The Beautiful Thinkers Project

What if the best opportunities come from just showing up? Brie Dillman is a junior at IU Indianapolis who went to a startup founders meeting without a startup—just curiosity and 65 dual credits that wouldn't all count toward her degree. Within months, the Kelley School student built ElevateEd, won her first pitch competition, and discovered that confidence isn't knowing all the answers—i...

What if getting injured was the best thing that ever happened to your career? Julia Michels is a Grammy-winning music supervisor whose work on A Star Is Born , Pitch Perfect , and The Devil Wears Prada has generated over $2 billion in ticket sales—but she went to IU for sports science and drove to LA in a Toyota Tercel to dance in music videos. From teaching aerobics to running into elevators for...

What if the biggest risk isn't failure—it's staying down when life knocks you flat? Marshall Goldsmith didn't become the world's #1 executive coach by accident. He sat in the back of Paul Hersey's classroom for months serving coffee for free, studied under Peter Drucker, and learned that credibility must be earned twice: first by doing good work, and second by making sure...

What if the craving for community is what roots you in the most unlikely places? Chris Noel left Indiana for Alaska's remote Denali Borough—fewer than 2,000 residents stewarding the land around North America's highest peak, where half a million visitors attempt the mountain each year. From environmental management to fighting fires to becoming the fifth mayor of a place where neighbors a...

What if failure isn't the opposite of success but the fuel for it? Mike Weasner's initials were written in the stars before he could spell them—and his path to those stars included medical disqualifications, career pivots, and his unheeded warnings about Challenger. From keeping private astronomy logs for 35 years to building one of the world's largest amateur astronomy websites, Mi...

What if our ability to worry about social media and porn means we're doing better than we think? Dr Bryant Paul, whose research has been cited by the Supreme Court, studies the fundamental human craving that connects every ancestor on our family tree - and reveals how our caveman brains simply aren't built to process today's mediated world. Yet even as algorithms exploit ancient des...

On the sixth episode of Season VIII Polarity - IU Edition, welcomes Jonathan Racek, Professor and Program Director of Comprehensive Design at the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. In this episode, Dr. Jonathan Racek discusses the importance of play within all stages of life, and how his experiences with playmaking and design thinking around the world have shaped his perspective. Throu...

On the fifth episode of Season VIII "Polarity" - IU Edition, welcomes Jean Camp, Professor and Director of Center for Security and Privacy at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. In this episode, Dr. Camp discusses the dynamic interplay between technology and human behavior, highlighting the importance of designing systems that prioritize trust and usability. Thro...

Our fourth episode of Season VIII “Polarity”: IU Edition, welcomes Shahzeen Attari, professor at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. In this episode, Dr. Attari shares her insights into how human behavior influences environmental policy and how storytelling can be a powerful tool in shifting public perception. Through this conversation, they explore h...

Our third episode of Season VIII “Polarity”: IU Edition, welcomes Lee Feinstein, founding dean at the Hamilton Lugar School of International and Global Studies, President of McLarty Associates, and researcher for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. In this episode, Feinstein shares insights on the importance of establishing a global and international studies school at IU Blooming...

Our second episode of Season VIII “Polarity”: IU Edition, welcomes Dana Marsh, director at Historical Performance Institute and professor at the IU Jacobs School of Music. In his work, he prioritizes balancing tradition with fresh perspectives, and how we can preserve old music to honor the history while embracing present times. In this episode, Marsh discusses his extensive work in historical mus...

Our first episode of Season VIII "Polarity": IU Edition, welcomes Jamie Theophilos, doctoral student and associate instructor at the Media School at Indiana University Bloomington. Theophilos discusses their work on digital justice, conflict resolution, and the impact of educational relationships. In this debut episode, they'll explore how polarity shapes our online interactions and...

In this episode, Carolyn Hadlock, Founder and Host sat down with Johannes Torpe to discuss his circuitous creative path starting with being born in a commune, and his evolution as a multidisciplinary creative and CEO of his eponymous studio. 

In this episode, Carolyn Hadlock, founder of TBTP talks with Nevada about how the landscape of Norway informed her culinary evolution. She speaks to the importance of seasons, cooking in the outdoors and respecting the food traditions of Norway while finding modern takes on them. 

In this episode, Carolyn Hadlock, Founder and Host sat down with Paul Bennett to discuss his long and fruitful career with IDEO, his creative partnership with Tim Brown, how to land in a room deeply and what's next on his Not To-Do List. (P.S. Stay past the end for bonus content about his tattoo.)

In this episode, Carolyn Hadlock, founder of TBTP talks with Marcus Engman about the future of retail, IKEA's inaugural Artist in Residency Program with Annie Leibovitz, designing change and growing up IKEA as the second Engman to be Head of Design at IKEA. 

On the season VI finale of “Saturated,” Carolyn Hadlock and IU students Mina Denny and Caterina DeSantis bring back Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at IU, Dr. Edward Hirt. If you recall, we kicked off “Saturated” with Dr. Hirt.  Instead of focusing on the ways in which saturation depletes us as we did in the first episode, here we tap into how we can recharge and ameliorate our menta...

The sixth episode of Season VI "Saturated" : IU Edition welcomes Jason Q. Ng, Author of Blocked On Weibo where he writes about Chinese internet censorship and currently works as a Data Scientist at Duolingo. In this episode Jason discusses how he has used data throughout his career to democratize information in order to help people learn about everything from incarceration rates in his w...

The fifth episode of Season VI “Saturated”: IU Edition welcomes Denise Roberson, Chief Purpose Officer at TBWA, Professor and Speaker. Denise is the first Chief Purpose Officer TBWA has had. Denise shares her passion for purpose and her work to embed it inside organizations. While the work of purpose dates back to the late 1880’s, it would be over a century before brands would embrace it as a prof...

The fourth episode of Season VI “Saturated”: IU Edition welcomes Aakash Ranison, Author, Nomad and Climate Optimist. Aakash shares his personal journey of how traveling (via bicycle) through India opened his eyes to the need for climate change. His optimistic approach calls us to shift our behaviors—starting with daily choices. Discover how he adeptly navigates the challenges of embracing a minima...

Don McPherson invented eyewear for color blindness when he was working to develop eyewear for surgeons to use as protection during laser surgery. He would discover this when he lent his glasses to a friend who was color blind during a round of Ultimate Frisbee in Santa Cruz. In 2005 EnChroma was born. In this episode Don talks about the overlap of art + science, the importance of getting a multidi...

Connor Hitchcock founded Homefield Apparel with his wife Christa in 2018. Today they sell college themed apparel to over 150 universities nationwide. Homefield prides itself on crafting a brand based on thoughtful design, culture and values. In this episode Connor shares the benefits of starting the business in Indiana, focusing on the fans and why staying scrappy is so important.

Our first episode of Season VI "Saturated": IU Edition welcomes Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at IU Bloomington. Dr.  Hirt discusses  his work  at the HirtLab where he and students study social identity, mental depletion,  replenishment and motivation. In this debut episode, he’ll walk us through how saturation impacts our daily lives through the lens of these topics.

Liz Paquette is the Senior Director of Brand for Drizly, a leading beverage alcohol e-commerce shop. Drizly was the first brand to carve out a space in direct-to-consumer alcohol sales, and it continues to revolutionize the act of buying someone a drink via mobile phone with an innovative brand strategy. She talked about the opportunity Drizly found during the pandemic, the rise of ready-to-drink...

Ryan Lott is a musician, composer, and founding member of music collective Son Lux. Ryan and his Son Lux collaborators developed the score for the 2022 film “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” much of which was written in a home Ryan rented out in Indianapolis. He talked about reconciling his classical training with a musical rebellious streak, the relationship between music and movement, and why...