The dream machine: Rebecca Alford at TEDxCMU

Student Speaker Competition Winner: At just 14 years old, Rebecca Alford turned her own challenges due to visual impairment into a lifetime passion for computer science and medicine. By working to develop a new approach to understanding genetic disease in her high school laboratory and further at the Bonneau Laboratory at NYU, her efforts have erupted into new cutting-edge technologies that help to interpret the human genome towards developing better approaches to diagnosis and treatment. Rebecca is currently a freshman at Carnegie Mellon intending to major in Computational Biology with a focus in Machine Learning.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)