Soohyun Park

Soohyun Park is a student from Toronto, Ontario, Canada currently attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a graduate of University of Toronto Schools and finished first in the 2007 CanSpell National Spelling Bee. For her first-place finish, Soohyun left with a $10,000 (CAD) RESP prize. Soohyun had made a single mistake before coming back when the lead contender, Prashanth Srinivasan, failed to spell his final word correctly and gave her a second chance.

Soohyun rated at the top of the Canadian National Mathematics League for the 2005–2006 season, and 17th for the 2006–2007 season. She also attends the Ontario Students Classics Conference and has won the Intermediate Pentathlon in the 2007 - 2008 year and 2nd place for the Senior Pentathlon in the 2008 - 2009 year. In 2010, she placed 3rd in the Intermediate Pentathlon, and in 2011, once again placed second in the Senior Pentathlon.

The only child of Changyok Park and Jinkyung Kim, Soohyun was born in Minnesota where she learned to read at the very early age of two. After her father completed graduate school in Minnesota, the family briefly returned to Korea. Finally the family settled in the North York part of the Greater Toronto Area. She goes to the University of Toronto Schools, an independent secondary school in Toronto.

In the 2010 UofT Brain Bee, Soohyun Park got 2nd Place. In the next year, she defeated all 61 competitors, and went on to win 1st place at Canada's National Brain Bee.