Maria Poonlertlarp is a Thai-Swedish beauty pageant titleholder, model, singer and actress. She was crowned Miss Universe Thailand 2017. She later represented Thailand at the Miss Universe 2017 competition, finishing as a top 5. She was born in Bangkok to a Swedish father, Göran Ehren, who is an electrical engineer, and a Thai Chinese mother, Chanoksuang Poonlertlarp, who is a former teacher at the American TESOL Institute. At the age of two, she and her family moved to Hanoi, Vietnam and at seven, she returned to Bangkok. When she was 14, she began to train as a model with Elle Thailand.