During his 20-year tenure as president of UMBC, Freeman Hrabowski has helped students of all backgrounds pursue degrees in arts, humanities and the sciences.
Student Ludwick Marishane invented a water-less bathing lotion and was named the 2011 Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award -- all because he didn't feel like taking baths.
Through the Global Citizen platform, humanitarian Hugh Evans has created an online community of millions of people -- all driven to eradicate extreme poverty by the year 2030.
Marvin Minsky is one of the great pioneers of artificial intelligence -- and using computing metaphors to understand the human mind. His contributions to mathematics, robotics and computational linguistics are legendary and far-reaching.
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.
With Freeman Dyson's astonishing forecasts for the future, it was hard to tell where science ended and science fiction began. But far from being a wild-eyed visionary, Dyson was a clear and sober thinker -- and one not afraid of controversy or heresy.
Marcel Dicke wants us to reconsider our relationship with insects, promoting bugs as a tasty -- and ecologically sound -- alternative to meat in an increasingly hungry world.
A writer and a part-time cyborg, Rebecca Knill embraces the humor in her bionic journey while balancing life as a deaf person with cochlear implants which enable her to hear.
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.
A paper on carbon nanotubes, a biology lecture on antibodies and a flash of insight led 15-year-old Jack Andraka to design a cheaper, more sensitive cancer detector.
Rajesh Rao seeks to understand the human brain through computational modeling, on two fronts: developing computer models of our minds, and using tech to decipher the 4,000-year-old lost script of the Indus Valley civilization.
Naoko Ishii leads the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a public financial institution that provides around US$1 billion every year to help tackle our planet’s most pressing environmental problems.
Nancy Frates and her family have raised a projected $160 million for ALS research in 2014. How? They kicked off the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to honor 29-year-old Pete Frates.
When Adrianne Haslet-Davis lost her left foot in the Boston Marathon bombing, her left leg was amputated to the knee. Less than a year later, she's back on her feet and dancing again.
Karen Lloyd investigates novel types of microbes in Earth's deep surface biosphere, collecting them from remote places such as Arctic fjords, volcanoes in Costa Rica, even deep in mud near the Marianas Trench.
Garry Kasparov is esteemed by many as the greatest chess player of all time. Now he’s engaged in a game with far higher stakes: the preservation of freedom and democracy.
Kartick Satyanarayan works tirelessly to save India’s wild animals from illegal captivity and poaching -- most notably rescuing hundreds of “dancing” bears.
She made her name following the dollars in terrorist networks, but now Loretta Napoleoni is on the trail of something far more sinister -- the gray zone where crime and unregulated credit meet.