James Robinson

Author of More Than We Expected and TED2026 speaker whose talk recounts the five-year medical journey and death of his son, Nadav. Robinson previously spent nearly two decades at The New York Times using data to understand audiences, and has taught at NYU and Columbia Journalism School.

Pediatric Care Must Make Room for a Child’s Life

James G. Robinson recounts his son Nadav’s five-year life with heterotaxy and a single-ventricle heart, arguing that medical care had to serve more than his circulation. Surgeries and emergency interventions kept Nadav alive, but Robinson and his wife, Tali, insisted on making room for travel, family life and ordinary childhood experiences even amid grave risk. A rare genetic explanation for Nadav’s condition did not make him, in Robinson’s account, a life that should have been avoided.

TEDJul 13, 20266 min read