Diana was born in Manizales, Colombia, in 1992. She graduated from Architecture at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota. Her bachelor´s thesis project addressed rural development issues; Rural Reaction was a strategy for young people to be interested in living and developing in the countryside, avoiding large migrations to the city. She is an architect with interest in interdisciplinary and participatory projects with experience in competitions, urban, architectural and landscape projects. Her work has been focussed on rural development, urban redesign, and climate adaptation. Facing the Water was the first neighbourhood in Cartagena to be adapted to climate change; Binding Traces was a strategy to rethink and to redesign two main squares and the street that connects them in La Tebaida, Colombia, and Caravane is about designing a rural artisan village built with Guadua, the Colombian bamboo. The transversal objective in her work is to empower the communities in their territory and encourage local development to improve their quality of life. That is why IUSD master programme is the key to continue her path with deeper focus on holistic urban and rural projects from a sustainable design perspective and strategies applicable in different scales -global, regional and local- and contexts -countryside and cities.

Eliana Paola Gómez Acevedo (*1994, Bucaramanga, Colombia) graduated as an architect from Universidad Santo Tomas in 2016. Has emphasized her bachelor of science studies on Bioclimatic and quality of life. Developed her final dissertation project with a research on thermal comfort in low-income housing in Bucaramanga. By being part of multidisciplinary teams, Eliana early engaged as an architectural and urban designer in the development of projects with a strong focus on social, economic, and environmental responsibility with private and public stakeholders. In 2018 the Public Architecture Atelier of Bucaramanga (a city hall dependency) won the Karl Brunner Prize in Urban and Landscape Design in the Colombian Biennale of Architects, with Eliana being an active member of the design team. Her professional experience has also given her practical skills in the urban interior design field, and in parallel, Eliana has worked as a consultant on bioclimatic and energy efficiency in buildings.

Girisha Sethi (1994) is a graduate architect from New Delhi, India working at the intersection of architecture, research and social design. Her interests and experience lie in the phenomenology of spaces and places, vernacular architecture, participatory design and social practice. 
Her graduation thesis investigated and proposed for Integrated Multi-modal Transportation in a zero-energy hub to simultaneously create a vibrant public space for the city, bringing together transportation and placemaking. Later, advocacy and collaborative planning allowed her to work with the Government of New Delhi on their initiative to redevelop the local bus terminals of the city. 
She has worked in the urban realm through various players - architects, planners, researchers, government agencies and non-profit organisations in the humanitarian sector, and through contrasting approaches including both top-down and bottom-up. 
Her project with the Disasters and Emergencies Preparedness Program (DEPP) Innovation Lab and the Council for Arts and Social Practice (CASP) – are two collaborations hinged in participatory planning, that shape her design approach.
Her motivation to join IUSD is to be able to decode the multi-faceted, multi-layered, complex system of systems that a city is and the mutual interdependencies of the various socio-spatial and meaning systems that make a city

Makda graduated from Mekelle University with a BSc. Degree in Architecture in 2015, since then she has been working as an assistant lecturer in the university. During her stay, she has participated in teaching, research and community service projects, as an assistant researcher she had a chance to participate in an Erasmus+ funded research project on Social Inclusion and energy management for informal settlements. It is during this project, she started to observe the fundamental nature of urbanization, settlement and built environment in Ethiopia, in comparison to European cases. Her research trip to Eco-housing and participatory planning in the Netherlands, urban upgrading in Kassel and Inclusive Housing projects in Vienna were eye-opener experiences to study and explore different aspects of sustainable urbanization approaches and school of thought. And Through the IUSD program, she hopes to be equipped with the integrated knowledge to contribute to the future of her city and more.

Rumman Mateen graduated as an architect in 2017 from the Faculty of Architecture and Ekistics, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. During his studies, he took part in various design and research-based national and international competitions highlighting the issues of gender inclusion, sustainable architecture, mixed housing and urban design. His graduation thesis examined and addressed the sensitive issue of communal violence in his native city Bareilly where he designed socially inclusive congregational spaces where people from all parts of the society can live and interact in peace and progressive harmony promoting social participation and cohesion.
As part of his academic internship, he contributed in the participatory design and execution of a primary school in the village of Motidevati Gujarat, India where he got involved with multiple stakeholders and mediated between the village community and design colleagues in Stuttgart and Zurich. In cooperation with one of his university professors, he facilitated the process of constructing 'Wall of Kindness' in New Delhi to help the poor and homeless. After graduation, he joined the Indian office of the architecture and design firm 'Blocher Partners' where he worked for over three years handling various institutional and large scale hospitality projects

Yara (*1994) is a Palestinian–Syrian Refugee who holds a Bachelor's degree in Architectural Engineering from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. She participated in designing a 300 Feddan Multi-Functional land in San Miguel, Mexico City, Mexico, and worked as an Intern at multiple international offices such as ECG and CLUSTER. After graduating in 2017, she worked as a Research Coordinator Assistant at IUSD where she had the chance to participate and co-coordinate a handful of workshops and excursions. She engaged in projects addressing Climate Change in ElGouna, Resilient Communities in Nuweiba, and Informal Settlements in Helwan. To expand her professional experience, she worked at architectural consulting firms including Arch-Plan and IDG. She collaborated in designing residential, commercial, educational, and administrative projects in the New Administrative Capital and the New Alamein City respectively. Since 2016, she has also been freelancing as an Architect, as a Ghostwriter, and as a Photographer for multiple companies. Her aspiration to make a difference has led her to focus her research interests on Sustainable & Resilient Disaster Relief Housing, Participatory Design, and Usage of Public Spaces.