Megalyn Echikunwoke was only 14 when she was plucked from obscurity to play a lead role in the miniseries. Since then, she has been the toast of many viewers featuring in several American

Even before she started popping up all over television when she was barely in her teens, Megalyn Ann Echikunwoke had lived a fascinating, unique life.

Actress Megalyn  has bewitched the viewers of many TV shows with her  charm and stunning looks, showing up on everything from period sitcoms to science fiction dramas.

With a  Nigerian father and a white American mother, Echikunwoke was seemingly predisposed to a wide cultural and ethnic understanding from birth, an aspect of her personality that was bolstered by growing up on a Navajo Indian Reservation.  In fact, her grandfather is a Nigerian chief making her technically a royalty, but there is nothing haughty about this talented young actress.

She was born May 28, 1983 in Spokane, Washington, United States of America. At 14, she attended an arts-oriented summer camp, where she was discovered by her manager while performing a monologue.

Megalyn hit the screen in 1998 by playing Allison Hightower in The Steve Harvey Show. This was followed shortly by the mini-series, Creature and Funny Valentines where she acted as Elizabeth and Lauren respectively in 1999.

She found regular work, soon scoring a recurring role on the first season of 24 as Nicole Palmer, President Palmer’s daughter. She also made guest appearances on shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars, and starred in a series called Like Family. She played a recurring character on That ’70s Show in 2004, before signing on to play the grown-up version of Isabelle Tyler on the science fiction series, The 4400.

She stayed with the show for two seasons, but left in 2007 after which she joined the cast of the 2008 drama, Fix. She has also featured in the MTV soap opera, Spyder Games, as Cherish Pardee, a coffee house singer, and in Like Family as Danika. In season 7 of CSI: Miami, Echikunwoke joined the cast as the new medical examiner, Dr. Tara Price. She landed a recurring role in at least three episodes of TNT’s Raising the Bar in June 2009. She played the love interest of attorney Marcus McGrath played by J. August Richards.

Asked when she knew she wanted to act in a recent interview she said, “You know, I think it definitely started at a very young age.  Probably started when anything I’d hear, anything I would watch, I would mimic.  I started being a mimic and I was always very dramatic.  Anytime I heard someone with an accent, I would instantly try to emulate it.  I think it started with a kind of sensibility for the performing arts.”

Echikunwoke’s passion for her profession is captured in the following response she gave when asked of the dreams she has of her future work. “I think the beauty of this art form cinema and theatre and music, all the fine arts, the beauty of them is the stories that you tell and the experiences that you can allow other people to have through you that they may never experience on their own.  It’s really a storyteller’s medium. At the end of the day, I would hope that people would view my body of work as a place of refuge.  A sanctuary, whatever it is, that I can offer you through the stories that I can tell.  I would hope that I will become a great storyteller and effect people and move people with my work.”

Her last name, Echikunwoke, means ‘leader of men.’