Over thousands of archived and broadcast interviews, StoryCorps founder Dave Isay -- winner of the 2015 TED Prize -- has created an unprecedented document of the dreams and fears that touch us all.

Natalie MacMaster is a star of Cape Breton fiddling, a Canadian tradition with Scottish roots. Her energetic style and virtuoso talent has brought her star billing on the international folk circuit.

Siegfried Woldhek knows faces -- he's drawn more than 1,100 of them. Using sophisticated image analysis and his own skills as an artist, he's come up with a fascinating discovery about Leonardo Da Vinci.

William Noel is a curator who believes museums should make their collections free and available on the Internet.

History is a curious thing, and Niall Ferguson investigates not only what happened but why. (Hint: Politics and money explain a lot.)

Anand Giridharadas writes about people and cultures caught amid the great forces of our time.

David Christian teaches an ambitious world history course that tells the tale of the entire universe -- from the Big Bang 13 billion years ago to present day.

Latif Nasser is the director of research at Radiolab, where he has reported on such disparate topics as culture-bound illnesses, snowflake photography, sinking islands and 16th-century automata.

Brewster Kahle is an inventor, philanthropist and digital librarian. His Internet Archive offers 85 billion pieces of deep Web geology -- a fascinating look at the formation of the Internet over the years, and a challenge to those who would keep knowledge buried.

Jennifer 8. Lee reports on culture and city life.

Camille A. Brown leads her dance company through excavations of ancestral stories, both timeless and traditional, that connect history with contemporary culture.

Caroline Phillips' rich, soprano voice conjures up the far-and-wide cultures of the world, especially the sound and language of the Basque Country.

In telling stories of technologies and the individuals who created them, George Dyson takes a clear-eyed view of our scientific past -- while illuminating what lies ahead.

Armed with an 18th-century map, a GPS and reams of data, Eric Sanderson has re-plotted the Manhattan of 1609, just in time for New York's quadricentennial.

Jared Diamond investigates why cultures prosper or decline -- and what we can learn by taking a broad look across many kinds of societies.

Surely not the only science career based on a museum tour epiphany, Paul Sereno's is almost certainly the most triumphant. He's dug up dinosaurs on five continents -- and discovered the world's largest crocodile, the (extinct) 40-foot Sarchosuchus.

Doris Kearns Goodwin writes insightful books on the US Presidency (JFK, LBJ, FDR and Lincoln, so far), telling each president's personal story against the backdrop of history.

A leader in the emerging field of graphic recording, Sam Hester creates visual stories. Her work draws upon deep listening skills, a unique graphic style, a passion for community-building … and a lot of markers.

Marc Pachter has spent his career curating and creating intimate portraits of the lives of others.

Science historian Sonia Shah explores the surprisingly fascinating story behind an ancient scourge: malaria.

Sean Gourley, trained as a physicist, has turned his scientific mind to analyzing data about a messier topic: modern war and conflict. He is a TED Fellow.

Kary Mullis won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a way to copy a strand of DNA. (His technique, called PCR, jump-started the 1990s' biorevolution.) He's known for his wide-ranging interests -- and strong opinions.

Gregory Heyworth uses spectral imaging technology to uncover lost classics that could rewrite history.

As founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos defined online shopping and rewrote the rules of commerce, ushering in a new era in business. Time magazine named him Man of the Year in 1999.

Cédric Villani tackles perplexing problems in mathematical physics, analysis and geometry with rigor, wit and a signature personal style.

In David Hoffman's long film career, he's made documentaries on everything from Amelia Earhardt to B.B. King, from double-dutch jump-roping to F-15 fighter pilots. Lately he's been fascinated with the early space program and our mania for all things Sputnik.

Genevieve von Petzinger studies the geometric signs found in early European Ice Age rock art sites.

Rob Dunbar looks deeply at ancient corals and sediments to study how the climate and the oceans have shifted over the past 50 to 12,000 years -- and how the Antarctic ecosystem is changing right now.

Elizabeth Lev's experience studying and teaching art has led her to believe that when we encounter something beautiful, we are made vulnerable and opened to the truth.

In his quest to understand the largest dinosaurs to have walked the Earth, Kenneth Lacovara blends exploration with the latest imaging and modeling techniques from engineering to medicine.