Class: 2018

Mai Ichihara

Mai Ichihara graduated from Yale in 2020 with a joint degree, Master of Environmental Management and Master of Global Affairs from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. She is specializing in water resource management with a regional focus in the Asia Pacific. At Yale, she focused on understanding equitable approaches to sustainable development, and she is a strong advocate of integrating ecosystem services, local knowledge, and participatory engagement into urban and rural development interventions.

Ralph Emmanuel François

Ralph Emmanuel François is a disaster risk resilience management and climate resilience specialist with over 10 years of experience working with communities in Haiti. In 2015, Ralph founded Cocread, a social enterprise and community incubator that creates self-sustainable communities using art and technology. As CEO of Cocread, Ralph was first-runner up at the singularity Global Impact Challenge for the Caribbean. During the course of his career in private, international, and government agencies, Ralph has contributed to key research studies and developed methodologies and toolkits in the DRR field, including the first evacuation guidelines, the disaster response experiences during the January 12, 2010 earthquake, and research on risk ecology. Ralph studied…

Sylvia Aguilera García

Sylvia Aguilera García has more than two decades of experience working in human rights and peace-building in Mexico. During the past 14 years she has focused her work on developing new ways to approach public conflicts in Mexico, mainly those related to land and natural resource management, as well as those associated with the advancement of human rights, the justice system and victims’ rights. Part of her work has been focused on strengthening civil society coalitions and in developing collaborative and negotiation capabilities. During the last several years she has been working with the national Movement of Relatives of Disappeared Persons in Mexico. She is a former Director of the…

Pilar Velasco

Pilar Velasco is a Spanish journalist currently working at Cadena SER (Prisa Group), the radio network leader in Spain. Specializing in investigative and data journalism, she has exposed political and economic malpractices in Spain and uncovered high profile international corruption cases. Her reports have focused on revealing unlawful and unethical activities of the powerful against the public interest. Pilar is the author of two books, one about social change in Spain; and another one about the rise of indignados (Occupy) movement, both of which have been translated into several languages. She has also published two essays in Germany about the challenges of democracy in Europe in the context of the…

Joy Olivier

Joy Olivier is passionate about finding innovative solutions to big social problems. She is the co-founder of Botanican, a social enterprise that is establishing Africa's first legal network of cannabis growers and bringing sustainable cannabis products to local and global markets. Joy is also the co-founder of IkamvaYouth, an education non-profit that enables disadvantaged youth to pull themselves and each other out of poverty, which she ran for fifteen years. Joy is intrigued by the power of collaboration, and the conversion of challenges into opportunities. She is committed to doing all she can to fight inequality and promote access to opportunities that change lives. In addition to being a Yale…

Julio Guzmán

Julio Guzman is a Peruvian politician, leader and founder of the Partido Morado (The Purple Party), a centrist-political national party. He ran for President in the 2016 Elections, climbing to second place with more than 20% of the voting intention, before he was excluded from the race because of “administrative issues” regarding the registration of his candidacy. Previously, Julio was a Partner at Deloitte Peru. He served as Vice Minister of Industry and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and as Secretary General at the Office of the Prime Minister. In that role, he was President of the Council of Vice Ministers, responsible for the coordination of multi-sectorial policies. Before joining…

Tianyi Xin

Tianyi "Tian Tian" Xin is a litigation associate at the Washington DC based law firm of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer. She graduated from Yale Law School in 2019. Before law school, she served for five years as an active duty Military Intelligence Officer in the US Army. Most recently in uniform, she worked as a speechwriter to the Commanding General of Fort Hood and III Corps, where she deployed in 2016 to Baghdad as part of the counter-ISIL coalition. Prior to working as a speechwriter, she was stationed in Camp Red Cloud, South Korea and deployed in 2014 as individual augmentee to the 2nd Ranger Battalion in eastern Afghanistan….

Elpida Rouka

Elpida Rouka has most recently served as Chief of Staff a.i. to the UN Special Envoy on Syria whom she joined in September 2014. She remains part of his core good offices team to date. Previously, she was in Jerusalem where she led the political team for the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, an office which was set up after the Oslo Accords. She has worked for the United Nations for over 15 years and has most recently served as Principal Political Adviser for the UN's Special Political Missions both in Iraq (2007-2009) and in Afghanistan (2010-2012) where she has dealt with aspects of facilitating…

Vincent Ni

Vincent Ni is the Asia Editor at NPR, in which role he oversees the US public broadcaster’s coverage from Afghanistan to Japan. As an international journalist, he has reported from the Middle East, Europe and Asia. He also reported from the US on the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. Before joining NPR, Vincent was the China Affairs correspondent for The Guardian newspaper, where he wrote about the politics, economy and changing society of the world’s most populous nation. Prior to The Guardian, Vincent spent seven years at the BBC. He worked across platforms and launched an internal forum called BBC Asia Brief. In 2019 he created and edited Asia Matters…

Good Society Forum: Credible voices and communication strategies for COVID19