South Jersey's Indiana Jones to give TED Talk
GLASSBORO – Ken Lacovara is used to speaking to hundreds at a time.
The paleontologist — Rowan University's first-ever dean of the College of Earth and Environment — lectured to halls at Drexel University of more than 300. He once addressed more than 12,000 at a college graduation.
But Tuesday's talk in Vancouver might be the most elite talk he's ever given.
Audience members, including actors, inventors and a well-known billionaire, paid $8,500 a ticket to listen to great ideas tackling humanity's toughest challenges.
Lacovara is among 70 speakers at the weeklong TED — Technology Entertainment Design — conference starting Monday.
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The TED Talk speaker series was created in 1984 to spread ideas related to science, business, global issues and "life hacks." In three decades, the series has hosted more than 1,000 talks from the giant red dot on the TED stage.
"It's everyone who is well known and has something to say," Lacovara told the Courier-Post on Wednesday. "It's a pretty elite group."
Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and Al Gore have spoken at past conferences.
"When I look out into the audience I'll be seeing a lot of people I have known all my life from television," he said.
"I'll see a movie star or a businessperson right in front of me, and that's going to happen 100 times during my talk. I'll have to make sure it doesn't break my concentration."
Lacovara's talk follows Norman Lear, legendary producer of "All in the Family," "Good Times" and "Maude."
The men, plus astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, satellite archaeologist Sarah Parcak and "musical explorers" Silk Road Ensemble, will relate their work to "Deep Memory."
"The theme of the session contextualizes events in broader terms," Lacovara explained.
In other words, he'll talk about dinosaurs, but in terms of how dinos fit into history and human culture, he said.
"That's what TED is all about. I'm not just going to talk about my dinosaur and about why dinosaurs matter," he said.
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Lacovara is a little like South Jersey's Indiana Jones.
He travels the world, unearthing the planet's mysteries, then returns to the region to teach.
In 2014, Indiana Lacovara found "his" dinosaur — Dreadnoughtus, one of the largest known dinosaurs, as big as seven T-Rexs.
He led crews in Argentina in unearthing the 85-foot long, 65-ton titanosaurus that lived 77 million years ago.
The Rowan-based scientist uses 3D technology to model dinosaurs, including remains at Rowan University Fossil Park in Mantua, a site he oversees for the university's newly formed College of Earth and Environment. Currently, Lacovara is working to hire faculty and recruit students.
While Rowan won't get a shout-out in his talk, the Glassboro university has been a venue for tirelessly rehearsing the speech.
Since December, he's memorized the single-spaced five-page lecture — word for word. There's no teleprompter. He'll just have confidence in the material and a clicker to move the PowerPoint slides.
"I'm out there on the red dot for 16 minutes," he said.
He's rehearsed in the Engineering Department's auditorium and in the building's halls for small groups.
In November, TED coordinators contacted Lacovara "out of the blue" in an email he nearly deleted by mistake.
"I had to read it a couple times before I realized it was for me," he laughed. "I was pleasantly surprised."
His lecture was due to TED organizers in December. A month later, he participated in a conference dress rehearsal at TED's Manhattan headquarters, he recounted.
"I feel really lucky," he said. "I landed in a field where I can study the most interesting stuff in the universe ... When I learn something new about the Earth, I just want to tell everyone. I want to grab people off the street and tell them."
Carly Q. Romalino; (856) 486-2476; cromalino@gannettnj.com