showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates. Before enrolling at the Graduate School of Design (GSD), Ayaka Yamashita had earned degrees in agro-informatics and global health, founded a nonprofit in Southeast Asia, published a book, and been named a Fulbright Scholar as well as “an upcoming Japanese woman contributing to the 21st century.” Born deaf in one ear, she had faced disparities in communicating with other students and teachers as a child; from a young age, she grew sensitive to the lived experience of disability and difference. Studying design, she thought, might be a way to understand human difference through various perspectives and mediums, an opportunity to generate fresh narratives and solutions.