Theme: Breaking Barriers

TEDxBrownU 2017 features student speakers from Brown University sharing their ideas about research, personal growth, and more.

De Ciccio Family Auditorium, Salomon Center
79 Waterman Street
Providence, Rhode Island, 02912
United States

Amanda Madigan

Amanda Madigan is a First Year at Brown University, planning on studying Italian Studies and Modern Culture and Media. Last year, she spent a gap year in Rome, Italy, teaching English in a refugee center, learning Italian, and taking part in the LGBT*QIA Rights Movement. Italy has become a central part of her life; she travels back to Rome often to visit her girlfriend and friends, study, and explore the Eternal City.

David Schurman

After taking interest in the problem of global warming, David Schurman began working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. Under the supervision of acclaimed cloud physicist Dr. John Latham, David studied the impacts of geo-engineered cloud cover on ocean phytoplankton populations. Now, David is a first-year undergraduate student at Brown who has no idea what he wants to do with his life. David's interests include engineering, mathematics, computer science, climate science, studio art, and existentialist philosophy, and he is trying to decide how best to combine all of these into a single degree program. David can most often be found in the Brown Design Workshop, pondering the intricacies of human existence while using a wood chisel to carve mortise-and-tenon joints.

Krystal Sarcone

Known to dabble in a variety of projects across industries and in the most multi-disciplinary and cross-brain way possible, Krystal has more recently shifted from her professional work coordinating medical trips for spine surgeons offering care to children in need of scoliosis treatment- to pursue her masters in international public health. In her current academic realm, she’s constantly pulling from and using her previous clinical work to fuel her passion and generating novel approaches to research in her field, including her more current qualitative efforts in adaptive attire; essentially clothing intellectually designed to accommodate the large proportion of individuals that don’t fit conventional mannequin body shapes. A renewed concept in need of broadened saliency. On a more personal level Krystal has had to manage several chronic health conditions from a young age, but one of the most impactful experiences, one that on the surface seems to have been resolved, was the first formative years Krystal spend deaf and without a formal language. Now at Brown, speaking and proficient in several languages, you’d never know. Finishing her Master’s degree this May, Krystal has already embarked on several entrepreneurial endeavors (one being a group travel program and the other a local yoga cooperative). And if she wasn’t already busy, she fills her spare time with refurbishing and hand painting old furniture, repairing appliances and building new working lamps from discarded broken parts.

Nadir Pearson

Nadir Pearson is a junior at Brown University where he has committed to the process fusing his passion for cannabis with visual arts i.e., photography & videography in order to produce content which speaks to the destigmatization of cannabis and larger sociological concepts. Nadir's freshman year at Brown he was a cornerback on the university football team, but due to concussions, decided to make the transition to a career rooted in media & marketing. Nadir currently is the lead content creator for the official @Brown-U Snapchat account & acts as Creative Director for a student-led entertainment arts coalition named DIASPØRA. Since the start of the year, Nadir has been able to join Ardent Cannabis, a Boston based biotech company that prodcues a patented decarboxylator device which allows patients to optimize the bioavilability of their cannabis. Most recently, Nadir has established The Student Marijuana Alliance for Research & Transparency (SMART), an activism alliance with goals to educate the greater Brown community on their stake in the past, present, and future of cannabis.

Stefanie Kaufman

Stefanie Lyn Kaufman is an alumni from Brown University, where she studied Medical Anthropology and Contemplative Studies. In 2013, she founded Project LETS after the suicide of Brittany Marie Petrocca; a non-profit organization committed to centering the voices of folks with lived experience in mental health care treatment, while delivering peer-led and socially competent services. At Brown, Stefanie is an Engaged Scholar, Social Innovation Fellow, and WORD! poet. She has recently been awarded the Embark Fellowship to continue Project LETS full-time after graduation, and was also named a 2017 Fulbright Scholar. Stefanie approached her work with various lived experience, including: psychiatric and physical disability, sexual assault, and suicide.