University College Dublin Announces Line-Up of TEDxUCD 2015 Speakers

University College Dublin today announced the 9 speakers who will take part in the University’s third annual TEDxUCD event. Organised by UCD’s innovation team at NovaUCD, TEDxUCD 2015 will take place on 4 December, (10 am – 4 pm), in the UCD Dramsoc Theatre, UCD Student Centre.

The TEDxUCD 2015 speakers, who are members of the UCD community of current and former researchers, lecturers, and alumni, will speak on a wide range of ideas worth spreading and include;

Dr Cara Augustenborg is an environmental scientist who lectures on climate change and the environment at UCD. In 2013 she was selected as Ireland’s first Climate Leader as part of former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

Dr Charlotte Blease is a cognitive scientist and philosopher of medicine. She is currently a Wellcome Trust Non-Clinical Research Fellow at the Centre for Medical Humanities, University of Leeds and a Research Affiliate at the Program in Placebo Studies, Harvard Medical School.

Dr Marcus Collier, a sustainability scientist, who is a Senior Research Fellow and principal investigator in UCD’s School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy.

Dr Fred Cummins is a lecturer in UCD’s School of Computer Science whose research is currently focused on the rich topic of joint speech.

Steven Duggan, a UCD graduate, who has worked in education for over 30 years, is currently Director of Worldwide Education Strategy at Microsoft Corporation.

Dr Virginie Gautier is a principal investigator at the UCD Centre for Research in Infectious Diseases at UCD’s School of Medicine.

Duncan Lennox is a UCD graduate and serial entrepreneur. Duncan is CEO and co-founder of Qstream, a spin-out from Harvard Medical School with offices in Boston and Dublin. He was also a co-founder of WBT Systems, a UCD spin-out company, which was acquired in 2006.

Maeve O’Rourke is a human rights lawyer and barrister, and graduate of the UCD Sutherland School of Law and Harvard Law School. She is currently researching for a PhD at Birmingham Law School on the human rights of older persons to freedom from torture and ill-treatment.

Dr Brendan Rooney is a lecturer in the UCD School of Psychology and founder and current chair of the Psychological Society of Ireland’s Special Interest Group for Media, the Arts and Cyberpsychology.

At TEDxUCD 2015 a combination of live speakers and a selection of TEDTalks videos will be combined to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group of 100 attendees. The TED conference provides general guidance for the TEDx programme, but individual TEDx events, including TEDxUCD, are self-organised.

Amy Fox, a UCD Business and Law student will be the MC for TEDxUCD 2015.

100 free tickets to attend TEDxUCD 2015 will be released on Wednesday, 11 November at 1:30 pm via http://www.ucd.ie/innovation/newsevents/tedxucd/tickets/