TEDxDuke

Speakers

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

• Amy Gladfelter

  Amy Gladfelter is a quantitative cell biologist interested in fundamental mechanisms of cell organization. She is the Distinguished Duke Health Science and Technology Professor in the Cell Biology and Biomedical Engineering Departments at Duke University. She remains a longstanding fellow of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA and is currently the course director of the Physiology Course. In her research program, she use microscopy, biophysical and genetic approaches to study syncytial cells. Syncytia are cells with many nuclei sharing a common cytoplasm and are found in fungi, throughout the human body such as in muscles and in the placenta as well as in many plants. In her work she examines how these large cells spatially organize the cytoplasm via biomolecular condensates and sense their shape. She is fellow of AAAS, the America Society of Microbiology, and an elected member of the National Academy of Science and the American Academy for Arts and Sciences.

• Anna Ortwein

  Anna Ortwein is a sophomore from Germany at Duke University, studying Political Science and Economics. She is passionate about understanding the interconnectedness of elections, the future of transatlantic relations, and how far-right movements have gained influence worldwide, particularly the societal changes that enabled their rise. At ages 18 and 19, she ran for both the German and European Parliament, while encountering sexist comments, gatekeeping and intimidation and delegitimization tactics by the far-right. Those experiences now motivate her research on strategies to reduce far-right support.

• Brianna Clarke-Schwelm

  Brianna Clarke-Schwelm is the Executive Director of the North Carolina Global Health Alliance, where she leads efforts to strengthen and connect the state’s vibrant global health ecosystem. In this role, she has been a trusted champion of the global health sector during a period of rapid change. Brianna’s commitment to ensuring people everywhere have an opportunity to live healthy lives was shaped by an early career spent in rural health clinics in Kenya, Honduras, Panama, and her chosen home of North Carolina. She is deeply passionate about supporting the invisible heroes behind the work and has brought that commitment to her advocacy for the global health workforce following the US Government funding disruptions of 2025. Brianna holds an MPH in Global Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from Bucknell University. She calls North Carolina home, where she and her husband are raising three children.

• Cassidie Carmen Bates

  Cassidie Carmen Bates, MPP, is a published grief researcher, a certified grief support specialist, and public policy practitioner. Her work explores how bereavement policies are strengthened when informed by the lived expertise of grievers, in combination with subject-matter data. With nearly a decade of public policy experience, she transitioned into grief policy following the sudden passing of her dad, John. At 25, Cassidie served as the sole executor of her dad’s estate, an experience that demonstrated how little infrastructure exists to support grieving workers. Cassidie spent over five years in nonprofit leadership within the Feeding America network, developing and implementing award-winning legislative advocacy models nationwide. Cassidie is an alumna of UC Berkeley and earned her Master's of Public Policy from the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy. She is the founder of Soul Executor, which guides estate fiduciaries in navigating the challenging and griefy estate settlement.

• Chloe McGeehan

  Chloe McGeehan is a Duke Division 1 Women’s Rower and Robertson Scholar. Chloe represented Duke at the 2025 ACC Rowing Championship as a 2xACC Honor Roll student-athlete and sole Class of 2026 walk-on. Off the water, Chloe works on stem cell reprogramming research in the Charlie Gersbach laboratory within the Duke Center for Advanced Genomic Technologies. She is also one of four undergraduate students working with the Duke Board of Trustees, advising the trajectory of Duke’s most ambitious campaign in history to bolster the innovation and marketability of Duke Science and Technology. Emphasizing curiosity, resilience, and trust, Chloe takes a microscopic approach in her talk to explore the capabilities within each of us.

• Comfort Markwei

  Comfort Markwei is a senior at Duke University double double-majoring in History and International Comparative Studies. She was raised in Nashville, Tennessee, by two Ghanaian immigrants along with her two younger siblings. Her professional interests are in law, intellectual property, and cultural production. She asks how film and television specifically act as spaces for cultural production, and how heritage and representation are protected in an industry that commodifies stories.

• Daniel Ketyer

  Daniel Ketyer is an energy and infrastructure investor and strategic advisor. He is the founder of Riverview, a boutique advisory firm helping companies building the future of energy, robotics, and infrastructure. Daniel grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania during the fracking boom, an experience that shaped his focus on who benefits -- and who bears the costs -- of large-scale technological change. He is a Duke University '16 alum and teaches an undergrad seminar on climate tech venture investing each Fall.

• Daniel Richter

  My students and I investigate how soils are formed as natural bodies and how they change in human-altered landscapes. Our research is practiced with colleagues who are ecologists, geoscientists, and environmental anthropologists and historians, and framed across the wide new field of environmental humanities. We mainly work at long-term ecological research sites or in cities with repeated sampling over decades time scales, where we can directly observe soil dynamics over time. My students and I are creating a science we like to call city-soil pedogenesis. I have written widely for the peer-review scientific literature, and my soils research and teaching were featured in Science magazine.

• Mika'il Naqvi

  Mika’il Naqvi is an entrepreneur and public speaker best known for founding a seven-figure company with his younger brother. At a young age, he appeared on Shark Tank, an experience that shaped his perspective on rejection, confidence, and resilience. Since then, Mika’il has focused on building businesses, studying finance, and mentoring other young founders through workshops and speaking engagements. He is currently a student at Duke University, where he studies History and Economics, continuing to pursue entrepreneurship.

• Morgan Settle

  Morgan Settle is a senior at Duke University studying public policy and finance. She spent her childhood in the Philippines and Kazakhstan before moving to the United States at age ten, following the sudden death of her mother. In the years that followed, Morgan and her family traveled extensively while homeschooling, an experience that shaped her understanding of humor as a way people cope with loss, uncertainty, and cultural difference. At Duke, Morgan is a member of the satirical newspaper The Fluke News and an active orientation leader for incoming freshmen. She is also involved in theater as an actor and director.

• Stephen Albright

  Stephen Albright is the founder and CEO of AphasiaGPT, an AI-powered platform helping people with language disabilities find their voice. He is currently completing his MBA at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and is an alumnus of UNC Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School. Before building AphasiaGPT, Stephen worked in consulting in New York City. His personal experience with aphasia and hemianopsia following a stroke at age 23 drives his mission to create technology that bridges the gap between the brain and the world.

• Yash Dutt

  Yash Dutt is an award-winning Australian entrepreneur. He founded Yuva AI, a data company powering enterprises like Johnson&Johnson, Sony and frontier AI labs globally, which was acquired. He now serves as the founder of the AI and Data Research Institute at Duke University, where he researches how to create economic value using AI technologies including generative AI with specialized data. Yash’s work has been profiled by ABC, Gartner, and Nile Rodgers’ We Are Family foundation. He is also a featured expert for organizations such as NVIDIA, EY, and Microsoft. He has been named Young Australian Entrepreneur of the Year, 40U40 Most Influential, a Global Teen Leader, a Robertson Scholar at Duke University, a Z Fellow, and a finalist for Young Australian of the Year.