The theme of the 4th annual TEDxOhioStateUniversity event is “The Human Narrative.” The event will have talks that will cover stories, ideas and topics that make up our collective story as human beings. This event is open to all, not just Ohio State students. The tickets cost $10 for students and $20 for non-students. Register here.
Speakers from the College of Arts and Sciences are listed below. For a list of all speakers, visit the TEDxOhioStateUniversity website.
Dr. Richard E. Petty
Richard Petty is Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at The Ohio State University. He received his B.A. from the University of Virginia with a double major in political science and psychology and his Ph.D. in social psychology from Ohio State. Petty’s research focuses on the automatic and deliberative factors responsible for influencing people’s attitudes, decisions, and behaviors. He has published eight books and over 300 research articles and chapters. Petty is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, and four other societies. His honors include the Scientific Impact Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Awards from the Societies for Personality and Social Psychology and Consumer Psychology. He is past editor of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and former President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and the Midwestern Psychological Association. A 2014 article in the Archives of Scientific Psychology named him one of the most eminent psychologists of the modern era. He resides in Columbus, OH with his wife and has two daughters in college.
Marisa McGrath
Marisa McGrath is a senior at The Ohio State University double majoring in International Relations and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. A native of Youngstown, Ohio, on campus, McGrath is a member of Alpha Xi Delta sorority, The Girl’s Circle Project, and various other activities. She graduates this May.
Dr. David R. Ewoldsen
David Ewoldsen is a professor in the School of Communication and the Department of Psychology at the Ohio State University. He currently serves at the associate director of Undergraduate Studies for the School of Communication. He received a joint Ph.D. from Indiana University in Psychology and Speech Communication in 1990. David co-founded the journal Media Psychology in 1999, which quickly to become one of the top communication journals during his editorship. He also founded a second journal entitled Communication Methods & Measures in 2006, which has filled a unique niche within the discipline. David’s research interests include the study of cooperative video game play, persuasion, racism, narrative and entertainment, and comprehension processes. David enjoys looking communication issues from a unique vantage point. He has published in the top journals in both communication and psychology and has edited three books. When he relaxes, he enjoys soccer (he is an avid Columbus Crew fan), college football, and traveling with his wife, Nancy Rhodes.
Damian Beauchamp
Damian Beauchamp graduated from Kent State University (KSU) magna cum laude with a BS in chemistry. While at KSU Damian was an NSF STEM fellow, received the National Smart Grant, Choose Ohio First Scholarship, and the Chemistry Undergraduate Excellence Award. He then joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The Ohio State University (OSU) in 2012 under the direction of Dr. Yiying Wu as a PhD student. His focus and passion are based on the discovery, development, and commercialization of sustainable/renewable energy solutions. In 2013 Damian received honorable mention from the NSF Graduate Fellowship committee and co-founded Kair Battery/Energy Systems LLC. Kair was developed to provide highly energy efficient and dense, cost-effective, and non-toxic energy storage systems to the electric vehicle and grid storage markets. Damian led Kair to success taking 1st at the OSU Business Plan Competition, winning the $100k DOE Clean Energy Prize form the Rice Business Plan Competition, and competed in Washington D.C. at the DOE Clean Energy Business Plan Competition. Recently, Damian co-wrote a funded Ohio Third Frontier Technology Validation Start-up Fund (TVSF) grant. Most recently, Damian was awarded the Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award from VentureNEXT.
Dr. Andrea G. Grottoli
Andrea Grottoli is a Professor in the School of Earth Sciences and the Head of the Division of Climate, Water and the Environment at the Ohio State University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate students in the classroom, the laboratory, and in the field. Her research focuses on the impact of global change on coral reefs. Her current research in Hawaii aims to identify traits or populations of corals that are more likely to adapt to global change, and how such findings could be used to better inform coral reef conservation efforts. As part of her research she has lived in a submersible habitat on the seafloor, traveled to the deep seafloor in a manned submersible, and has dived using SCUBA hundreds of times all over the world. She has published 55 scientific journal articles, been awarded numerous grants from national organizations, was the recipient of the F. W. Clarke Award in geochemistry, is a 2013-2014 OSU Committee on Institutional Cooperation Academic Leadership Program Fellow, was the OSU Welcome Commencement Faculty Speaker in 2014, and is an OSU Faculty Senator. She earned her BS at McGill University in Canada, her PhD at the University of Houston, and did postdoctoral training at the University of California-Irvine.
Emmanuel Dzotsi
Originally from London, England, Emmanuel Dzotsi is a fourth-year undergraduate student studying Political Science and Communications at The Ohio State University. Emmanuel is a member of TBDBITL, and has written for several publications, most notably The Algerian, an Ohio State international relations magazine published by The Collegiate Council on World Affairs. An avid film fanatic, Emmanuel first fell in love with film at an early age. In 2014, Emmanuel produced his first film, entitled Steal Away, a full-length feature. Steal Away lead to the creation of Petrichor, an online art-curation website that receives submissions based around a different theme each month, and includes everything from short films, to a monthly podcast , of which Emmanuel is a regular host.
Charles W. Noble III
Charles Noble is a Program Manager for the Boys & Men of Color Initiative at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University, a leading national research institute. In this position, Charles serves as the Director of More Than My Brother’s Keeper, a pilot program designed to address some of the pervasive social issues on the Southside of Columbus, Ohio. In addition to his position at the Kirwan Institute, Charles consults on a negotiations course at the Moritz College of Law, and facilitates workshops to public health coalitions on various aspects of infant mortality. In 2013, Charles produced the Institute’s first feature-length film, Letter from Birmingham Jail, and was also on the cover of Who’s Who in Black Columbus, and was featured as an Interesting Personality. Charles sits on the Board of Student Conduct at The Ohio State University, and is on the national board of trustees for the Jack and Jill of America Foundation. Charles earned a JD from the Moritz College of Law, a Masters in Urban Planning and Design from the University of Maryland at College Park, and a BA in Sociology and Criminology from The Ohio State University.
Dr. Lisa Cravens-Brown
Dr. Cravens-Brown is a triple alumna of The Ohio State University, with a bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. in clinical child psychology. She started teaching at OSU as a graduate student and was hooked from the start. She was a 2014 recipient of the Provost’s Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Lecturer, and also has won the psychology department’s distinguished teaching award. She was named by the Princeton Review as one of the Top 300 Professors in the U.S. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in the department of psychology, where she teaches several large undergraduate courses and coordinates two department-wide courses. She also gives numerous talks on campus each year. In her limited spare time, she participates in community theater productions as an actor, singer, dancer and director.
Dr. John Beacom
John Beacom is an internationally-known researcher in physics and astronomy, a popular teacher of introductory courses, and a leader in making scientific advances accessible to non-scientists. He is a Professor in the Ohio State Departments of Physics and Astronomy, as well as being Director of their joint Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP). His research focuses on neutrinos — almost massless and almost non-interacting particles that pervade the Universe and that can reveal hidden wonders, such as the core of the Sun, stars that implode, and black holes that are gobbling away. (Trillions of neutrinos passed invisibly through your eyes as you read that sentence.) He has won both the Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award and the Ohio State Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. He frequently makes or hosts presentations on science for the public, from children to retirees. He commutes by bicycle year-round, doesn’t own a cell phone, and claims to see neutrinos.
