TEDxPurdueU: Terrarium

Luis O. Jiménez-Rodríguez, S.J.

Professor in the School of Theology at Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico and associate professor in the Department of Theology at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia
Luis O. Jiménez-Rodríguez, S.J. is full professor in the School of Theology at Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico and associate professor in the Department of Theology at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia. Until 2017, he was full professor at the School of Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus. Author of more than 50 book chapters, articles, and books, on topics ranging from signal processing, artificial intelligence, engineering ethics, and the points of contact between the neurosciences, philosophy and religion. He holds two doctorates, A Ph.D in Electrical Engineering (Purdue University, 1996) and a doctorate in theology (Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, 2012).

Michael Luongo

Michael Luongo is a PhD student in Purdue University’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. His research centers on tourism recovery in the context of conflict. An award-winning long-time freelance travel journalist, his experiences volunteering on a Ground Zero cleanup crew days after September 11th vastly transformed him, launching him to report in Afghanistan, Iraq and other conflict areas, covering tourism, culture, human rights and LGBT issues for the New York Times, Bloomberg, Gay City News and others. The New Jersey native was an interviewee for the 2022 TED Fellowship and lives between Manhattan and West Lafayette. His travels include 100 countries and all seven continents.

Eric Schurenberg

Eric Schurenberg, editor-in-chief, Amplify Publishing Group, former CEO of Inc. and Fast Company is a media executive and award-winning journalist, now dedicated to fighting toxic misinformation and polarization. Among other efforts in this area, he hosts a podcast, In Reality, and a training program for mid-career journalists called The Newsroom Trust Project. Most recently, Eric was the CEO of Mansueto Ventures, home to Inc. and Fast Company, leading the company to the first profitable year in its history. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of four publications: Money, Inc., CBS MoneyWatch, and Bnet.com. As a writer and editor, he holds a Loeb Award for investigative journalism and two National Magazine Awards.

Hatam Tamimi

Hatam Tamimi is a fifth year PhD student in Linguistics at Purdue University. He grew up speaking Arabic and signing a sign language that emerged in his family over a span of six decades after his father lost his hearing. Hatam is passionate about sign language and language emergence and evolution and aspires to be a biolinguist someday. In his home country, Iran, he taught English, raised buffaloes, and worked on his family’s farm. In his leisurely time, he works out, boxes, and dominates his friends playing Catan.

Ben Westhoff

Journalist Ben Westhoff is an award-winning investigative reporter who writes about culture, drugs, and poverty. His book, Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Created the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic, is the bombshell first book about the fentanyl epidemic, and he has advised officials at the top levels of government about the opioid crisis. His book Little Brother concerns his cold case investigation of the murder of his mentee, and Original Gangstas is the definitive work on West Coast hip-hop. Ben has also written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and the Guardian.