Sonia Dara

At five feet eleven inches, Indian-American model Sonia Dara takes charge of any room she walks in to, whether that room is the site of her photoshoot with SI.

Sonia Dara has become the first South Asian model to be featured in Sports Illustrated Swim Suit issue.

Sonia, the daughter of Indian immigrants, was discovered at an AMTC event when she was 16. This is her first appearance in the Sports Illustrated.

Sonia has worked with clients such as Cosmo Girl, Seventeen, Neiman Marcus and Vogue India and is also a sophomore at Harvard College.

Sonia Dara was 1 of 20 models selected for the 2010 Sports Illustrated Campaign. Sonia exudes elegance and incorporates her Indian culture in her first shoot with Sports Illustrated.

A child of parents who immigrated to the U.S. from India in the early 1980s, Sonia Dara was a 16 year-old honor roll student when she attended AMTC in the summer of 2005.

Sonia Dara's beauty, intellect and poise won over the agents and she signed with Elite Atlanta and later, Elite New York.

Elite has been keenly aware of Sonia's dedication to her family and academics and has helped Sonia find a proper balance in life in all her aspects.

Sonia keeps it all in perspective and today, she is still one of the hardest working models at Elite.

As a rising model, Sonia has worked for dozens of designers, magazines and clients like Oscar De La Renta, Valentino, Versace, Balenciaga, Bill Blass, Neiman Marcus, Macy's, Saks, Juicy Couture, Cosmo Girl, Seventeen, WWD, and Allure.

When she was hand-picked for Sports Illustrated's hallowed Swimsuit Issue, she became the first woman of South Asian descent to ever be featured in America's number one best-selling glossy.

Some of the images she shot for SI, set in Rajasthan, where Sonia Dara's ancestors come from, do little to downplay stereotypes of South Asians.

In one photo, she's lifting a basket over her head as she walks nearly nude alongside locals in long, colorful dresses. In another, she's riding on the back of a truck down a dirt road alongside women whose heads are covered.

Sonia Dara did wonders at dispelling the stereotype that Indian women aren't bold, beautiful sexual creatures.

Sonia Dara's parents are the first set of South Asian parents to encourage their child to do modeling. They encouraged her because she showed them that she can multitask, model and get good in studies.