Sachi Kitajima Mulkey is a science journalist with a background in design. She is currently a Climate News Fellow for Grist, reporting on the intersection of climate change, policy, and politics. Her writing has appeared in Grist, Scientific American, Mother Jones, Wired, Atmos, and others. She has made guest appearances on The Weather Channel, PBS NewsWeekend, and LAist Morning Edition.
Born in Munich as one of three kids and son of a family with a long history in yarns, fabrics and trade show business, Sebastian Klinder is the Managing Director of the Munic Fabric Start Exhibitions GmbH in the third generation. After graduating from the European Business School with exchange programmes in Paris and London, he directly entered the family business as a shareholder. Together with his team, he is constantly thriving to develop the trade show formats further according to the ever-changing market needs of the textile industry. Sebastian is the father of three children and lives in the city centre of Munich.
Darlie O Koshy is a thought leader. He has played a key role in shaping up institutions like the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad and National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), New Delhi. He is the only Indian to have served on the executive board of the World Body of Design (ICSID) for three terms giving leadership to Indian design and NID in the global arena.
Koshy is credited with the formulation of National Design Policy which was approved by the government of India and also the widely known campaign “Designed in India, Made for the World” which powered NID and Indian design to the centre stage to assume a leadership role. His last full-fledged assignment was as DG & CEO of the Apparel Training & Design Centre (ATDC) under the aegis of AEPC from 2009 to 2021, where he set up over 200 directly run ATDC-AVI & ATDC-SMART centres across India in 24 states which have trained over 3,00,000 candidates by imparting skills and improving lives.
He is the author of the India Design Edge and Runway to Skilled India. He remains a design management strategist and speaker.
Gayathri Krishna is a PhD candidate in the School of Labour Studies at McMaster University, Ontario. Her doctoral research is on the impact of urban development projects on the livelihood strategies of women informal workers in resettlement townships. She is a Research Assistant on the SSHRC-funded research project on Transnational Legal Governance, Modern Slavery and Forced Labour in Supply Chains: Canada in a Global Context
Prashant Kumar is a fashion-technology and business-operations professional with more than 12 years of cross-functional experience across fashion, textiles, retail, manufacturing, e-commerce, supply chain, ERP and digital transformation. He holds an M.F.Tech from NIFT Gandhinagar and a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering.
Katie Kutskill is Business Operations and Strategy Lead for the ‘Is It Leather?’ global campaign. Dedicated to analysing the lifecycle of leather and evaluating its ESG performance at industry, facility, and product levels, her passion lies in real leather's sustainable qualities and its cultural importance across various industries and communities.
Katie holds a BA in Environmental Studies and Political Science from the University of Michigan and an MSc in Leather Technology from the University of Northampton. With over a decade of experience in the leather industry, she has served as technical director at the Sustainable Leather Foundation and executive global director of product development & sustainability officer at Pangea.
Leading the Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion + Textiles, an education and research collaboration between UTS and TAFE NSW, dedicated to industry upskilling and the use of advanced technologies to aid sustainable transitions to the Australian fashion industry. Lisa Lake is a pioneer in the sustainable fashion movement in Australia, and has worked between industry and academia in the sustainability sector since 2009.
Debra Lam is the Founding Director of the Partnership for Innovation (PIN), Georgia Institute of Technology, a statewide public-private partnership committed to investing in innovative solutions for shared economic prosperity. She continues to lead smart communities and urban innovation work at Georgia Tech. Prior to this, she served as Pittsburgh’s inaugural chief of innovation and performance where she oversaw all technology, sustainability, performance, and innovation functions of city government.
Professor Valérie S Langlois is particularly interested in the harmful effects on vertebrates of chemicals present in aquatic environments. These substances can potentially affect all stages of cellular regulation in aquatic vertebrates, from hormone synthesis to target cell responses, and consequently they can alter the metabolism, development, and reproduction of vertebrates.
The main theme of her research programme is the identification of physiological responses and regulatory mechanisms in vertebrates exposed to environmental contaminants. For more than 10 years, she has been working with academic and government partners to determine the harmful effects of these contaminants on vertebrates.
Agbaje Lateef is Professor of Microbiology with teaching and research experience in the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso since 1998, and vast interests in Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology, especially fermentation processes and enzyme technology. His work also involves the green synthesis and applications of nanoparticles in the field of Nanotechnology. He is the Head of Nanotechnology Research Group (NANO+) (www.lautechnanotech.com) at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Nigeria, and the lead author of Microbial Nanobiotechnology: Principles and Applications (Springer: 2021)