Welcome back everyone!

After last week’s theme reveal, we wanted to introduce you to the amazing people bringing our Unmute to life. Here’s a preview of their journeys, their talks, and most importantly the passion behind their ideas worth sharing. 

Check out last week’s blog post on what Unmute means to this incredible lineup, and keep reading to learn more about who they are! 

Andre Williams

Talk Title: I Support Black Mediocrity

Speaker Bio: Andre Williams is a fourth year International Business student at the University of Texas at Austin. Throughout college, Andre has focused on utilizing  his voice and platform to advocate for more equitable and inclusive policies both on campus and within surrounding areas. 

In Spring of 2020, Andre worked as an opinion columnist for The Daily Texan, UT’s official student newspaper. Utilizing this platform, he discussed social issues: racial inequality, education equality, disability advocacy, voting responsibility, and grading policy.

Last academic year, Andre served as Communication Director on a Project for Austin CARES, through UT’s Leadership and Ethics Institute, working on increasing mentorship recruitment for the Austin based organization which focuses on empowering Black youth. 

Andre currently serves as Political Activism Co-Chair of UT’s NAACP, for the 2020-2021 school year, where he works alongside the rest of the executive board to organize and develop events and outreach efforts aimed at promoting increased education and political involvement of Black students at UT and in surrounding communities. 

With a mind that is constantly questioning established institutions and practices, Andre has committed himself to getting into ‘good trouble,’ causing disruption when necessary to dismantle barriers to access and inequities that continue to plague society.

Talk Description: Andre, a senior studying International Business, supports Black mediocrity, and in his talk he tells us why we should too. Why must Black people have to be exceptional in our society for them to be respected or valued? Whether we look at the entertainment industry, criminal justice, education, and more, we see that far too often the ticket into being treated with humanity and decency is whiteness. He asks, "why can't we just be?"

Taylor Ribar

Talk Title: From Unplanned Pregnancy to Women’s Health Advocate

Speaker Bio: Taylor Ribar is a writer, entrepreneur, and women’s health advocate. Her journey began when she was faced with an unplanned pregnancy in her Junior year at UT. She jokes that she went from having absolutely no sex education to talking about pee, poop, and vaginas at the dinner table after meeting her unofficial mother in law Dr. Teresa Irwin, also known as The Vaginacologist. 

Taylor is motivated by her personal experience with her unplanned pregnancy to raising awareness for how women’s health education can empower women to drastically improve their healthcare experience by actually understanding what’s going on with their bodies. 

Taylor now helps doctors utilize social media to begin conversations about women’s health issues that are often stigmatized and unheard. By bringing women’s health issues to the public, she hopes to help women better understand their bodies and put that knowledge into historical and societal context to address unique barriers in women’s healthcare. 

She is currently an undergraduate studying psychology with a pre-health certificate at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Talk Description: As a pregnant 20-year old, Taylor quickly realized that she didn’t know much about her body and cold, uncomfortable doctor’s offices weren’t the places where she was going to learn more. Why can’t we provide greater access to women’s health education for the general public? Taylor, a current senior majoring in psychology, explores challenging the status quo by sharing her journey of utilizing social media platforms to empower and educate women on how to be their own health advocates.

Shana Merlin

Talk Title: Why Should Your Doctor Be An Improviser?

Speaker Bio: “You improvise every day, why not get good at it?” is the slogan for Merlin Works Improv, founded by Shana Merlin in 2003 to provide custom training, interactive presentations, and comedy shows around the country to businesses and organizations using the tools and techniques improvisational theater. Some of Shana’s clients have included included Dell, T-Mobile, Silicon Labs, Transwestern and Deloitte. Winner of “Best Improv Teacher” in Austin from the Austin Improv Collective, some of her most requested programs are on the topics of team building, communication, sales, persuasion, leadership, making meetings matter, and creativity. 

For the past five years, Shana has focused on bringing improv skills to the medical community. Clients like Methodist Medical Center, Christus Health, Lone Star Dental Seminars, Austin Regional Clinic and Texas Medical Liability Trust have brought her and her co-teacher, Dr. Rob Milman, M.D. in for medical teambuilding, medical communication skills, customer service training and more. Shana is an associate at the Center for Health Communication at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School and was a lecturer in the College of Medicine Texas A&M University.

Shana performs in the improv troupes B Iden Payne Award Winning Girls Girls Girls Improvised Musicals, the Austin Critics Table Award winning duo Get Up and directed and performed in the nationally touring show Dusk, a Twilight parody. Shana can also do scripted work and performed in the national touring company of The Intergalactic Nemesis.

Talk Description: We improvise every day without knowing it. We take in the world around us and immediately process a response to it. How can we enhance this skill for better, kinder dialogues between medical professionals and their patients? Shana Merlin, an associate at the Center for Health Communication at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School and lecturer in the College of Medicine at Texas A&M, discusses why your doctor should be an excellent improviser. She highlights the benefits of improvisational training on patient-doctor relationships arguing that improvisational skills are medical skills. 

Lakeya Omogun

Talk Title: (Be)coming Professional

Speaker Bio: Lakeya Omogun is a Nigerian and African-American writer, scholar, and creative. Born in New York and raised in Detroit, her experiences between both cultures and cities equipped her to see the world through a nuanced lens. Since a young girl, she has been deeply committed to shifting static ideas in cultures, society, and institutions.  

Currently, she is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Language and Literacy Studies Program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at The University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation research explores how Nigerian immigrant youth use language, literacy, and digital literacies to racially position themselves as well construct and negotiate their identities while living in the United States. Having experienced tensions with navigating aspects of her racial, ethnic, and professional identities, Lakeya advocates for showing up as our full selves across professional spaces. No shedding. No hiding. She believes that all parts of our identities deserve recognition and honor. 

Lakeya also uses writing to shift static ideas. Her writing sits at the intersection of storytelling and scholarship, which includes creative nonfiction, narrative poetry, and scholarly articles. It has been featured in Zora Mag, Human Parts, and Random House Incorporated (RHI). In addition to researching and writing, Lakeya teaches undergraduate literacy methods courses in UT-Austin’s College of Education. Her teaching prepares undergraduates to attend to sociocultural factors (e.g., identity, race, class, gender, etc.) in their teaching and instruction. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Lakeya taught elementary and middle school in three cities – Newark, Detroit, Newark, and Harlem. She carries the love and memories from her students in all that she does.

Outside of her professional roles, Lakeya loves to visit her favorite people and new places. She enjoys hitting the gym or going for a run. When she is not on the move, she is either trying a new recipe or slowly moving through a TV series. She likes to think that she has mastered anti-binge-watching shows. In fact, she considers it an art.

Talk Description: Are we letting go of our true selves and identities in the name of professionalism? Lakeya, a Ph.D. candidate in the Language and Literacy Studies Program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at The University of Texas at Austin, dives into why we need to reevaluate and redefine our idea of professionalism. She explores the concept of what it means to be professional and the limitations it imposes upon diverse ways of being. She draws on her own research and experiences at various stages of her life to encourage us to redefine professionalism along intersectional identity lines. 

Erin Reilly

Talk Title: Playing with the Future

Speaker Bio: Erin Reilly bridges industry and academia as an innovator, educator and strategist with 20 years of experience inventing new approaches, products, and experiences. She is Professor of Practice and Inaugural Director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship for Moody College of Communication at University of Texas at Austin. Her area of expertise is combining storytelling, engagement and emergent technology, and recently founded Texas Immersive to offer students a specialized program related to this. Erin has been a guest lecturer worldwide at universities and industry conferences. She is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences New Media Peer Group, Past Board President of NAMLE (National Association for Media Literacy Education) and serves on advisory boards, such as IPSOS Media Development, Infinity Festival, Disney Junior Education and PBS.

Talk Description: The ball has managed to persist through time as an effective agent of play, whether it be the rubber balls of pre-classical Mesoamerica or the remote-controlled Sphero of the modern day. As mechanization has slowly proliferated, it too has changed the ways in which we interact with the world around us. Erin, the Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Moody College of Communications, discusses how we can use technology, immersive learning, and storytelling to revolutionize the way we play.

Abhinav Raghunathan

Talk Title: How Machines Learn to Discriminate

Speaker Bio: Abhinav Raghunathan is a graduating Computational Engineering and Mathematics double major at The University of Texas at Austin. His interest lies at the intersection of data science and high-impact fields such as finance or healthcare. He is a contributor to Towards Data Science and Towards Artificial Intelligence, two of the largest publications on Medium for topics in ML/AI, where he aims to make data science more accessible. Long-term, Abhinav is excited to tackle the problem of algorithmic bias across industries and use cases by contributing to cutting-edge bias mitigation technologies. More information about Abhinav can be found here: https://abhiraghunathan.com.

Talk Description: We love machines because they aren't biased. They take input data, perform calculations on it, and give us an output. But what if the data itself is biased? What if they learn to discriminate in ways you never would have imagined? Abhinav, a senior computational engineering major, describes the dangerous and subtle ways in which machine learning can perpetuate and reinforce the very biases we seek to eliminate, and what we can do to solve this problem starting today.

Will Griffin 

Talk Title: Top of Mind Ethics 

Speaker Bio: Will Griffin is the recipient of the IEEE Award for Distinguished Ethical Practices and his Top of Mind Ethics (TOME) framework also won the Communitas Award for Ethics. His past entrepreneurial work has also earned him the prestigious IAB/Brandweek Silver Medal for Innovation and the culturally significant NAACP Image Award. 

Griffin is an entrepreneur and proven thought leader with a track record of bringing culture-shifting content and technology to new platforms. He is currently the Chief Ethics Officer at, a leading artificial intelligence firm, Hypergiant Industries. His previous ventures include launching the first original content slate on the Sony PlayStation Network with Endemol North America. He launched the first original VOD channel, Hip Hop OnDemand, on Comcast Cable systems. Griffin is a long-time board member of the nation’s oldest multicultural ad agency, Uniworld (WPP) and was an in-house strategist at News Corporation (Fox Entertainment Group). 

He was an Associate at McKinsey & Co. in the Entertainment and Media practice (Los Angeles) where we worked on operations and post-merger integration for the world’s largest media companies including Time Warner and Disney. He began his professional career in the Asset-Backed Securities Group at Goldman Sachs in New York. 

Griffin is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Dartmouth College and he completed the Entrepreneurship Curriculum at Harvard Business School.

Connect on twitter @WillGriffin1of1 and LinkedIn.

Talk Description: Think about future technological developments like AI and space travel, or even well known entrepreneurial figures in tech like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. While they might be bringing great advances to society, are they exactly ethical? Will pushes us to introspect on the ethics behind prominent historical developments and as an ethics expert, provides an ethical framework to guide ourselves into the future.

Nancy Giordano

Talk Title: Building a Better Future

Speaker Bio: As a strategist futurist, Nancy is focused on building a safe, inclusive, thriving future. She supports and champions those actively architecting bold solutions, as well as guides and inspires the visionary leaders eager to reshape their organizations and teams. She loves sharing these insights on emerging technologies and the impact they will have on us as humans, innovators and members of society with audiences of all sizes in ways that get everyone deeply motivated by the possibilities.

Nancy has a rich history of advising and learning with some of the top companies in the world, including Nestle, Brinker International, The Coca Cola Company, Sprint and Acumen. More recently, she has helped build the team for an artificial intelligence start-up, produced a conference on the seven most disruptive technologies for enterprise, is board member for a non-profit trade organization focused on the future of retail, and is working with a leading fintech/martech provider to ensure the survival of community banks and credit unions nationwide. She also helping usher in the world of distributed applications and computing by championing emergent cryptographic technologies Holochain + Holo.

A frequent panelist at South by Southwest, global keynote speaker, Singularity University guest lecture, and world’s first TEDx licensee, Nancy is committed to advancing societal structures and new mindsets necessary to effectively harness the significant technology innovations heading our way… and ensure a safe and thriving future for us all.

Talk Description: In a time when many of us feel scared of the future, Nancy Giordano has a different perspective. As a so-called Strategic Futurist, she seeks to show us how the future is something to be excited about. In an age where our youth is so pessimistic about what lies ahead, Nancy provides a boost of optimism to show us that a technological future looks more like the wonderful innovations of Star Trek than the bleak, scary world of the The Terminator.