David Barbe has developed a multi-faceted music career since graduating in 1986. He has been the director of the Music Business Certificate Program since 2010 and has worked as an engineer, producer, songwriter, studio owner, and artist on hundreds of albums in studios all over the world. He has worked with many notable artists including Drive-By Truckers, Deerhunter, REM, Son Volt, KD Lang, Animal Collective, Sugar, Cracker, Bettye LaVette, Futurebirds, and Booker T. Jones. David’s recording studio, Chase Park Transduction, has been in operation since 1997. In his talk, he challenges the notion that a career should define you and instead asks you to decide what a career means to you.

Dr. Nadia Kellam is a freestyle skydiver and an associate professor in the College of Engineering. She is co-director of the interdisciplinary engineering education research CLUSTER where she conducts research to better understand how engineering students develop their professional identity through research projects that focus on the role of emotion in student learning, creativity, and synergistic learning. She designed the environmental engineering synthesis and design studios and is now developing the design spine for the new mechanical engineering program. As a skydiver, she has won the silver and bronze medals at the US National Championships and was selected as the Skydive Carolina Skydiver of the Year in 2012. In her talk, Dr. Kellam uses her skydiving experiences to explain how she is able to cut away from the pressure and instead live a fulfilling life.

Dr. Bettina Love is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Theory & Practice. Her research focuses on how urban youth negotiate hip-hop music and culture to form social, cultural, and political identities. A continuing thread of her scholarship involves exploring new ways of thinking about education and culturally relevant pedagogical approaches for urban students. More specifically, she is interested in transforming urban classrooms through the use of non-traditional educational curricula (e.g., hip-hop pedagogy, media literacy, hip-hop feminism, and popular culture). Dr. Love also has a passion for studying the school experiences of queer youth, along with race and equality in education. She is the author of Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Hip Hop Identities and Politics in the New South (Peter Lang, 2012). Her work has appeared in numerous books and journals, including the International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, Journal of LGBT Youth, Educational Studies, and Race, Gender and Class. In her talk, Dr. Love explains how students who identify with hip-hop culture have been ignored or deemed deficient in schools because of mainstream misconceptions.

Elizabeth Brantley is an event planner for the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development. Annually, she hosts more than 1000 gifted students and their parents on campus for enriching and fun academic programs. Outside of work, she continues to bring transformational experiences to hundreds of families through her family’s company, Resilient Families Institute, Inc. Whether it is leading workshops or weekends in New Orleans, Guam, or Athens, Elizabeth has taken what she has learned as a trained strategic interventionist into the larger market. It is her mission to positively affect every person she meets through strategically designed fun. In her talk, she explains how basing your life around one four-letter word can guide you toward a more fun life and fulfilling life.

Barrett Brooks is the founder of Living For Monday where he works to help create and execute strategies to attract, train, and retain millennial talent. He graduated from Terry College of Business in 2010 with dual degrees in Accounting and Banking & Finance, as well as a Certificate in Personal and Organizational Leadership through the Institute for Leadership Advancement. Since graduating, Barrett has served as a management consultant for Fortune 10 clients through Ernst and Young’s Performance Improvement Practice, as a Curator of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Atlanta Hub, and as an Intern to Seth Godin, the 14-time best-selling marketing and business author. In his talk, he aspires to change the way we view work, and he encourages employees to look forward to Monday.

Roger Hunter is the Project Manager for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Kepler Mission. He graduated in 1978 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. He also holds degrees from the US Air Force Institute of Technology and the US Air Force School of Advanced Airpower Studies. He acts as Chief Architect for the collaborative NASA and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency PHOENIX mission. Before joining NASA, Roger was with the Boeing Company as a Site Program Manager in Colorado Springs. He directed the efforts of over 250 Boeing engineers and technicians in support of several Department of Defense and US Air Force space systems. Before his career led him to the Boeing Company, he served as an officer in the US Air Force and retired after 22 years of service. In his talk, he walks through NASA’s exploration of space to find a life-bearing planet outside our solar system.

Reverend Dr. Francys Johnson is the youngest President of the Georgia NAACP. A graduate of the School of Law, Reverend Dr. Johnson is fulfilling his call to serve by combining a passion for helping people through education, religious affairs, and the law. He is recognized as a seasoned religious community leader. He has served in ordained ministry for over 16 years and is the Senior Minister of the Mount Moriah Baptist Church of Pembroke, Georgia, and the Magnolia Baptist Church of Statesboro, Georgia. In addition to the practice of law, he frequently lectures and writes on the concept of race, measuring equity, and understanding power in public policy. he fights to eliminate the burden of inadequate education, poverty, racism, and homophobia through national leadership positions with the NAACP and the American Heart | Stroke Association. In his talk, Reverend Dr. Johnson explores the evolution of race relations in America, particularly the South, and challenges us to debunk the fiction that is race and to understand that people matter more.

Lora Smothers is the director of the Freedom to Grow Unschool. She was first drawn to FTGU as an intern while exploring alternative education as part of her graduate studies. She later decided to unschool herself and came to FTGU as a full-time teacher. She has worked with children all over the South in a variety of roles — as a tutor, nanny, basketball coach, debate coach, summer camp counselor, youth minister, and in gifted education classrooms in Clarke County. Lora is passionate about respecting children as dynamic and thoughtful human beings, and she spends her days sharing a “big secret” with her students: their ideas matter. In her talk, she explains how going natural with her students helps foster the exploration and development of unique interests and curiosities.

Lindsey Cook studies Journalism, Computer Science, and New Media. She explores the intersection of storytelling and technology and has worked at The Washington Post, Voice of America, Online Athens, and The Red & Black. She was selected as one of the six winners of the 2013-2014 $20,000 AP-Google Journalism and Technology Scholarship and is investigating the recruitment and retention of female computer science majors and their application to journalism. Through her research, Lindsey has developed a unique perspective on feminism, and she encourages people to adapt their own personal style of feminism. In her talk, she envisions “you do you” feminism: a gender equality movement designed for a new generation of women that works to eliminate the confidence gap and emphasizes the value of just being you.

Sarah Lawrence is a Graphic Design student with an interest in collaborative mapmaking. She uses her design skills to make illustrated maps for weddings and birthdays. In March 2013, she received a grant from the Open Web chapter of the Awesome Foundation for her collaborative mapping project. After graduating, she is moving back to Atlanta to work as a designer for Paste Magazine. In her talk, she explains how maps can communicate and create the stories of communities.

Narke Norton is a fourth-year Political Science major. He is a student assistant in the Office of Diversity Relations and runs the Young Scholars Internship Program each summer. Along with his studies, he is involved with multiple campus organizations including the Demosthenian Literary Society, Mock Trial, Pi Sigma Alpha, Democracy Matters, Young Democrats, the Transfer Student Organization, and UGA Christians. As a member of the Demosthenian Literary Society, Narke has discovered the wealth of perspectives and ideas in the minds and experiences of his fellow students and wants all students to share in that validation. In his talk, he tells us how he found a home and himself through debate and how opening your life to new experiences in communication can help you live a fuller life.

Kai Riedl is a musical collaborationist who seeks new approaches to cultural diplomacy through art. He has received two research grants from the Center for Humanities and Arts, as well as a Project Development Grant from Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE), an interdisciplinary initiative for advanced research in the arts. He is currently a PhD student of Ethnomusicology and teaches a class on the music community in Athens. His abstract rock music group “Macha” gained international acclaim for its stylized multiculturalism, which integrated Indonesian music, styles, and instruments. He also appears on many recordings by Athens bands. He went on to record and produce Javasounds, a twelve-volume series of traditional Indonesian music over six years, and multiple trips to western and central Java, Indonesia. This monumental work became the basis for “Our New Silence,” through which he and a collection of diverse local musicians built upon portions of the multi-track recordings to produce new works. He strives to embrace geographic and creative constraints while connecting audiences and performers through electronic media. In his talk, he reminds us how communication, regardless of cultural differences, starts with a simple “hello.”

Farah Samli currently works in the Department of Infectious Diseases where her doctoral research focuses on improving the efficacy of vaccines. Her passion for designing better vaccines stems from growing up as a “third culture kid” in Central Asia and experiencing firsthand the need to improve basic health care in the developing world. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Applied Biological Sciences from Arizona State University where she received Howard Hughes Medical Institute funding to advance her undergraduate HIV research. Farah lived in Ireland for two years where, at the Ryan Institute, she investigated the regeneration and clonal expansion capabilities of a jellyfish-like marine organism. She has also been recognized as a “Female Game Changer” by Women@TheFrontier, a global organization focused on highlighting leading female influencers. In her talk, she explains her development of a new way to make the vaccinations that protect these animals and their families more globally accessible.

Kyshona Armstrong is a music therapist who received her Bachelor of Music in 2002. With a family devoted to soulful, southern music, she has mixed her love of storytelling with the sound of her musical roots. Soulful, spiritual, and at times guttural, she delivers an open honesty through her voice and lyrics. While performing, Kyshona desires to connect with and take the audience on an emotional, soul stirring, musical journey.

The Ballroom Performance Group is a pre-professional student dance company. They promote the appreciation of ballroom dance through performances on campus and around the community. In their performance, they take the stage in hopes of drawing the audience in with the music of tango, sensual movements, and their passion of dance.