Ayaka Yamashita is a highly skilled and accomplished design researcher and producer from Japan. With training and experience in the fields of design and art, environmental science, and international development, she is an expert in facilitating transdisciplinary dialogue and multi-actor collaboration to address complex global risks. Since 2012, Ayaka has been the leader of various creative projects that embrace bamboo music and crafts, and indigenous wisdom through her firm EDAYA. Her ideas are often a blend of diverse perspectives, theoretically grounded in design anthropology and landscape ecology, and practically developed through her experiences as a development consultant. Ayaka is also a lecturer at the University of Nagano, and has begun her doctoral program at Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2022. She holds a Bachelor of Agriculture (International Sustainable Agriculture Development) and a Master of Health Sciences (Human Ecology) from the University of Tokyo, and a Master's in Design Studies ( Risk and Resilience) from Harvard Graduate School of Design as a Fulbright scholar.