Profile

A dual citizen of Nigeria and New York, U.S. (her parents emigrated from the former to the latter), Jessica Matthews invented the Soccket Ball, a soccer ball that captures and stores motion-based, off-grid, renewable energy (M.O.R.E) to electrify underserved communities in the developing world, when she was just a junior at Harvard University.

Bridging the gap between commercial and fine art photography is a challenging task, but military brat and domestic TCK Annie Leibovitz does it with ease.

My name is Andrea Bazoin, and I am a translator. In high school, I used my then-limited Spanish to translate for the Central American immigrants who came to my checkout line at the grocery store in our small Nebraska town. Interpreting their “Cuanto cuesta?” was helpful, but I knew what I was really translating was a message of welcome.

Born in Havana, Cuba in November 1948, Ana Mendieta was a well-known performance artist throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. At age 12, she and her sister were forced to flee Cuba after her father joined an anti-Castro counter-revolutionary force, and the two siblings spent their first few weeks in the United States at a refugee camp in Florida until they were sent to an orphanage in Dubuque, Iowa — a location with a culture very different from the life Ana knew back in Cuba. She wouldn’t reunite with her mother and brother for five years and her father for another 18.

Better known simply as “Shaq”, basketball great Shaquille O’Neal is also a TCK, and those experiences have helped him navigate the diverse world.

Meet Tony Pietra Arjuna: creator of what’s fast becoming an Asian cult classic film called “Shadowplay.”

Elizabeth Liang is a Third Culture Kid, and her one-woman show weaves humorous stories about growing up as an “Alien Citizen” abroad.

Sophomore medical drama “New Amsterdam” and its cross-cultural main cast give a glimpse into the often awe-inspiring optimism of those who straddle identity.