Directory

Step inside the TED Fellows community

Each year, a new group of TED Fellows from around the world, and from every discipline, are welcomed into this international community of remarkable thinkers and doers.

TED Fellows
2024 Cohort

TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Photojournalist, visual artist

Daro Sulakauri

Photojournalist Daro Sulakauri chronicles social and political issues in the Caucasus. By focusing on issues that are considered taboo, such as early marriages and the impact of Russian occupation, she defends against the erasure of Georgian culture, history and borders.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Equity bioengineer

Erika Moore

Biomedical engineer Erika Moore Taylor researches how ancestry and sociocultural data affect disease development. Unlike many researchers, she accounts for diverse populations when building regenerative tissue models to create more equitable disease models

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Visual artist, poverty researcher

Huiyi Lin

Huiyi Lin is an economic policy researcher and one-half of Chow and Lin, an artist duo using statistical, mathematical and computational techniques to address food insecurity and poverty. Chow and Lin combine research, design and photography to raise awareness about global inequality in visually arresting ways.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Medical mythbuster

Joel Bervell

Joel Bervell is a medical student educating people about health care disparities and biases through viral social media content. By sharing stories and studies with his audience of more than one million about the neglect of marginalized groups, he advocates for change in the health care system. 

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Ocean navigator

Lehua Kamalu

Lehua Kamalu is a captain and navigator of traditional Hawaiian ocean-voyaging canoes. She preserves and teaches these ancient sustainable navigation practices by integrating them into digital storytelling and daily life for future generations.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Health systems entrepreneur

Mohamed Aburawi

Mohamed Aburawi is a surgeon and founder of Speetar, a digital health platform reshaping health care in conflict zones across the Middle East and Africa, especially his native Libya. Through this work, Speetar is helping to dismantle barriers to quality care and advocate for health care as a fundamental human right.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Mechanical engineer

Norah Magero

Norah Magero is a mechanical engineer and creator of VacciBox, a cold chain solution saving lives in rural communities. She is working to build an Africa that manufactures and produces its own climate-health care technology.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Chemosensory researcher, nurse

Paule Joseph

Taste and smell researcher Paule Joseph explores how conditions such as COVID-19, obesity, neurodegenerative disorders and substance abuse affect the chemical senses. Her lab combines clinical research, behavioral neuroscience, genomics and molecular biology, offering insights on how taste and smell affect our daily lives.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

AI scientist, entrepreneur

Ramin Hasani

Ramin Hasani is cofounder and CEO of Liquid AI, where he helped invent liquid neural networks: a new AI technology inspired by living brains and physics. These revolutionary networks are more flexible and efficient than current AI solutions, shaping the future of machine learning and artificial intelligence research.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Wildland firefighter

Royal Ramey

Royal Ramey is the cofounder of the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program (FFRP), a nonprofit providing career opportunities to formerly incarcerated firefighters in California. A 12-year wildland firefighter veteran, Ramey draws on his own lived experience, rethinking job training for the formerly incarcerated and addressing the challenges they face re-entering the workforce.

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TED Fellows 2024 Cohort

Composer, artistic director

Sahba Aminikia

Iranian-born composer, pianist and educator Sahba Aminikia is the founder and artistic director of Flying Carpet Children Festival, an annual mobile arts festival and artist residency for refugee children escaping conflict zones.

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2024
Cohort

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Fellows Directory

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TED Fellows 2012, 2010 Cohort

Founder / Co-Director

Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz
• TED Senior Fellow • JSK Fellow at Stanford University • Next City's "40 Under 40" Urban Leader • Co-Founder of open gov / hyperlocal media tool Citymatter • Parter at design studio In-House International • Partner at publisher Gopher Projects • Palo Alto, CA / Austin, TX
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TED Fellows 2013 Cohort

Louisa Preston
Louisa is an astrobiologist, geologist, and author at the Natural History Museum in London. As a UK Space Agency Research Fellow her job is to study some of the Earth’s most extreme environments and the life (both human and microbe) that lives or once lived in them. She uses these sites as examples of the kind of places and types of life-forms we think might have once existed on Mars. She is also on the science team for the next European Space Agency Mars mission, the ExoMars 2020 rover ‘Rosalind Franklin’, which will drill into the crust of Mars searching for signatures of buried ancient life. Her other passion in life is writing, having written and contributed to four popular science books, with her own ‘Goldilocks and the Water Bears – The Search for Life in the Universe’ published by Bloomsbury in 2016.
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TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Founder & Chief Innovation Officer

Lucas Welch
Lucas is the President & Founder of Soliya – a nonprofit organization using new media technologies to develop a global network of young adults and empowering them to bridge the divide between Western & predominantly Muslim societies. The primary way in which Soliya achieves this goal is through its “Connect Program” – a unique cross-cultural education program that enables university students in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe & the United States to engage in intensive facilitated dialogue and collaborative media production, all in a rich online environment as part of an accredited course. To date, over 80 universities in over 25 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe & the United States have participated in Soliya’s Connect Program. Prior to his work with Soliya, Lucas worked as a producer for ABC News with Peter Jennings. He also taught “New Media” at Birzeit University in the West Bank, conducted research at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and worked as the associate producer on “The Shape of the Future” – a documentary series produced in Arabic, Hebrew, English & French about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Welch has spoken at the World Economic Forum, the UN Alliance of Civilizations Forum, the US-Islamic World Forum, and the International Youth Forum. He was recently named a TED Fellow and a “Global Expert” by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Forum. He has appeared on CNN International, Public Radio International and Al Jazeera amongst others. Lucas graduated with a B.A. from Brown University and was named one of the “world’s best emerging social entrepreneurs” by Echoing Green in 2004.
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TED Fellows 2018 Cohort

Pediatrician, social entrepreneur

Lucy Marcil
Lucy Marcil, MD, MPH is a pediatrician helping families tackle financial problems to decrease stress and improve child health. Insufficient and unpredictable income, debt, high cost of living, and lack of job opportunities and childcare keep families from building wealth to create a better future for their kids. Lucy and fellow pediatrician Michael Hole, MD, MBA developed StreetCred to help families file taxes and get the Earned Income Tax Credit, the US’s largest anti-poverty program, in the doctor’s waiting room. Now, StreetCred is piloting providing families with a bundle of services to create financial stability. Lucy sees patients at Boston Medical Center; her patients provide insights into solutions for the challenges they face. Lucy's interest in innovation for health and social change has also led her to HIV and maternal-child health systems work in Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, and Bangladesh.
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TED Fellows 2012 Cohort

Body architect

Lucy McRae
Lucy McRae is a science fiction artist, filmmaker, inventor and body architect. Her work speculates on the future of human existence by exploring the limits of the body, beauty, biotechnology and the self. McRae works across installation, film, photography, artificial intelligence and edible technology. She is regarded as a thought leader who is exploring the cultural and emotional impacts science and cutting edge technology have on redesigning the body. Lucy uses art as a mechanism to signal and provoke our ideologies and ethics about who we are and where we are headed. McRae has exhibited at museums, film festivals, institutes such as MIT, Ars Electronica and NASA and science forums across the world. Selected major artworks have been exhibited at Science Museum London, Centre Pompidou and the Venice Biennale. She is a visiting professor at SCI_Arc in Los Angeles; and is recognised as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. McRae encourages scientific conversation and has spoken at TED, Royal Albert Hall, Cannes Lion and Tribeca Film Festival. She is regarded as a pioneer who blurs the boundaries across art, architecture, design and technology with a healthy disregard for labels that limit interdisciplinary practice.
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TED Fellows 2011 Cohort

Computer Scientist

Luke Hutchison
I am a TED Fellow and computer scientist from New Zealand, with a PhD in computer science and computational biology from MIT / Harvard Medical School. I speak Chinese, Korean and French. I have traveled several times to China and North Korea to study human rights, human trafficking and freedom of information issues. I spend a lot of time thinking about P vs. NP, the Goldbach Conjecture, and how 3 billion base pairs of DNA in your genome turn into 100 trillion cells in your body.
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TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

M. Yasmina McCarty
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TED Fellows 2016 Cohort

Madeline Sayet
Madeline Sayet is a theater director + playwright who highlights indigenous perspectives through original theater productions – from Shakespeare reinterpretations to absurdist comedy and explores the complexities of race, culture, and media. In summer 2015, she premiered a critically acclaimed production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute," embedding indigenous ideologies into the classic opera. Madeline is currently pursuing a PHD at The Shakespeare Institute, developing Ty Defoe's new play "The Fire Bird Tattoo, creating a new production of Monteverdi's "Poppea," and continuing to build the new Shakespeare Ensemble at Amerinda Inc.
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TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Madhusudan Mysore
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TED Fellows 2016, 2020 Cohort

Politician

Majala Mlagui
Hon. Majala Mlagui (Ms) is a vibrant and dynamic founding trustee and Executive Director of Taita Taveta Wildlife Response Trust. She currently spearheads the public benefit organization dedicated to addressing Human Wildlife Conflict in Taita Taveta County, fostering co-existence and resilient livelihoods for local communities. With a remarkable track record, Majala Mlagui served as the second elected female deputy governor of the County Government of Taita Taveta from 2017 to 2022, demonstrating her strong competency in leadership, organisational development, women empowerment, and natural resource management. She is actively engaged at the grassroots level, ensuring equitable benefits from local resources for communities to prosper. Before her political career, Majala Mlagui founded and led a social impact company, Thamani Group, within the Extractive Industry in Kenya. Her visionary leadership empowered rural artisanal miners in East Africa, enabling them to create sustainable livelihoods through responsible mining, ethical sourcing, and access to fair-trade markets. Moreover, her company provided professional development resources to miners and facilitated their navigation of complex regulatory and legal systems. Recognized as a global leader, Majala Mlagui has been selected as an alumna of prestigious programs such as the 2014 Emerging Leaders in Africa Mining by the Minerals and Energy for Development Alliance (MEfDA, Australia), the Acumen Fund 2013 East Africa Regional Fellowship, the inaugural Vital Voices VV Engage Women Political Leadership Fellowship in 2018, and is a distinguished Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Senior Fellow. Majala Mlagui holds an undergraduate degree, a BEng in Software Engineering from the University of Sheffield, England. She is also a certified PRINCE 2 Project Manager. With a passion for gemstones, she has obtained the Exploring Gemstones Certificate from Holts Academy, London (UK) and is an Accredited Jewellery Professional (AJP) from the Gemmological Institute of America (GIA). Additionally, she is certified by the Wangari Maathai Institute at the University of Nairobi for Environmental Impact Assessments and Environmental Audits. Currently, Hon. Mlagui is pursuing her Master's Degree in Public Policy and Management at the Strathmore University Business School in Nairobi. With her vibrant energy, dynamic leadership, entrepreneurial drive, and undeniable competencies, Majala Mlagui is driving impactful change in the sustainable development space, making a significant difference in the lives of communities.
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TED Fellows 2009 Cohort

Carnatic Vocalist

Manasi Prasad
Manasi is a Carnatic classical vocalist who combines over two decades of rigorous training with a modern outlook. In addition to performing vocal concerts at some of the most prestigious venues of classical music in India, she has also toured extensively in the US, South America, Africa, South East Asia and the Middle East. She has recently been awarded the Bismillah Khan Award by the Government of India for excellence in music. Manasi is also a trained Indian classical dancer, and uses her dual abilities of singing and dancing to present features and demonstrations. She writes and speaks extensively on various art-related subjects and also hosts a TV show based on music and poetry. Manasi holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, where she was awarded the Aditya Birla Scholarship. She is also an engineering graduate. She is currently the head of an ambitious initiative to set up India's first experiential (interactive) music museum in Bangalore.
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TED Fellows 2010, 2011 Cohort

Physicist, inventor

Manu Prakash
Manu Prakash is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University where he runs a curiosity driven research group in the field of Physical Biology - with goals to elucidate physical design principles in biology at organismic, cellular and molecular scales. A significant effort is spent in designing and building precision tools to probe and perturb biological machines. This approach brings together experimental and theoretical techniques from soft-condensed matter physics, theory of computation and unconventional fabrication to open problems in biology. He is also an inventor at heart and is currently focusing on technological solutions to problems in global health. Jokingly - he was once heard saying "We work on 19th century problems with 21st century tools".
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TED Fellows 2017 Cohort

Writer, performer

Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. He is also the winner of the 2011 Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, and an inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. In pursuit of affirmations of black life in the public realm, he co-founded the Life is Living Festival for Youth Speaks, and created the installation “Black Joy in the Hour of Chaos” for Creative Time. Joseph’s opera libretto, We Shall Not Be Moved, was named one of 2017’s “Best Classical Music Performances” by The New York Times. His evening length work, /peh-LO-tah/, successfully toured across North America for three years, including at BAM’s Harvey Theater as a part of the 2017 Next Wave Festival. His latest piece, “The Just and the Blind” investigates the crisis of over-sentencing in the prison industrial complex, and will premiere at Carnegie Hall in March 2019. Formerly the Chief of Program and Pedagogy at YBCA in San Francisco, Bamuthi currently serves as the Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at The Kennedy Center.
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TED Fellows 2012 Cohort

Founder & Principal

Marc Fornes
MARC FORNES is a registered “Architecte DPLG” mixed with a fine connoisseur in computer science. Hidden under his label THEVERYMANY™ – www.theverymany.com – he is one of the leading figure in the development of computational protocols applied to the field of design and fabrication. He defines his research and practice aganda as a quest for ”Explicit and Encoded”, “Precise Indetermination”, “Progressive Geometry” seeking “Unconventional Futures”. In 2004 he graduated with a Master of Architecture and Urbanism from the Design Research Lab of the Architectural Association in London after having previously studied in France and Sweden (KTH). Marc’s professional work experience in La Reunion, France, UK and the US includes SOM, Ross Lovegrove and ZAHA HADID Architects, where he was the project architect, from competition to tender documentation, for an experimental Mediatheque in Pau. During his three years on this project he directed the material research and geometrical development for what would have been the largest self-supported carbon fibre shell to date. Marc – together with Francois Roche (R&Sie(n)) – started “(n)Certainties” – a graduate studio recurently hosted in Fall at Columbia University (NYC) with visiting ones at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles) and at Die Angewandte (Vienna) as its Cross Over studio. He since taught at University of Michigan and at Harvard/GSD. In parallel of academia – Marc is also teaching for McNeel numerous scripting workshops (Rhinoscript/Python) across the globe. Under THEVERYMANY™ – Marc has designed and built a extensive body of large scale prototypical installations. He has been invited across the globe, lecturing at the MoMA (NYC), showing work at the GUGGENHEIM (NYC) and is part of the permanent collection of the CENTRE POMPIDOU (Paris) and the FRAC Centre in Orleans. In 2007 he designed and launched – www.scriptedbypurpose.net – the first exhibition exclusively focusing on scripted processes within design – and curated in 2008 the European section for the Architecture Biennale in Beijing. Updates: Marc has just been awarded an artist residence at the ALEXANDER CALDER Atelier and is currently building a large indoor pavilion for the ART BASEL MIAMI 2011.
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TED Fellows 2014 Cohort

Marcela Uliano-Silva
Bio - TED Global Fellow 2014 A Brazilian biologist and PhD student sequencing the genome of an invasive species, the Golden mussel, to better understand its genetics and evolutionary traits to find ways to avoid it from endangering the Amazon River basin. Has great interest in science communication. She is writing a book about the history and importance of science for the general public and has partially funded her PhD project through crowdfunding (Catarse.me/genoma). CV at http://goo.gl/ih6CDn I would say I like life so much that I'm extremely anxious about learning more and living life at its fullest. So I try to do zillion things at the same time! I Can't get enough of knowledge and experiences. Please come talk to me at TED. Let's share extraordinary experiences!
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Fellows Talks

We’ve organized Fellows talks into curated playlists to make it easier to find content you’re interested in.

TED Fellows impact at a glance

Change that gets noticed

200M

200M people impacted by Fellows work annually

451M

451M TED Talk views

2,234

2,234 articles published by/about Fellows per year

1,303

1,303 speaking engagements each year

234

234 businesses launched

The groundbreaking work of a TED Fellow does not stay in the shadows. Each year we study the impact Fellows have on their respective fields, as measured by tangible forms of recognition. Here are some highlights from the past few years.

Our purpose

What makes a TED Fellow?

TED Fellows are some of the brightest, most ambitious thinkers, future-shapers and culture-shakers from nearly every discipline and corner of the world.

Whether it’s discovering new galaxies, leading social movements or making waves in environmental conservation, with the support of TED, Fellows are dedicated to making the world a better place through their innovative work. In 2024 the program will shift to a nomination-based application process.

Qualifications

We look for the proximate emerging leaders working on-the-ground on world-changing ideas -- the doers, makers, inventors, technologists, filmmakers and photographers, musicians and artists, educators, scientists, entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and human rights activists. Here is what we look for in a TED Fellow:

1

Emerging leaders. We focus our efforts on individuals who are in the earlier phases of their career, those who have a track record of excellence but have not received a numerous other fellowships and accolades. We search for those who are not already on the global stage.

2

Originality and authenticity. We look for proximate leaders with a unique approach to solving humanity’s greatest challenges. We look for the people working on-the-ground on world-changing ideas, putting ideas into action.

3

Kind, collaborative character. We look for individuals who have an early track record of great work in their field. We look for individuals from all disciplines, who have collaborative, kind personalities. Many Fellows claim that the community of other Fellows is the most valuable aspect of the fellowship. We try to nurture this collaborative spirit in the community.

4

Poised to grow. Since this is not a granting fellowship, we look for individuals who would best be able to use the TED community and this opportunity as a launching pad. The TED Fellowship is best for candidates who are prepared to grow with TED’s forms of support: amplification, network-building, communication training, professional development coaching and mentoring.