Northwestern Engineering faculty members Mark C. Hersam and Alessandro Rotta Loria will present at this year’s TEDxChicago, an independently organized TED event that promotes “ideas worth spreading.”

Organized around the theme of “Lighting the Way,” the event will take place Friday, Sept. 27, at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St. in Chicago. Tickets are on sale now at tedxchicago.com. Northwestern faculty, staff, and students who register through this link will receive a 25 percent  discount off tickets.

An expert in nanotechnology, Hersam will discuss his laboratory’s recent achievements in developing energy-efficient artificial intelligence systems and brain-like computing devices.

Hersam is the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, director of the Materials Research Center, and chair of the department of materials science and engineering. His research interests include nanomaterials, 3D printing, nanoelectronics, scanning probe microscopy, renewable energy, and quantum information science.

An expert on sustainable construction, Rotta Loria will discuss his discovery of underground climate change and how this phenomenon is causing cities to sink but also represents an untapped resource to power them with clean thermal energy.

Rotta Loria is the Louis Berger Junior Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at McCormick, where he directs the Subsurface Opportunities and Innovations Laboratory (SOIL). Centered on the subsurface, his work is dedicated to fostering the renewable energy transition, decarbonizing the construction sector, innovating infrastructure, and conserving the built and natural environments through underground solutions.

Other speakers at this year’s TEDxChicago include community food systems developer Erika Allen, architect Carol Ross Barney, healthcare architect Abbie Clary, art engineer Vanessa Harris, accelerator physicist Lia Merminga, supercomputer scientist Michael Papka, and artist Scheherazade Tillet.