Jewel Staite

Jewel Belair Staite (born 1982) is a Canadian-born actress best known as the cheery, plucky mechanic Kaylee in Firefly.

However, if that's all you've seen of her, you've missed a lot, my friend.

Born in White Rock, BC, Jewel spent most of the first four years of her life on Maui. She became a child model and actress, scoring roles on such shows as Are You Afraid of the Dark? and The X-Files (where she received CPR from David Duchovny) before scoring her first two big roles as Becca Fisher on the Disney Channel series Flash Forward and rainbow-haired mechanic Catalina on the Peter David-created series Space Cases. A successful TV career followed, though she remained under the radar until she got her Hollywood break as Kaylee.

Though nowadays she's still somewhat under the radar, doing TV originals of questionable quality, while thousands of geeks are lying in wait.

She has a Twitter, at the expected address.

Jewel Staite has performed in the following roles:

Flash Forward: Becca Fisher
Space Cases: Catalina
Honey I Shrunk the Kids the TV Series: Tiara van Horn
Higher Ground: Daisy "Graves" Lipenowski
Da Vinci's Inquest: Gabriella Da Vinci
Firefly: Kaylee Frye.
Wonderfalls: Heidi Gotts
Stargate Atlantis: Dr. Jennifer Keller (a few years after playing a Wraith)
Supernatural: Amy Pond. May or may not be a shout-out.
The L.A. Complex: Raquel Westbrook

Jewel Staite provides examples of the following tropes:

Awesome McCoolname: Without a doubt; it's fitting, elegant, and fun to say.
Canada, Eh?
Deadpan Snarker
Food Porn: She happily shares some in her food blog, Happy Opu ("Opu" is Hawaiian for "stomach").
One of Us: Has evidently returned David Tennant's sentiments.
Old Shame: She was in the Party Mania board game, but she's pretty averse to discussing it.
Self-Deprecation: For starters her character on The L.A. Complex is a White Dwarf Starlet former teen star.