take up her hobby of classical piano in the Tampa Bay area of Florida while still working as a mathematician, taking lessons under Linda Pointer and Russian virtuoso Eleonora Lvov. Persad won a series of local and state piano competitions and then became a prizewinner of the 2010 Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition and was Artist of the Month. She has given numerous piano performances in Italy and throughout the United States, performing for charities and benefits, and made her Carnegie Hall debut in April 2011. Persad has been featured in Nancy Williams' piano magazine, Grand Piano Passion, and also appears on Oprah Winfrey's website in a feature on "Turning Dreams Into Reality.". Persad has released an all-Yamaha CD Solace (2011), a historical journey through 250 years of lyrical classical music with some recordings from rare manuscripts never before commercially available. Persad was the winner of the 2010 Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition. Personal life Persad was married to Mark Christopher Carlo, a chemical engineer, in 2009, and is currently divorced. She is the founder of Freedom Scholars of America, a scholarship fund which has awarded over 100 university scholarships. She currently serves as Advisor to JHS-Tek, a health and fitness technology startup. Persad is signed as a model with Wings Model Management. In 2017, she founded the StatWeather Institute, a humanitarian effort featuring global climate and disaster risk as well as climate impacts. References External links Living people Rice University alumni 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians 21st-century American pianists 21st-century American women pianists 1974 births Trinidad and Tobago women 20th-century American women American musicians of Indian descent American people of Trinidad and Tobago descent