Nina Davuluri

Nina Davuluri is an American public speaker, advocate, and beauty queen who hosts the reality show Made in America on Zee TV America from Manhattan. As Miss America 2014, she became the first Indian American contestant to win both Miss New York and Miss America, as well as the second Asian American to earn the Miss America crown.

Davuluri was born on April 20, 1989, in Syracuse, New York, to a Telugu family from India. After living in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, with her grandmother and aunt until age two-and-a-half, she returned to the United States. She lived in Oklahoma from age four to 10 and then moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, returning to India each summer to study Indian dance. Raised in a family of medical and technical professionals, she studied ballet, tap, and jazz dance, played varsity tennis, and participated in marching band and Science Olympiad before graduating from St. Joseph High School in 2007.

Davuluri attended Michigan State University before transferring to the University of Michigan, where she was on the Dean's List and earned a B.S. in brain behavior and cognitive science in 2011. She later completed pre-med coursework at Le Moyne College. Davuluri began competing in pageants at age 16 to earn college scholarship money, winning Miss Southwest Michigan's Outstanding Teen 2005 and Miss Michigan's Outstanding Teen 2006, and placing as first runner-up at Miss America's Outstanding Teen 2007. Returning to pageants after college, she was named Miss Greater Rochester 2012, Miss Syracuse 2013, and Miss New York 2013.

Davuluri held the Miss America title from September 15, 2013, to September 14, 2014. Her talent performance featured a fusion of Bollywood and Indian classical dance to Dhoom Taana from the film Om Shanti Om, developed with Nakul Dev Mahajan, marking the first Bollywood performance on the Miss America stage. During her reign, she promoted her platform, Celebrating Diversity Through Cultural Competency, and advocated for STEM education. Her activities included presenting talks at high schools and universities such as Yale, as well as meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House.

After her coronation, Davuluri faced xenophobic and racist commentary on social media, prompting public solidarity campaigns from university students, civil-rights activist George Takei, and fellow contestants. Media outlets and commentators also discussed her victory in the context of colorism and evolving beauty standards.

Since concluding her year as Miss America, Davuluri has advocated for diversity, gender equality, and STEM education. Her engagements include co-hosting a talk for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Madison Square Garden in September 2014, participating in the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit Youth and Women Day in Nairobi, and leading an official U.S. State Department tour in India on women's education in March 2016. She has also presented talks at Harvard, Princeton, Northeastern, and East Carolina University.

Her accolades include the India Abroad Face of the Future Award 2014 and becoming the first Miss America elected trustee to the Miss America Foundation Board in February 2015. In August 2014, fashion designer Tony Bowls designed a shoe named The Nina in her honor.