In sophomore year of high school, Priya Vulchi (she/her) co-founded the non-profit, CHOOSE (chooseorg.org, @choose_org), with the goal of advocating for racial literacy curricula in U.S. K-12 schools. Alongside her friend Winona Guo, she co-wrote a 224-page racial-literacy textbook, which was funded by Princeton University and featured in Teen Vogue. She then took a gap year before college at Princeton University, fundraising and interviewing people across the country about their experiences with race. Her co-authored book, Tell Me Who You Are (TarcherPerigee, 2019), features stories from the journey and was called “at once hopeful, raw, and brimming with curiosity, engagement and youthful energy” by the writer Roxane Gay. TMWYA is one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Nonfiction of 2019 and Penguin Random House’s top Common Reads, employed as first-year reading by universities nationwide.
Along the way, Priya was named among Teen Vogue’s 21 under 21 Young People Changing the World, Bitch Media’s 50 Most Influential Feminists, and the youngest TED Residents ever. She has spoken at dozens of venues, including at TEDWomen in 2017 (the talk, “What it takes to be racially literate,” has over 1 million views), TED Residency 2018, United Nations’ Girl Up Conference, Gucci’s Chime for Change Conference, NEA’s Racial and Social Justice Conference, MSAN, SERC, MTI, Google, GoPro, and over a dozen schools nationwide. She has been represented by All-American Speakers, TED Speakers Bureau, Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau, and Authors Unbound. In 2022, she graduated from Princeton University with highest honors, majoring in African American Studies and minoring in Cognitive Science. She has been featured in the BBC, The New York Times, TIME Magazine, Scholastic, Bustle, and more. Priya is now 24 years old.