Tara Westover

speaker

• GATES CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARSHIP through SELF EDUCATION

  Tara Westover is an American historian and writer known for her unique and courageous education journey. She was born to Mormon survivalist parents opposed to public education. Tara taught herself enough mathematics, grammar, and science to take the ACT and was admitted to Brigham Young University. She graduated magna cum laude and subsequently winning a Gates Cambridge Scholarship.

• CAMBRIDGE PhD in HISTORY

  She earned an MPhil from Trinity College, Cambridge in 2009, and in 2010 was a visiting fellow at Harvard University. She returned to Cambridge, where she was awarded a PhD in history in 2014.

• EDUCATED - 70 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller

  Her new book, Educated, is an account of the struggle for self invention. It is a story that gets to the heart of what education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.

• 2019 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE

  Educated was long-listed for the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence and had spent 32 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. Former U.S. President Barack Obama named Educated as one of the books on his summer reading list of 2018, just as Microsoft Founder, Bill Gates.

• AWARDS & RECOGNITION

  • Tara was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2019
  • Educated was named the Book of the Year by the American Booksellers Association
  • One of the New York Times's 10 Best Books of 2018
  • Long-listed for the Carnegie Medal of Excellence
  • Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Autobiography
  • Amazon Editors' pick for the Best Book of 2018
  • Apple's Best Memoir of the Year
  • Audible's Best Memoir of the Year
  • Former President Barack Obama's Favorite Books of the Year list
  • Bill Gates's Holiday Reading list