Montita Sowapark

Brainstormer, Engineer, Foodie, Performer, Public servant, Scientist, Student

Montita Sowapark is currently a freshman studying at Harvard University and a Bezos Scholar of the Bezos Family Foundation. For TED2015, Montita is interning with the TED Fellows Team. While she is woefully unsure of her major, she hopes it will be something at the intersection of biomedical engineering and women and gender studies. Montita has conducted scientific research at The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, and at The Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel. Montita is also very passionate about spoken word poetry, and she competes on Harvard's College Union Poetry Slam Invitational team. In her free time, Montita enjoys building sets for theatrical productions and teaching middle schoolers self-expression through dance. Her secret talents include singing the perodic table of elements and balancing four dinner plates on one arm.

Spoken word poetry, Gender inclusivity, Systems of power, Feminism, 3D tissue and organ printing, Empathy, Storytelling

"The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kind" - Dalai Lama

TED has been hugely influential in my life. My two largest interests, biomedical engineering and spoken word, were actually catalyzed by TED talks. Being here is such an honor, and I am so very excited to meet you all!