"Being an academic requires the courage to stand behind good ideas despite opposition," says Zhang, who is on our list of the top 30 thinkers under 30.
"I honestly think that it will take a person with autism to find the 'cure' to autism, so that the world understands that autism doesn't need to be cured," Toliver says.
Although inventing the bra was barely an adolescent pit stop on Mary Phelps Jacobs' glamorous trajectory, it did suggest what she would get up to next.
Lira, Uganda: Prisoners, many of whom claim to be juveniles, line up for dinner at Lira Prison. Poor birth records make it difficult for Ugandan prison officials to remove younger prisoners from adult facilities.
If the world is a global marketplace, Shi's research tries to help make it more efficient and equitable by applying mathematics to assess and improve the way we make decisions.