This year, we are excited to see several TED alums on the list. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla, was named a “Titan” in a piece written by Richard Branson. (Watch Branson’s TED Talk, “Life at 30,000 feet.”) Sheryl Sandberg, who recently released the book Lean In, also was dubbed a Titan. Daphne Koller, who co-created the website Coursera, was listed as a “Pioneer,” along with her venture partner Andrew Ng. And Michelle Obama made the list of “Icons.”

Below, watch their TED Talks.

We’d also love to give a shout-out to Perry Chen, who was a TED Fellow in 2010. The CEO of Kickstarter, he has intrinsically changed the landscape of funding, and was named a “Pioneer” by TIME.

• In TIME’s end-of-the-year “New Space Discoveries” special, the magazine picked “The 25 Most Influential People in Space” — from telescope innovators to planet hunters. Of those included in the list, we couldn’t help but notice that five had given TED Talks. Below, check out what each had to say on the TED stage.

1. Andrea Ghez on “the hunt for a supermassive black hole”

2. Jill Tarter sounds a “call to join the SETI search”

3. Brian Greene “makes sense of string theory” and says that “maybe this universe isn’t our only universe”

4. Martin Rees asks if “this is our final century”

5. Carolyn Porco says “Saturn could harbor moon life” and takes us there in “This is Saturn”

Read TIME’s full slate of space innovators >>