Melinda Leanna Shankar joined the cast of Degrassi in its eighth season as Sav's little sister, Alli. Prior to this, she did runway and print modeling. In 2008, Melinda traveled to Ecuador with the organization "Free The Children." In 2011 Melinda traveled again with FTC, this time to Haiti. Documentaries of the trips were made for MTV and MuchMusic in Canada. In 2009, Melinda made her lead role debut as Indie Mehta for the YTV series How to Be Indie and for her work was nominated for a Gemini Award for "Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program."