Welcome to Stevens’ TED Talk spotlighting six Stevens students, faculty, and staff in dialogue. On April 15, the Stevens Institute of Technology x TED event was hosted in the DeBaun Auditorium from 3 to 5 p.m. Nick Smith, 4/4 Business and Technology major and former SGA President, was the lead student organizer who connected the Stevens community with TEDx to bring the event to life. Event day logistics and reception planning was executed by Tanya Avadia, 4/4 Business and Technology major. Riyana Phadke, 2/4 Chemical Biology major, introduced the speaker “talks” as the program emcee.
The theme of “Interpreting the role of research in accelerating societal good” served as the running thread connecting student, faculty, and staff insights: Dr. Sara Klein, Vice-President for Student Affairs, Jordan Suchow, Assistant Professor of Information Systems, Michelle Y. Burke, Teaching Professor in the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Erin McGee, 4/4 Physics major and Science Writer for The Stute, Wei Zheng, Associate Professor of Management & Richard R. Roscitt Chair of Professor Leadership, and Dr. Jennifer J. Kang-Mieler, Department Chair and Professor of Biomedical Engineering. The program began with opening remarks from Provost Dr. Jianmin Qu, welcoming the Stevens speakers and audience to a collaborative inquiry.
“The Case for Being a Mess” Dr. Sara Klein
Klein posed a compelling argument for students embracing the “hot mess” of college life and adolescence, even framing a college community as the novel safety net that will catch them in academic freefall, as in falling into exploratory conversations with academic role models to challenge students along the way.
“Coincidental Generation” Professor Jordan Suchow
Suchow discussed the intersection of AI and human cognition, focusing on the use of generative AI to create synthetic human portraits that will coincidentally resemble a real person. Framing the concept of “coincidental generation” as a numbers game, Suchow’s research platformed the coincidence of AI face doppelgängers to highlight a third category of people affected by AI that are not involved in training or system use, but may be unintentionally represented by the output.
“Can Gen Z Reclaim the Art of Conversation?” Professor Michelle Burke
Burke discussed the impact of smartphones on classroom dynamics and social interactions. Noting a shift from 2005 to 2025, the dawn of the dot.com boom, and smartphone connectivity, Burke’s ethnographic classroom interactions are diluted by screens, social media, political polarization, and short attention spans. Burke advocates for a tech-free classroom to recenter social skills and authentic conversation — a belief in face-to-face conversation that stems from setting technological boundaries for the future of healthier social interactions.
“Interesting Interferometry” Erin McGee
The evolution of distance measurement was simplified to the distance from McGee to her archery target as a child, and stretched beyond the space-time of her academic career at Stevens, pursuing a bachelor’s in physics. Introducing light’s constant speed for precise distance measurement, McGee opens up the scientific community behind the Laser Interferometer, Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), and the power of precise measurement in advancing our understanding of the universe.
“How to Do Inclusion: Why it Matters and What it Looks Like” Professor Wei Zheng
Zheng crystallized the concept of inclusivity within the workplace as an ongoing standard practice for efficiency and innovation. From research labs to consulting firms and warehouses, Zheng plucks social paths of least resistance from the mundane and instead advocates for intentional inclusivity and learning practices.
“Saving Eyesight, One Injection at a Time” Dr. Jennifer Kang-Mieler
Kang breaks down the diagnosis, signs and symptoms, and lackluster treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness. Current care plans involve tedious and consuming treatment in place of a cure. Kang’s research offers another option: the restoration of quality of life for patients through a new biodegradable microsphere-hydrogel composite system.
Our featured speakers left the audience with core questions:
- What’s the problem in the world that keeps you up at night—and what kind of research might help solve it?
- Whose voice is often missing in conversations about innovation?
- What’s one small action you could take this week to bring a research-backed solution to your community?
- How can we make academic research more accessible—and more human?
