To Share Their Groundbreaking Work with the TED Community

04 Welcome 08 About the TED Fellows Program 12 Gallery 30 Thank you 32 TED2017 Fellows 76 TED2017 Senior Fellows

Contents 03 welcome elcome to TED2017 in Vancouver – and to the exciting, innovative world of the TED Fellows. We are thrilled for you to meet our brand-new class of 15 Fellows, who Whave traveled from Chile, Uganda, Ecuador, China, Singapore, Kenya, India and the United States – including the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation – to share their groundbreaking work with the TED community.

This group of remarkable individuals includes an Ecuadorian neurobiologist working to uncover the neural circuits that connect the gut and the brain, an Afrofuturist filmmaker from Kenya who tells modern stories about Africa, a Chinese entrepreneur and venture capitalist tackling global food system challenges, an Indian investigative journalist exploring democracy around the world, and more. We invite you to meet each Fellow in the following pages and to introduce yourself to all of them during the course of the conference.

04 Welcome The TED Fellows form a global network of 415 visionaries from 91 countries who collaborate across disciplines to create positive change around the world

Welcome 07 How it works The results ABOUT Every year, through a rigorous application TED Fellows report increased clarity the TED Fellows program process, TED selects a group of rising of mission and improved self-confidence. stars to be TED Fellows. We choose Access to the TED community enables Fellows based on remarkable achievement, Fellows to connect with global leaders an innovative approach to solving the who become business partners, world’s tough problems and strength of collaborators, funders and mentors. character. Fellows are invited to attend With the program’s support, TED Fellows a TED conference, where they meet, have received millions of dollars in funding, exchange ideas and connect with the been awarded prestigious prizes, started larger TED community. They also give speaking professionally and been published their own TED talk – an unprecedented widely. Fellows join a vibrant community, opportunity to disseminate their sparking spontaneous cross-disciplinary, groundbreaking ideas to the world. globe-spanning collaborations that have resulted in numerous new companies, art The program projects and nonprofits. Most significantly, Once selected, Fellows receive the program has helped the Fellows to transformational support. Fellows expand and intensify the impact of their participate in a professional coaching remarkable work, often preserving some and mentoring program. They work with of the most important places on the planet a public relations expert dedicated to and enhancing conditions for people sharing their latest projects with the world. around the world. TED Fellows operate a private online network, resulting in collective problem How you can get involved solving, cross-disciplinary collaborations The TED Fellows program is made and resource sharing. Fellows have possible by our supporters – extraordinary ongoing access to all of the TED media individuals and families who are passionate platforms, as well as to the TED Fellows about the world-changing work the TED program staff. They organize regional Fellows do every day. Our supporters play meetups and retreats, building on the an active role at the TED conference and initial spark developed at TED conferences, Fellows Retreats, mentor Fellows in their and attend official Fellows Retreats, which projects and careers and help the program gather all existing Fellows for an explosion grow in scope and ambition. You can of conversation and ideas. All TED Fellows contribute by donating to the program, have the opportunity to apply for a Senior sponsoring the program with corporate Fellowship and grow their leadership underwriting, mentoring a Fellow, telling in the Fellows community. an excellent candidate about the TED Fellows program or by contributing in-kind goods and services.

Contact the TED Fellows program at [email protected]

To learn more about the TED Fellows program, visit ted.com/fellows

08 Welcome Thank you TED Fellows staff The Fellows program is extremely grateful for the support of the Bezos Tom Rielly, Director Family, the Harnisch Foundation and the [email protected] Dhanam Foundation. We would also like to thank Jonathan D Lewis and Mark C Shoham Arad, Deputy Director Zitelli, Toby D Lewis, Melony and Adam [email protected] Lewis, the Arcus Foundation, Bohemian Foundation, XQ: The Super School Project, Samantha Kelly, Program Manager Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin, [email protected] the Motwani Jadeja Family Foundation, Crystal English Sacca and Chris Sacca, Patrick D’Arcy, Editorial Manager Kathleen Donohue and David Sze, [email protected] Chandra Jessee, Steve Jurvetson, Gerry Ohrstrom, Matt Cutts, Sharon Lyle and Lily Whitsit, Community Manager Mark Mutschink, Jody and Tom Darden, [email protected] Ann and Roger McNamee, as well as other supporters for their sustained Diana Al-Mahmood, Coordinator involvement in the Fellows program. [email protected]

Welcome 11 A still from Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu’s Pumzi, an award-winning sci-fi short about a dystopian future where water is so scarce that Earth is uninhabitable – and a young woman whose secret could save humankind.

12 Gallery A giant clam in the wild. These can grow A collection of custom, personal timekeepers to weigh more than 660 pounds and have outside LACMA — part of E Roon Kang’s an average lifespan of 100 years. Singaporean collaborative project In Search of Personalized marine biologist Mei Lin Neo studies these Time, which aimed to recalibrate time based endangered species in an effort to protect on personal perceptions. (Photo: E Roon Kang them from going extinct. (Photo: Mei Lin Neo) and Taeyoon Choi)

Gallery 15 East African soul/jazz vocalist and songwriter Somi performs at TED2016. (Photo: Ryan Lash/TED)

Paleobiologist Lauren Sallan studies changes in fish diversity after mass extinction. This 340-million-year-old sea was dominated by shell-crushing relatives of the shark. (Illustration: Bob Nicholls)

16 Gallery Astrobiologist Armando Azua-Bustos studies the Atacama Desert, pictured here. The desert’s extreme aridity, high salinity and high UV radiation levels make it the closest analog to Mars on Earth. (Photo: Clair Popkin)

Gallery 19 In his lab, biohacker Andrew Pelling has grown “living” ears made from apples and human cells, proving that it’s possible to create replacement body parts from plant-derived materials. (Photo: Bonnie Findlay)

20 Gallery Rwandan journalists interview a police spokesperson in the country’s capital, Kigali, on April 3, 2012. In his 2016 book Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship, Anjan Sundaram chronicles journalists who bravely confront the repressive regime of President Paul Kagame. (Photo: Graham Holliday) Gallery 23 Orchestral student musicians performing as part Marine biologist Kristen Marhaver studies of Play On, Philly! a social-development program Caribbean reef corals (pictured here) to founded by Stanford Thompson that engages understand how they reproduce, as well underserved Philadelphia youth in ensemble as how we might help young corals build the music-making. (Photo: Steven Krull) reefs of the future. (Photo: Kristen Marhaver)

24 Gallery Glaciologist Michele Koppes travels Computational biologist Laura Boykin works with local to some of the coldest places on Earth farmers and scientists in Africa to study the effects (such as Alaska, pictured here) to measure of Bemisia tabaci whiteflies (pictured here) and the how ice and landscapes are changing in viruses they transmit, which devastate East Africa’s response to warming climate and oceans, staple cassava crops. (Photo: Monica Kehoe) as well as how these changes affect natural hazards and water resources. (Photo: Michele Koppes) Gallery 27 The eye of an elephant spotted crossing the Boteti River in Botswana. This photograph was taken during the Okavango Wilderness Project, a 2,500-kilometer expedition led by conservation biologist Steve Boyes from the source of the Okavango River in the Angolan highlands to its end in the Kalahari Desert. (Photo: James Kydd)

28 Gallery Bezos Family

Dhanam Jonathan D Lewis & Mark C Foundation Zitelli, Toby D Lewis, Melony A BIG & Adam Lewis

THANK Motwani Jadeja Crystal English Sacca Lynda Weinman Family Foundation & Chris Sacca & Bruce Heavin

Matt Cutts Steve Jurvetson Robert Pasin

Jody & Tom Sharon Lyle & Kathleen Donohue YOU Darden Mark Mutschink & David Sze Chandra Jessee Gerry Ohrstrom Ann & Roger McNamee

Colleen Keegan Renee Freedman Alanna Shaikh

Special thanks to: Harvey Armstrong, Gina Barnett, the Bezos Scholars, Patricia Cox, Dania de la Vega, Mark Dwight, Karen Eng, Mike Femia, Matt Fisher, Nicole Hanson, Bret Hartman, Erik Hersman, Leonie Hoerster, Elaine Hui, Giuseppe Iasevoli, Jedidah Isler, Molly Kaufman, Ben Kellogg, Ryan Lash, David Lavin, Sarah Nicholson, Mark O’Donnell, Jonathon O’Leary, Emeka Okafor, Sheila Orfano, Sarah Parcak, Aparna Rao, Jenny Raymond, Juliana Rotich, Safwat Saleem, Sarah Sandman, Roger Schmid, Alanna Shaikh, Valerie Sloane, Greg Sommers, Rodrigo Vasquez, 30 Thanks Helen Walters, Jennifer Wolfe, Megan Wyatt, Paul Yandura and Joe Zimlich. TED2017 FELLOWS

32 Fellows 2017 Karim Abouelnaga Education entrepreneuR USA

At the age of 18, New York City native to have a series of nonprofits and Karim Abouelnaga noticed that his mentors who changed my life trajectory,” peers in the public school system Karim says. “I wanted to pay it forward were suffering from “summer learning and create the opportunities I had for loss,” in which students forget up other kids growing up just like me. to 3.5 months’ worth of information Demography should not dictate destiny.” they had learned the year before. To Since launching in 2011, PMP has worked combat this “summer slide,” which with 2,000 students and is on track to disproportionately affects children living work with more than 2,000 students in low-income neighborhoods, Karim this year alone. founded Practice Makes Perfect, a public benefit corporation that runs summer Learn more: www.practicemakesperfect.org enrichment programs. PMP matches www.karimabouelnaga.com elementary and middle-school students Contact: [email protected] from low-income communities with older Twitter: @KarimAbouelnaga @PMPUSA peer mentors who provide leadership development, academic instruction and Key interests: Public Education, Summer career training. “I was fortunate enough Learning Loss, Youth Development

Fellows 2017 35 Karim Abouelnaga’s organization Practice Makes Perfect runs summer enrichment programs for elementary and middle-school students in low-income communities. Here, a PMP student practices reading with a summer Teaching Fellow. (Photo: PMP)

Fellows 2017 37 Christopher Ategeka Healthcare entrepreneur UGANDA + USA

Entrepreneur Christopher Ategeka working in underserved areas works to ensure everyone on the African of their countries. “All lives are equal,” continent has access to timely, quality Christopher says. “We must make healthcare. He founded Health Access sure that all humans in every corner Corps (formerly Rides for Lives) to of the world have access to quality combat the dire shortage of healthcare healthcare.” personnel across the African continent. In an effort to curb the “brain drain” of Learn more: www.healthaccesscorps.org talented healthcare professionals from www.christopherategeka.com rural African communities, Health Access Contact: [email protected] Corps incentivizes doctors to stay and Twitter: @chrisategeka @hacorps work within their local communities and invests in training and placement Key interests: Health Equity, African of new health personnel committed to Development, Global Health

38 Fellows 2017 Armando Azua–Bustos Astrobiologist Chile

Armando Azua-Bustos was born and demonstrating that the in a small nitrate-mining town, now environment here supports abandoned, in Chile’s Atacama Desert. microbacterial life. He is also currently As an environmental microbiologist and working to send a small greenhouse astrobiologist, Armando studies how to Mars in collaboration with NASA. microbial life has adapted to survive in the Atacama, and considers how this Learn more: www.astrobiology-in-chile.com knowledge affects our search for life Contact: [email protected] on Mars. Armando is known for having pinpointed the driest place on Earth – Key interests: Astrobiology, María Elena South in the Atacama – Life on Mars, Atacama Desert

Photo: Clair Popkin Fellows 2017 41 Diego Bohorquez Gut–brain neurobiologist Ecuador + U S A

Neurobiologist Diego Bohórquez and appetite. He’s currently studies the neural pathways linking the investigating whether these physical brain and the gut. In 2015, Diego and gut-brain connections could be an his team at Duke University discovered avenue to understanding gastrointestinal a direct, cell-to-cell connection complications in autism. between the nervous system and enteroendocrine cells dispersed Learn more: www.gutbrains.com throughout the gut’s internal lining. Contact: [email protected] Diego and his research team use Twitter: @gutsybrains viruses like rabies to trace the neural circuits that connect the gut and brain, Key interests: Neuroscience, with a particular interest in how this Nutrition and Diet, Gut-brain process affects behaviors like mood Connection

42 Fellows 2017 Rebecca Brachman Neuroscientist + entrepreneur USA

Neuroscientist Rebecca Brachman startup launched from Columbia studies how the brain, immune system University working to develop the first and stress interact. She discovered prophylactic drugs to prevent mental the first drugs to prevent psychiatric illness and increase resilience to stress, disorders such as post-traumatic stress similar to how a vaccine would prevent disorder (PTSD) and depression, creating bacterial infection. the emerging field of preventative psychiatry. As a fellow at the National Learn more: www.rebecca.brachman.org Institutes of Health, she discovered www.paravaxbio.com that immune cells carry a memory of Contact: [email protected] psychological stress, and that white Twitter: @rab2194 blood cells can act as antidepressants and resilience-enhancers. She is the Key interests: Neuroscience, co-founder of Paravax, a biotech Mental Health, Stress Resilience

Fellows 2017 45 Neuroscientist Rebecca Brachman uses fluorescent tags to label different cells and brain structures in order to study their role in stress resilience and depression. Pictured here is a subtype of neurons (red) in the hippocampus region. Each blue circle is the nucleus of a single cell. (Image: Christina LaGamma)

Fellows 2017 47 Kayla Briët Filmmaker + composer Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation + USA Twenty-year-old Kayla Briët explores films and creates music in styles ranging themes of identity across mediums, from cinematic to alternative pop including film, art and music. Kayla’s to electronic. She performs live as a award-winning short documentary, one-woman band with her keyboard, Smoke That Travels, immerses viewers guitar, loop pedal and Chinese guzheng in her native Prairie Band Potawatomi zither. Currently she is creating Nation heritage and explores fears that immersive experiences in the 360°/ her culture may someday be forgotten. virtual reality space. This film has won awards at festivals internationally, and was recently Learn more: www.kaylabriet.com screened at MoMA and the Smithsonian Contact: [email protected] Institution in Washington, DC. As a Twitter: @kaylabriet multi-instrumentalist and self-taught composer, Kayla also scores her own Key interests: Film, Music, Cultural Fusion

48 Fellows 2017 Filmmaker and composer Kayla Briët performs live with her keyboard, guitar, loop pedal and Chinese guzheng zither. (Photo: Jess X Snow)

Fellows 2017 51 Reid Davenport Documentary filmmaker USA

After having been denied the right to “I want to encourage young people with study abroad in Italy because he uses a disabilities to share their own narratives in wheelchair, filmmaker Reid Davenport a way that represents the physicality of started work on Wheelchair Diaries: One their perspectives.” Step Up, a film about accessibility in Europe that’s been screened internationally Learn more: www.reiddavenport.com and gained prominent media attention. www.throughmylens.us Now he’s co-founded an organization, Contact: [email protected] Through My Lens, to teach students with Twitter: @reiddavenport disabilities how to tell their own stories @throughmylensus through video. “With the democratization of video, there’s an opportunity to smash Key interests: Documentary Film, the social taboo of disability,” Reid says. Disability Rights

52 Fellows 2017 Damon Davis InterdisciplInary artist usa

When riots broke out in Ferguson, Ferguson protests from the perspective Missouri, after a policeman shot and killed of those who lived it. Damon is also a 18-year-old Michael Brown, St Louis native musician, and is releasing a three-part Damon Davis was there on the ground album that draws on Afrofuturism and protesting, organizing and creating social black Southern mysticism. He’s working practice art for the movement to use. in collaboration with chamber orchestra In his All Hands on Deck project, Damon Alarm Will Sound on an electronic opera wheatpasted large-format photographs inspired by the life and times of jazz of the hands of his fellow protestors legend Sun Ra. around the city, recasting the gesture of “hands up” into one of resistance. He also Learn more: www.heartacheandpaint.com documented the protests on camera with Contact: [email protected] fellow activist and artist Sabaah Jordan. Twitter: @heartachenpaint The resulting film,Whose Streets?, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival Key interests: Documentary Film, in January 2017 and tells the story of the Race in America Photo: Nate Burrell

Fellows 2017 55 Matilda Ho Food entrepreneur + investor CHINA

In 2015, Matilda Ho founded Yimishiji, them sharpen their business plan and China’s first online farmers market, which accelerate development. Bits x Bites brings farm-fresh, organic produce to recently selected its first cohort of startups, Chinese families while building food which are working on food technology education and transparency into the whole innovations from protein alternatives supply chain. Matilda also recently founded to food waste to food safety. Bits x Bites, China’s first food-centric accelerator and venture capital fund that Learn more: www.yimishiji.com invests in startups tackling global food Contact: [email protected] system challenges. Every program cycle, Twitter: @matildajyho Bits x Bites selects five to eight startups with a transformative food solution and Key interests: Food Sustainability, works with them over 15 weeks to help Entrepreneurship, China

56 Fellows 2017 Entrepreneur Matilda Ho’s Yimishiji is China’s first online farmers market that focuses on transparency and sustainability. It provides Shanghai families with chemical-free, farm-fresh produce from local growers, including Pujiang Lan blueberry farm, pictured here. Fellows 2017 59 Wanuri Kahiu Filmmaker kenya

Filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu uses science production on Ger, a feature- fiction and fantasy genres to tell modern length documentary about UNHCR African stories. Her first feature film, Goodwill Ambassador Ger Duany, From a Whisper, is based on real events and an experimental documentary surrounding the 1998 twin bombings of about Nairobi-based indie-pop US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In group Just A Band. 2010, she released her short filmPumzi , one of the very first sci-fi films to come Learn more: www.wanurikahiu.com out of East Africa, which premiered Contact: [email protected] at Sundance and went on to win best Twitter: @wanuri short film at the Cannes Independent Film Festival. She is currently in post- Key interests: African Voices, Film Photo: Giovanna Badilla

Fellows 2017 61 Mei lin neo Marine biologist Singapore

Mei Lin Neo studies the endangered living in reefs and contributing calcium giant clam of the Indo-Pacific and carbonate in the form of heavy shells promotes ways to protect this rare for reef-building. She hopes to combine marine species from going extinct. conservation research and science She has led giant clam restocking and communication to boost giant clam conservation efforts in Singapore, with conservation efforts locally and beyond. the goal of artificially breeding and raising healthy young clams to release back Learn more: meilin5giantclam.wordpress.com onto the reefs. Mei Lin is best known Contact: [email protected] for detailing the important roles giant Twitter: @MeilinNeo clams play in coral-reef ecosystems, which include providing food and shelter Key interests: Giant Clams, for various marine algae and animals Marine Biology, Conservation

62 Fellows 2017 Lauren Sallan Paleobiologist usa

Lauren Sallan applies big data analytics ray-finned fishes and sharks. Today, to the 500-million-year fossil record Lauren continues to search for other and 34,000 living species of fishes to lost events and disruptions that have determine how environment, ecology and shaped our marine ecosystems, in an extinction drive long-term evolution. In effort to make better predictions 2015, Lauren reported on one of Earth’s about the future survival of fishes. largest mass extinctions – an event that happened 359 million years ago, when Learn more: www.laurensallan.com changing sea levels and climate fluxes Contact: [email protected] eliminated up to 96% of the world’s Twitter: @laurensallan vertebrate species. This extinction cleared the way for modern biodiversity, including Key interests: Fossil Fishes, our five-fingered ancestors (tetrapods), Macroevolution, Mass Extinction

S Fellows 2017 65 Paleobiologist Lauren Sallan studies the fossil record of fishes like this one: a 300-million-year-old freshwater Bandringa shark, whose fossil record provided the earliest evidence of long-distance migration in animals. (Illustration: John Megahan)

Fellows 2017 67 Photo: Oslo Freedom Forum

and beyond. . His writing has appeared . His writing has appeared The New York Times, The Guardian, the Congo Washington Post Stringer: A Reporter’s Journey in in Learn more: www.anjansundaram.com Contact: [email protected] Twitter: @anjansun Regimes, Key interests: Authoritarian Conflict Zones, Journalism dictatorship and the fall of free speech speech and the fall of free dictatorship the author of in Rwanda. He is also

Fellows 2017 Investigative jouRnalist Investigative + explores the rise of explores the rise of Bad News: Last Journalists

in a Dictatorship, recent book, to feel what it is like there.” His most there.” His most to feel what it is like places and events so people are able people are able places and events so says. “I bring back accounts of these of these says. “I bring back accounts dangerous or seem too remote,” Anjan too remote,” Anjan dangerous or seem because they are too painful, too painful, too because they are too other people don’t want to approach to approach other people don’t want to India. “I immerse myself in places that myself in places that to India. “I immerse the Democratic Republic of the Congo of the Congo the Democratic Republic discrimination around the world – from the world – from discrimination around dictatorship, forgotten conflicts and conflicts and dictatorship, forgotten Anjan Sundaram reports on 21st-century reports on 21st-century Anjan Sundaram Author India

Anjan SundaramAnjan 68 Stanford Thompson Trumpeter + music educator USA

Stanford Thompson is passionate through all stages of life,” says Stanford. about using music for social action. Trained as a professional trumpeter, He’s the founder and CEO of Play On, Stanford has performed as a soloist with Philly!, a music-education and social- major American orchestras, performed development program that engages at the country’s top jazz festivals and underserved Philadelphia youth in recorded extensively. ensemble classical music-making. He’s also co-led the development of El Sistema Learn more: www.stanfordthompson.com USA, which supports the growing www.playonphilly.org movement for music education of more www.elsistemausa.org than 30,000 youth in need throughout Contact: [email protected] the United States. “The pursuit of musical Twitter: @stanfordleon excellence is the most effective tool to help at-risk youth successfully transition Key interests: Classical Music, Education

Fellows 2017 71 A young student learns to play the flute with Stanford Thompson's organization Play On, Philly! (Photo: David DeBalko)

Fellows 2017 73 Elizabeth Wayne Biomedical engineer + STEM advocate USA

Elizabeth Wayne is developing accessible to girls and women as the cutting-edge nanotechnology to treat co-host of PhDivas, a podcast about cancer. For her PhD, Liz researched women in higher education. how we might one day be able to block cancer metastasis by using therapeutic Learn more: www.lizcwayne.com nanoparticle drugs attached to immune www.soundcloud.com/phdivas cells to kill circulating cancer cells. Now, as a postdoctoral fellow at the University Contact: [email protected] of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she is Twitter: @LizCelesteWayne developing nanotechnology that can boost @PhDivaspodcast immune cells’ ability to deliver genetic material directly to tumor sites. Elizabeth Key interests: STEM Access, also works to make STEM more Cancer Nanotechnology

74 Fellows 2017 TED2017 SENIOR FELLOWS

76 Senior Fellows Senior Fellows embody the How it works About the Senior spirit of the program, mentor Each year, 10 Fellows are selected Fellows program new Fellows and continue to to become Senior Fellows based on share their remarkable work their sustained engagement with the with the TED community. program and on promising ongoing work that can benefit from the support of the wider TED community. Senior Fellows attend four additional TED conferences, often delivering another talk. They come to TED HQ in New York where they share their work, build community and learn about new opportunities. Over the course of their two-year fellowship, they work on individual projects and often launch new collaborations with other Fellows.

Get to know the TED2017 Senior Fellows in the following pages.

Senior Fellows 79 Steve Boyes Conservation biologist South Africa

Conservation biologist who explores wildbirdtrust.com and studies remote wildernesses in Africa, intotheokavango.org including the endangered Okavango Delta, [email protected] to protect and restore them. r Whatr do you need? What are you currently working on? gr Collaborators We are proposing the largest national gr Funding park in sub-Saharan Africa, soon to be gr Media Exposure approved by the Angolan government. gr Mentorship To do this, we’ve compiled reports gr Partnerships detailing the delta’s value and presented the number of new and endangered species found within. In March 2017, we produced a film and two photographic books to share with Angola’s cabinet. In May 2017 I am launching the 2017 Cubango River Megatransect expedition, which will survey more than 1,500 Uldus Bakhtiozina kilometers of the Cubango River. Photographer + visual artist RUSSIA

Russian art and fashion photographer uldus.com whose elaborately staged, surreal works [email protected] inspired by Russian literature, folklore, femininity and magic often subvert What do you need? Russian cultural stereotypes. gr Collaborators c Funding What are you currently working on? c Media Exposure I just have finished a photo project, gr Mentorship dedicated to the theme of escapism, c Partnerships which will be exhibited in May 2017 in Russia. I never stop photographing. Art and fashion campaigns are always in my life.

80 Senior Fellows 2017 Fellows 81 Russian artist Uldus Bakhtiozina uses analog methods and intricate original costumes to create whimsical photographs that often comment on Russian folklore and contemporary life. Here she reinterprets The Firebird (Zhar-ptitsa), a Russian version of the legend of the phoenix.

Senior Fellows 83 Kitra Cahana Documentary filmmaker + photographer USA

Canadian documentary filmmaker and kitracahana.com photographer who covers far-ranging [email protected] topics – from nomadic youth identities in the United States to her father’s struggle What do you need? with locked-in syndrome. gr Collaborators c Funding What are you currently working on? c Media Exposure I am finishing up two short documentaries gr Mentorship from the Canadian Arctic about Inuit life. gr Partnerships I am also continuing to work on a long- term video and photo art project about the body, spirituality and disability.

Laura Boykin Computational biologist AUSTRALIA + USA

Biologist using genomics and lauraboykinresearch.com supercomputing to combat hunger [email protected] and increase food security in sub- Saharan Africa. Laura helps smallholder What do you need? farmers control whiteflies and the gr Collaborators viruses they transmit, which cause gr Funding devastation of cassava crops, gr Media Exposure a staple food in many countries. gr Mentorship gr Partnerships What are you currently working on? I’m taking an activist stance on racial and gender diversity in STEM, prisoner engagement and East African politics. The only way our scientific breakthroughs will see the light of day is to get out there and make it happen, which includes working to increase diversity on all levels.

84 Senior Fellows David Hertz Chef + social entrepreneur BRAZIL

Chef and founder of Gastromotiva, gastromotiva.org a civic organization that’s driving a global refettoriogastromotiva.org social gastronomy movement using the [email protected] transformative power of food to improve the lives of underprivileged people. What do you need? c Collaborators What are you currently working on? gr Funding We're aiming to influence the food gr Media Exposure and hospitality industry, governments c Mentorship and bilateral agencies to create more gr Partnerships opportunities and well being for all, as well as to restore human dignity in Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. We are also creating a new social business arm to become more sustainable and independent. Also I’m producing a documentary and television series that will offer more insight into our work. We aspire to work Negin Farsad towards the SDGs to fight hunger, Comedian + filmmaker poverty and malnutrition. USA + IRAN

Iranian-American comedian and director university curricula. I'd also like of The Muslims Are Coming! – a film to raise funds to donate copies that follows Muslim-American comedians to members of Congress. as they tour Middle America – and 3rd Street Blackout, a romantic comedy set neginfarsad.com in the blackout after Hurricane Sandy howtomakewhitepeoplelaugh.com in New York City. themuslimsarecoming.com [email protected] What are you currently working on? I’m working on a sequence of funny What do you need? media ads and short-form videos to c Collaborators encourage institutional and individual gr Funding boycott of Trump properties. As part gr Media Exposure of my ongoing work, I host the weekly c Mentorship political comedy podcast Fake the gr Partnerships Nation, and am promoting my book, How to Make White People Laugh. I would love for it to be included in

86 Senior Fellows Photographer Kitra Cahana captures the Northern Lights in Nunavut, Canada. (Photo: Ed Ou)

Senior Fellows 89 Janet Iwasa Molecular animator USA

Biologist and molecular animator at onemicron.com the University of Utah and founder of scienceofhiv.org 1 μm Illustration. Janet uses 3D animation [email protected] software to create molecular and cellular visualizations that are used by researchers What do you need? to illustrate, explore and communicate gr Collaborators their hypotheses. c Funding gr Media Exposure What are you currently working on? gr Mentorship I’m completing a short animated film that c Partnerships depicts how human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is able to infect our cells. The entire life cycle of HIV will be shown as accurately as possible and in molecular detail. I’m working with a large number of the top HIV researchers in the country, incorporating their contributions and Jedidah Isler ideas into the final film. Astrophysicist + intersectional STEM activist USA

Award-winning astrophysicist and jedidahislerphd.com advocate for inclusive, intersectional vanguardstem.com STEM education. In 2014, Jedidah became [email protected] the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in astrophysics from Yale. What do you need? Jedidah founded VanguardSTEM, an gr Collaborators online platform committed to creating gr Funding conversations between emerging and gr Media Exposure established women of color in STEM. gr Mentorship gr Partnerships What are you currently working on? I am currently growing VanguardSTEM, an online platform and web series curated by and centering on women of color in STEM, and the SeRCH Foundation, the STEM+social justice not-for-profit that houses it.

90 Senior Fellows Astrophysicist Jedidah Isler studies blazars: supermassive hyperactive black holes that produce particle streams, like the ones pictured here, that move nearly at the speed of light. The particle streams that blazars emit, however, are pointed directly towards the Earth. (Photo: NASA)

Senior Fellows 93 E Roon Kang Designer + artist SOUTH KOREA + USA

Graphic designer and artist operating eroonkang.com Math Practice, a design and research math-practice.org studio in New York City that explores [email protected] computational techniques and studies their implications in graphic design. What do you need? E Roon, whose work In Search of gr Collaborators Personalized Time was acquired by gr Funding LACMA, is an assistant professor gr Media Exposure at Parsons School of Design. gr Mentorship gr Partnerships What are you currently working on? How can we educate a generation of future designers to engage more with the social, technological and economic realities of our time? I would like to identify the challenges and to work on solutions in an effort to preserve and advance the quality of design education in the school Somi Kakoma and in the city. Vocalist + songwriter + culturist Rwanda + Uganda + USA

Chart-topping jazz vocalist celebrating somimusic.com modern African narratives with songwriting [email protected] that is at once whimsical, political and elegant. What do you need? c Collaborators What are you currently working on? gr Funding My new album, Petite Afrique, was gr Media Exposure released on Sony Music in March 2017. c Mentorship It’s a song cycle about the cultural gr Partnerships erasure of the large West African immigrant community in Harlem in the face of gentrification, xenophobia and Islamophobia. I am now developing a modern jazz theater piece about the late South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba. I hope to premiere it in New York City in late 2018.

94 Senior Fellows Molecular animator Janet Iwasa creates detailed animations of complex molecular processes to help scientists and students better understand them. This image was taken from an animation that depicts how the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technique works: the Cas9 protein (green) recognizes and cuts a segment of DNA (blue) that specifically matches with its guide RNA (yellow). (Image: Janet Iwasa)

Senior Fellows 97 Jimmy Lin Geneticist USA

Geneticist pioneering early cancer- natera.com detection techniques and founder raregenomics.org of the Rare Genomics Institute, which [email protected] helps patients crowdsource funding and genomes to accelerate research What do you need? of their rare genetic diseases. c Collaborators c Funding What are you currently working on? gr Media Exposure I am working on a blood test that will gr Mentorship detect cancers years or even decades c Partnerships ahead of current technologies, which will significantly increase the likelihood of successful treatment.

Michele Koppes Glaciologist CANADA + USA

Glaciologist, geomorphologist and science blogs.ubc.ca/koppes communicator investigating the way climateandcryospherelab.com glaciers and landscapes are responding [email protected] to rapid climate change. What do you need? What are you currently working on? gr Collaborators As global warming causes glaciers and gr Funding snowpacks to recede, the loss of ice leads gr Media Exposure to increasing risk of floods, landslides, c Mentorship tsunamis and coastal erosion as well as c Partnerships rising temperatures and sediment in rivers and oceans worldwide – with dire effects on aquatic habitat and water resources. I’m trying to capture these impacts and find ways to better communicate these risks to the global public, as well as promote feminist perspectives of how climate change is altering landscapes.

98 Senior Fellows Amanda Nguyen policymaker usa

Founder and president of Rise, a national risenow.us nonprofit working with state legislatures [email protected] to implement a Sexual Assault Survivor Bill of Rights. Her bill was recently passed What do you need? unanimously in Congress, making it only gr Collaborators the 21st bill to be passed unanimously gr Funding in United States history. gr Media Exposure gr Mentorship What are you currently working on? gr Partnerships After working to pass the Sexual Assault Survivor Bill of Rights at the federal level, I am scaling up the civil rights movement for rape survivors to states across America. In order to do so, I want to share the call to action with the world, starting with the TED audience.

Kristen Marhaver Coral reef biologist USA + CuraCao

Curaçao-based marine biologist marhaverlab.com developing methods to increase [email protected] the survivorship and growth of baby reef corals. What do you need? rg Collaborators What are you currently working on? rg Funding I’m turning my lab’s recent discoveries rg Media Exposure into coral restoration tools. We’ve learned c Mentorship how to raise endangered coral babies in c Partnerships the lab – now we’re working to improve their survival rates on the reef. We’ve also discovered bacteria that help juvenile corals attach to surfaces. Now we’re developing these “coral probiotics” for use in large-scale reef reseeding programs.

100 Senior Fellows 2017 Fellows 101 Sarah Parcak Satellite archaeologist USA

Archaeologist who uses high-resolution globalxplorer.org and NASA satellite imagery to discover [email protected] new archaeological sites and “long-lost” cities in the pyramid fields, Nile Valley and What do you need? Delta of Egypt – most of which remain gr Collaborators undetected and unexcavated. gr Funding gr Media Exposure What are you currently working on? gr Mentorship As the 2016 TED Prize winner, I used the gr Partnerships support of the Prize and the resources of the greater TED community to uncover and protect the world’s hidden cultural heritage. Launched in January 2017, GlobalXplorer is an online platform that utilizes the power of the crowd to analyze the incredible wealth of satellite images currently available to archaeologists, ultimately creating a global network Prumsodun Ok of citizen explorers. Interdisciplinary artist CAMBODIA

Choreographer dedicated to the ancient lens of possibility, while introducing a global art of Cambodian classical dance, which audience to a rich yet vulnerable legacy. was almost annihilated by the Khmer Rouge. Prumsodun founded Cambodia’s prumsodun.com first gay dance company, which merges [email protected] classical Cambodian and experimental dance to elevate the quality of life and What do you need? expression for LGBT people everywhere. gr Collaborators gr Funding What are you currently working on? gr Media Exposure My new project PRUM x POP sets gr Mentorship Khmer classical dance to contemporary gr Partnerships pop music, forging a surprising harmony between tradition and modernity. The dances will be uploaded onto Facebook for easy access and sharing. PRUM x POP offers Khmer a chance to see their own artistic and cultural heritage through a new

102 Senior Fellows WILL POTTER Investigative Journalist USA

Will Potter is an award-winning author willpotter.com and civil liberties advocate who exposes greenisthenewred.com government repression and challenges [email protected] attempts to label protest as “terrorism.” What do you need? What are you currently working on? c Collaborators Right now I am preparing to file gr Funding hundreds of Freedom of Information Act c Media Exposure requests investigating FBI surveillance c Mentorship of journalists. I am also wrapping up a gr Partnerships project where I used drones to document factory farm pollution. Most importantly, I’m exposing the rise of authoritarianism in the United States, and what a Trump presidency means for free speech, journalism and protest. Andrew Pelling Scientist + biohacker canada

Canadian scientist using novel, open- fail multidisciplinary research projects source materials for next-generation developed and led by the general public. medical innovations. He is the co-founder of Spiderwort, a company developing pellinglab.net innovative biomaterials for medical spiderwort.bio research, and founder of pHacktory, phacktory.com a community-driven research lab. [email protected]

What are you currently working on? What do you need? At my curiosity-driven research lab rg Collaborators Pelling Lab, we’re employing low-cost, rg Funding open-source materials and methods c Media Exposure to explore speculative living technologies rg Mentorship of the future. At Spiderwort, we are rg Partnerships developing next-generation biomaterials for the regeneration and repair of damaged or diseased tissues. And at my distributed street lab pHacktory, we’re curating audacious and likely-to-

104 Senior Fellows Safwat Saleem FINE ARTIST + GRAPHIC DESIGNER + SATIRIST PAKISTAN + USA

Pakistani-American artist and graphic safwatsaleem.com designer who uses satire to make art [email protected] about adversity. What do you need? What are you currently working on? gr Collaborators I’m working on an educational card game gr Funding about refugees. The objective of the game gr Media Exposure is to try to escape an unnamed war-torn c Mentorship territory and establish life in another c Partnerships country. I’m also working on a satirical picture book about the current state of the world, spanning more than 200 years.

Joshua Roman Cellist USA

Internationally recognized cellist, composer joshuaroman.com and curator who frequently collaborates with [email protected] genre-spanning musicians and creates original compositions for new audiences. What do you need? c Collaborators What are you currently working on? gr Funding I’m rolling out my next project, Tornado gr Media Exposure – a full-length quintet for cello and string gr Mentorship quartet with the JACK Quartet. I am gr Partnerships also working on several interdisciplinary collaborations and finding ways to connect great classical music with a larger audience.

106 Senior Fellows Parmesh Shahani Writer + LGBTQ activist INDIA

Indian writer and founder of the Godrej parmesh.net India Culture Lab – an experimental ideas indiaculturelab.org space that works on innovation and [email protected] diversity in corporate India. What do you need? What are you currently working on? gr Collaborators At the Godrej India Culture Lab, I’m c Funding working on new kinds of collaborations gr Media Exposure for advancing conversations about the c Mentorship changing face of contemporary India. gr Partnerships On a broader level, I’m partnering with campaigns like UN Free and Equal to create a new kind of manifesto that can be adopted by companies who support LGBTQ rights.

Sarah Sandman Artist + designer usa

Artist and designer creating experiences sarahsandman.com that amplify messages of social and makingitpublic.com environmental justice – such as Brick x brickxbrick.org Brick, a public art performance inspired [email protected] by the 2016 US election that builds human “walls” against the language of misogyny. What do you need? gr Collaborators What are you currently working on? gr Funding I am exploring how experiential design gr Media Exposure can amplify the messages of justice and gr Mentorship environmental causes under a Trump gr Partnerships presidency and beyond.

108 Senior Fellows Participants in Brick x Brick, a public art performance co-organized by designer Sarah Sandman, stand in Washington, DC, to protest misogynistic language used in US politics today. (Photo: Jeffrey Brandsted) Senior Fellows 111 Shivani Siroya Mobile finance entrepreneur USA + INDIA

Indian-American founder and CEO tala.co of Tala, a mobile technology and data [email protected] science company subverting the traditional financial services system by putting power What do you need? into the hands of consumers via their gr Collaborators mobile phones. c Funding gr Media Exposure What are you currently working on? gr Mentorship I’m working on transforming financial gr Partnerships systems in emerging markets by creating a new way to assess people’s creditworthiness, using mobile data from smartphones as an alternative dataset to create credit scores. I am also providing access to fairer, more flexible credit to individuals in these markets. The next step is to offer non-credit products such as insurance, payments and Bahia Shehab financial education. Artist + creative director + Islamic art historian Egypt + Lebanon Lebanese-Egyptian artist, designer [email protected] and Islamic art historian studying ancient Arabic script and visual culture to solve What do you need? modern-day issues. c Collaborators c Funding What are you currently working on? c Media Exposure As I did during the 2011 revolution in gr Mentorship Egypt, I continue to paint messages on walls c Partnerships in different cities, this time in celebration of the work of contemporary Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, whose poetry resonates well with the predicament of today’s Arab youth. So far, I have taken the project to Vancouver, New York, Madison, Marrakesh, Tokyo, Istanbul, Cephalonia, Beirut and Amsterdam, in hopes of reaching Arab communities around the world.

112 Senior Fellows Trevor Timm Free speech + privacy advocate USA

Co-founder and executive director freedom.press of Freedom of the Press Foundation, [email protected] a nonprofit that supports and defends journalism dedicated to transparency What do you need? and accountability. c Collaborators gr Funding What are you currently working on? c Media Exposure I am expanding Freedom of the Press c Mentorship Foundation so we can act as a bulwark gr Partnerships against privacy and free speech violations in the age of Trump. The Trump administration is set to be the most hostile White House to press freedom in 40 years, and it’s vital for news outlets to hold him accountable even as they face increased threats from spying. Christopher Soghoian Privacy researcher + activist USA

American privacy researcher and dubfire.net activist who investigates and exposes [email protected] the high-tech surveillance technologies that governments use to spy on their What do you need? own citizens. gr Collaborators c Funding What are you currently working on? c Media Exposure I left my position as the principal gr Mentorship technologist at the ACLU in January, gr Partnerships and am spending the next year as a TechCongress Innovation Fellow, working for Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR). I’m learning an entirely new way of getting things done – quietly, behind the scenes.

114 Senior Fellows Edited by Patrick D’Arcy and Karen Eng Designed by involveddesign.com in London Printed by MET Fine Printers A carbon neutral company Vancouver, BC METprinters.com Special thanks to Scott Gray at MET Fine Printers

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