Alumni Stories

From Scotland, Karina Garcés-Mirza (Class of 2002, Ecuador) is leading green infrastructure projects that aim to tackle one of the greatest challenges of our time: climate change. Her background in sustainable development and rural communities now translates into an urban vision committed to building more resilient and sustainable cities…

Abigael Simaloi Pertet (Class of 2016, Kenya), a Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program Alumni, first learned about EARTH University through the Maasai Girls Education Fund, an organization whose mission is to support girls’ education and empowerment and who had sponsored her schooling. In 2012, an EARTH graduate gave a presentation about EARTH, and in that moment Abigael fell in love with the idea of what the institution represented…

Yngrid Espinoza Villaruel (Class of 2011, Peru) was the first recipient of a scholarship funded by EARTH alumni. What began as a unique opportunity became a path marked by effort, innovation, social and environmental impact, and an unwavering commitment to giving back to the world…

David Steiger has long been committed to making his community, and the world, a more equitable place. The 2011 graduate, from Switzerland, was one of the first students from the European continent to attend EARTH University. David is currently working for Robi, an NGO that provides services for vulnerable children in his small yet diverse hometown of Olten, Switzerland…

For the past seven years, EARTH graduate and Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program Alumni, Tariq S. Kelly (Class of 2017, Jamaica) has served as Pineapple and Coconut Crop Manager at JP Tropical Foods, a 190-hectare farm in Jamaica. The company is a leading producer of bananas, pineapples, plantains, and coconuts…

Since childhood, Lucina Martínez Régules (Class of 2004, Mexico) understood that community is not just a place—it’s a way of being in the world. More than two decades after graduating from EARTH, her work continues to advance the autonomy of Indigenous peoples, defend the textile heritage of Chinanteco women, and seek justice within a system that does not treat everyone equally.

From EARTH’s classrooms to the greenhouses of one of the largest horticultural companies in the world, Francis Hernández Montás (Class of 2019, Dominican Republic) has cultivated a journey filled with purpose, learning, and transformation…

Graduate Charbel Assemaani (Class of 2015, Lebanon) loved his EARTH class on Food Processing. Today he is co-founder of Semani Yogurt, a company making high-quality, small batch yogurt on the island of Antigua. Learn about the ways Semani has made a splash in a competitive market and how they plan to continue growing…

When Nokubonga Cherryl Ndima (Class of 2012) was growing up in Durban, South Africa, she dreamed of being a surgeon. But while working with her family in their vegetable garden of carrots, cabbages, and spinach, she began to make a connection: she saw how people often went to the doctor and had health problems because they did not live healthy lifestyles or have access to nutritious food…