Bio
Emmy-nominated Padma Lakshmi, an ACLU Artist Ambassador for immigrants’ rights and women’s rights, is internationally known as a food expert, model, actress, and best-selling author, as well as the recipient of the 2016 NECO Ellis Island Medal of Honor and Variety’s 2018 Karma award. Lakshmi serves as host and an executive producer of Bravo’s Emmy award-winning Top Chef, which is currently in its 16th season.
Lakshmi established herself as a food expert early in her career, having hosted two successful cooking shows and writing the best-selling Easy Exotic, which won the “Best First Book” award at the 1999 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Lakshmi followed this success with the publication of her second cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet. In 2016, she released her food memoir, The New York Times best-selling Love, Loss and What We Ate, which also won “Best Lifestyle, Body & Soul” at the 2017 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, followed by The Encyclopedia of Spices & Herbs. In Spring of 2018, Padma collaborated with MAC Cosmetics for a worldwide capsule collection called #MACPadma. She is also co-founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America and was recently named a Visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
In her empowering 2018 Op-Ed for The New York Times, Lakshmi added her voice to the #MeToo movement.