Professor Holtzman tells her story below. (Watch her TEDx talk here.)

In addition to being a full professor of Sociology at Ball State University, I am also the co-creator and co-director of a sexual assault protection program called Elemental. This program has received significant attention in recent years, including invitations to attend events at the White House, to speak at a number of conferences dealing with sexual assault prevention, and, most recently, to do a TEDx talk.

As is the case with TED talks in general, my goal was to transcend conventional thinking and re-imagine a solution to a pressing social problem.

To that end, I talked about and demonstrated the importance of flexibility in response options when dealing with acquaintance assaults.  I was honored and thrilled to be invited to highlight Elemental in a TEDx talk.

I’ve been co-directing Elemental for 5 years and during that time my colleague and I have demonstrated that the program significantly reduces the likelihood of an assault among our participants relative to control group students who haven’t taken Elemental. You can find a list of our published research on the program at our website.

Importantly, very few existing programs can show long-term reductions in assault risk—most programs demonstrate only short-term impacts on attitudes and almost no direct link to lower assault risk. The fact that Elemental consistently reduces the likelihood of assault for participants is both exciting and especially noteworthy.

The program is grounded in science—sociology and psychology especially—and it demonstrates the degree to which applied work within the social sciences can positively impact social issues.