Know Your Network is a podcast highlighting the voices and perspectives of young professionals.

This episode is focused on Agricultural Advocacy, which is broadly defined as working to represent the interests, aims and policy needs through grassroots organizing, public relations, and strategic engagement with government representatives.

Our guests today are Billy Hackett and Vanessa García Polanco. Billy and Vanessa met during pandemic-area Zoom meetings collaborating on agricultural advocacy initiatives.

• Billy Hackett is originally from Florida and studied Political Science and International Studies with a Latin America focus. He started his career and passion for agricultural advocacy organizing in solidarity with migrant farm workers. Billy continues to build his career as an advocate for a sustainable food system which creates fair opportunities for farmers and workers, feeds families, and restores vibrancy to rural communities. He now works as a Policy Specialist for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
• Vanessa García Polanco grew up in the Dominican Republic and studied Environmental and Natural Resource Economics before getting a Masters in Community Food and Agricultural Systems. She has held various roles in food, agriculture and sustainability, including a Rhode Island state-appointed position, a research fellow, and now the Director of Government Relations for the National Young Farmers Coalition.

https://knowyournetworkpodcast.com/

Know Your Network is a podcast highlighting the voices and perspectives of young professionals.

This episode is focused on Global Health, an industry that uses a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach to address critical health crises, build health resilience and advance health equity around the world.

Our guests today are Fouad Abu-Hijleh and Lein Soltan. Fouad and Lein met in graduate school as they both were pursuing the same Masters degree, just one year apart.

• Fouad Abu-Hijleh grew up in Jordan in a family of former Palestinian refugees. He started his undergraduate degree on the pre-medicine track, but ultimately made the decision to pursue a career in public health. He holds a Masters in Public Health (MPH), and now works as a Digital Health Specialist with expertise in epidemiology, public health research, and digital health strategy development and implementation across the Middle East and Africa.
• Lein Soltan is a Palestinian American born and raised in North Carolina to Palestinian refugee parents fleeing the Gulf War in Kuwait. She holds a Masters in Public Health with a Global Health concentration and a Bachelors in Biology with a Marine Science concentration from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. Lein spent the first seven years of her career as a marine biologist, managing a sea turtle research lab at UNC after working as an ocean outdoor educator in San Diego. Lein’s transition to global health was inspired by her experience growing up as a first-generation American in a Palestinian refugee family, ingraining a sense of global connectivity and a responsibility to advocate for her people. Lein is passionate about the connections between the environment, animals, and health. She is now the Advocacy Manager at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees USA National Committee (UNRWA USA), where she leads advocacy efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and restore US government funding to UNRWA.

https://knowyournetworkpodcast.com/

Join us on Know Your Network, a podcast highlighting the voices and perspectives of young professionals. On each episode we focus on a different industry area and invite a young professional from our network who works in that industry, and ask them to bring along an industry peer. Together, we dive deep to hear from them their paths to get to where they are today, trends and issues in their line of work, and forecasts about the future.

We are your hosts, Kit and Cal, and we are two best friends navigating our 20s and early careers! We know firsthand that ~networking~ can be a daunting word and it can be difficult to know where to start... Through this podcast we aim to show the strength and brilliance we all have in our networks, and how powerful it can be to make those introductions and find people who inspire, challenge and support you.

https://knowyournetworkpodcast.com/