Delila Khaled is Founder and Principal of ImpaXus, a Foundry Fellow at MIT’s Center for Prosperity and Entrepreneurship, and a member of the Women of Waste Task Force at the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA). With over 20 years of experience, she strengthens solid waste management and circular economy systems across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Bridging policy and practice, Delila has designed multi-country programs and conducted pioneering research to reduce open burning and ocean plastic pollution, integrate the informal recycling sector, increase private sector investment, and advance women’s economic empowerment. Notably, she designed USAID’s first ocean plastic mitigation program and co-authored the only global gender analysis of the waste sector. As a ‘Safer End of Engineered Life’ Champion for Engineering X at the Royal Academy of Engineering, she pioneered the “women-waste-climate nexus,” advocating for investment in women entrepreneurs and innovators to tackle the global waste crisis. Most recently, her Engineering X-funded study on the gender dimensions of open waste burning was featured by the Climate and Clean Air Coalition and included in UNEP’s latest Air Quality Management Guidance.