Harvard GSD – MDes EE ‘22

(Designing out waste)

Aakrity sees design as an opportunity for equity. She is currently investigating the blueprint of equitable, healthy and environmentally responsive humanitarian habitat interventions at Harvard Graduate School of Design as an MDes Energy and Environment student. Her past research and architectural work has been focused in using industrial waste in construction technologies and materials.

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aakritymadhan

Email: aakritymadhan@gsd.harvard.edu

HKS / Emory School of Medicine - 23’

Anders Olsen is currently in his last year of medical school at the Emory School of Medicine and is interested in pursuing a career in oncology. He was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and has been there most of his life. He has been interested in policy, specifically health policy, since starting his undergraduate degree at Emory University where he studied economics. His aspiration with this degree is to pursue a career at the intersection of health policy and oncology, specifically in the realm of healthcare cost-effectiveness and novel FDA drug approvals. In his free time, he enjoys playing the violin and ultimate frisbee. He also loves cooking, live music, and any outdoor activity he can do with friends.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anders-olsen-a324aba8/

Email: aolsen@hks.harvard.edu

Co-Chair

Harvard GSD – MDes EE ‘23

Kritika is a MDes candidate, specializing in Energy and Environment at the Graduate School of Design in Harvard University. In the past, she has worked within the interdisciplinary fields of sustainability at offices in Denmark and Japan, focusing on computational design and material innovation. She is also working on a research venture, called Cardinal LCA, which is a tool for architects to analyze the global warming potential of material decisions in early stages.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kritika-kharbanda-kritika/

Email: kritikakharbanda@gsd.harvard.edu

Harvard Kennedy School – MPP ‘22

(Designing Out Waste)

Brian is an MPP student at the Harvard Kennedy School, striving to work in the public sector on issues such as public transportation. He is passionate about environmental protection, social equality, racial justice, and women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. As a CPA and former auditor at Ernst & Young, he is pursuing a graduate degree to acquire skills necessary for a career in the public sector, while leveraging the budgetary and systems thinking he learned as an accountant. Brian graduated from Providence College in May 2018.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-p-cain/

Email: bcain@hks.harvard.edu

GSAS/Applied Physics - 20’

Dr. Cathy Zhang was a Ph.D. graduate and postdoc in the Harvard Aizenberg Biomimetic and Biomineralization group from 2014-2020. Since 2020, she has been a Senior Research Engineer at a large multinational manufacturing company based in Massachusetts, where she leads R&D programs related to carbon footprint reduction and circular economy. She is passionate about supporting the development of material solutions that reduce the impact of products on the environment through lifecycle assessment, energy reduction during manufacturing, use of biobased materials, and end-of-life treatment pathways that promote a circular economy.

Harvard GSD - MUP’22

Marketing & Outreach

Charuvi is a Master in Urban Planning candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, focusing on transport policy and planning. She has previously worked as a consultant with the State Smart Transportation Initiative and the Department of Transportation, City of Madison and is particularly interested in sustainable mobility and the intersection of land use and transportation.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charuvi-begwani/

Email: charuvibegwani@gsd.harvard.edu

Harvard GSD – MDE ‘22

(Website, Smart Cities)

Felicia is passionate about combining human-centered design, human-computer interaction, and behavioural insights to design solutions that address urbanization challenges. During her time as an Experience Design Consultant at Deloitte Canada, she worked on digital innovation strategy and UX/UI projects in various industries including public sector, healthcare, retail, automotive, and insurance. Through MDE, she hopes to complement her breadth of experience with technical product design skills, as well as learn how to use a systems-thinking approach to design solutions for urban sustainability, mobility, digital government services.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/feliciasliang/

Email: felicialiang@mde.harvard.edu

Harvard GSD - MDes’23

Harshika is a first year MDes Ecologies student at Harvard Graduate School of Design. For the last 3 years, she worked as the project architect on different design proposals that utilized passive design strategies and reduced building's dependence on energy-consuming systems. Her passion is finding solutions to the contemporary issues that lie in the intersection of building design, energy sustainability and occupant health through learning about new emergent technologies.

Harvard GSD / SEAS - MDE ‘23

(Smart Cities, Future Mobility)

Jon is a first-year MDE student at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He has spent the last few years working at the intersection of design and engineering to explore novel interaction paradigms unique to future mobility and smart city spaces. Jon left industry to join the MDE ‘23 cohort to better understand how design and engineering could be synthesized to address complex problems at larger scales.

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/imnotjohn


Email: jchinen@mde.harvard.edu


MIT Sloan - MBA ‘22

(Designing out waste, Consumer behavior)

Lillian is pursuing her MBA and Sustainability Certificate at MIT Sloan. Prior to Sloan, Lillian volunteered at food and community-focused organizations and spent 10 years working at HR tech startup Betterworks and HR / M&A consulting practices at KPMG and Willis Towers Watson. She now hopes to leverage her consulting and technology skill sets to help food companies drive social impact through sustainability.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lilliankwang/

Email: lkwang@mit.edu

(Consumer behaviour & business models - Smart Cities & Urban Mining)

Sérgio Jacinto is a seasoned manager in healthcare who over the last 17 years has been leading healthcare organizations on a local and international level. He holds a degree in Business Administration from Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics along with a Masters in Healthcare Service Management from ISCTE Executive Education.

Currently, Sérgio is transitioning into Sustainability Management | Circular Economy taking up the Executive Master in Sustainability Transition Management at Bologna Business School as well as giving lectures and workshops in the interested industries and organizing high-profile conferences. In this, he follows his passion and commitment to bridging between traditional economy and environmental sustainability.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sergiomagrojacinto

Email: sergiomagrojacinto@gmail.com

Harvard Kennedy School - MPP ‘22

(Fueling the circular economy)

Will is a first-year MPP student at the Harvard Kennedy School who is passionate about developing evidence-based policies to address income inequality, labor, and climate change. Prior to HKS, Will served as a Health Analyst at Mathematica where he focused on evaluating healthcare payment reform models and developing clinical quality measures. Will is especially interested in the ways in which we can develop an equitable workforce to power the circular economy. Will graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a B.S in Microbiology in 2015.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-mulhern-5271267b/

Email: will_mulhern@hks.harvard.edu