Dhairya builds new programs, partnerships, strategies for global collaboration and works with companies to help them bring Design thinking into their culture. He started his Ycenter journey in 2012 by working in a rural hospital in Mozambique, Africa. He is a biomedical engineer, an intuitive problem solver and an international public speaker on the topics of Design thinking, Entrepreneurship, International development in context of UN Sustainable development goals. 

As a graduate student at UC Davis, Anca Barcu has had the opportunity to work with a diverse group of international professionals in the field of agriculture, international development, ecology, and plant sciences. Her research focus is plant physiology in the context of the Costus tropical plant system. Before coming to UC Davis, Anca served as President for non-profit educational organizations and as a corporate trainer. Anca holds a BS in Horticulture from USAMV Bucharest, Romania. In her free time, Anca enjoys traveling, crafts, cooking, and video games. 

Carly Hilbert has just finished her third year at the University of British Columbia. Soon to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Global Resource Systems focusing on veterinary systems in Central, Eastern and Northern Europe, Carly is a global citizen dedicated to solving problems here at UBC and within the wider community. Throughout her degree, she has looked at the intersection of communities, veterinary health and agriculture, getting involved with a variety of novel initiatives looking at redefining our food systems. Carly is the director of Roots on the Roof, a student-led club that manages the rooftop garden on UBC’s student building. The club provides members with a collaborative space to learn the basics of growing food. It is an important piece of Carly’s activism surrounding food security and food sovereignty, demonstrating the possibilities of alternative community-led food systems.

Nadia is investigating soil organic matter responses to altered precipitation across a crop diversity gradient at McGill University in Canada. She earned her Ph.D. in Soils and Biogeochemistry from the University of California, Davis, and her MS in Soil and Water Management from the Institute of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine- Morocco. In both experiences, she worked across differences of cultures and disciplines and witnessed the capacity and resilience of the human connection. She highly values collaborative and community-based participatory approaches for conducting research.