With his "Microsculpture" series, Levon Biss photographs the incredible details of insects.

Karen Bass has traveled the world to explore and capture footage from every environment across the Earth.

Shukla Bose is the founder and head of the Parikrma Humanity Foundation, a nonprofit that runs four extraordinary schools for poor children.

Shree Bose was the grand prize winner at the 2011 Google Science Fair.

Boaz Almog uses quantum physics to levitate and trap objects in midair. Call it "quantum levitation."

Dolly Chugh is a social scientist of who studies the psychology of good people.

Asmeret Asefaw Berhe is a soil and global-change scientist and educator passionate about all things related to the science and beauty of soils.

Tali Sharot studies why our brains are biased toward optimism.

TED Fellow Walé Oyéjidé combats bias with creative storytelling.

Think of Surya Mattu as a data detective. As he writes: "I am interested in figuring out the ways in which algorithmic systems harm people."

The Sleepy Man Banjo Boys is made up of 11-year-old banjo sensation Jonny Mizzone and his brothers Robbie, 14, on fiddle, and Tommy, 15, on guitar.

Joy Buolamwini's research explores the intersection of social impact technology and inclusion.

Climate researcher Alice Bows-Larkin connects her academic research to the broader policy context, helping create policies to deal with our changing planet.

Jessica Pryce creates strategies to reduce the impact of racial bias in child protective services.

Susan Colantuono is the CEO and founder of Leading Women.

Data skeptic Cathy O’Neil uncovers the dark secrets of big data, showing how our "objective" algorithms could in fact reinforce human bias.

Sara Sanford wants us to move from shared stories to shared data to counter gender inequity.

Detective of fads and emerging subcultures, chronicler of jobs-you-never-knew-existed, Malcolm Gladwell's work is toppling the popular understanding of bias, crime, food, marketing, race, consumers and intelligence.

Social psychologist Emily Balcetis explores perception, motivation, goal-setting and decision-making from conscious and nonconscious levels.

Melanie Nezer is a national leader in efforts to inform and educate individuals, institutions, elected officials and communities about refugees and asylum seekers.

TED Fellow Matilda Ho is shaping the startup landscape to create more sustainable food systems in China.

Jay Walker is fascinated by intellectual property in all its forms. His firm, Walker Digital, created Priceline and many other businesses that reframe old problems with new IT. In his private life, he's a bibliophile and collector on an epic scale.

Michael Specter is a staff writer for the New Yorker. His new book, Denialism, asks why we have increasingly begun to fear scientific advances instead of embracing them.

Magatte Wade creates jobs in Africa -- and calls attention to the obstacles to job creation on the continent.

Werner Reich travels around the world to speak about his life story and the importance of taking care of each other.

A social psychologist at Stanford University, Jennifer L. Eberhardt conducts research on race and inequality.

BCG's Philip Evans has a bold prediction for the future of business strategy -- and it starts with Big Data.

Manuel Lima studies how information can be organized -- into elegant and beautiful diagrams that illustrate the many unexpected twists of big data.

As Director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, Neil Gershenfeld explores the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds.

Susan Blackmore studies memes -- those self-replicating "life forms" that spread themselves via human consciousness. We're now headed, she believes, toward a new form of meme, spread by the technology we've created.