of Crows duology, the King of Scars duology, and much more. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies, including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She lives in Los Angeles and is an associate fellow of Pauli Murray College at Yale University.

• Sonya Hassan-Carey

  Sonya Hassan-Carey has had a long and illustrious career within the Animation Industry. She has been an Artist, Producer, Head of Studio, studio owner, and is currently a Professor in the Animation Department at Otis College of Art and Design. The Princess and the Frog, along with Winnie the Pooh, Kronk's New Groove, Osmosis Jones, Loony Tunes Back in Action, and The Nut Job are just some of the titles in which Sonya has been able to have a leadership role. Sonya is also the Founder and Lead Creative of "The Animation Lounge," which offers customized Animation workshops, produces independent films, and helps to develop unique IP.