Derek grew up outside of Philadelphia, where he dedicated most of his time and energy to sports. While a student at Brown University, his horizons had broadened to include the alluring and unanswerable questions posed by philosophy, a discipline to which he committed himself academically and personally. Additionally, Derek grew tastes for the complexity of chess through coaching a middle school chess team, the simplicity and purity of agriculture by way of an internship on an organic farm and the spirit of community through his involvement with the South Side Community Land Trust.

In the midst of his studies, he left his school and his life to wander through the Indian subcontinent for a number of months. Upon return, he found his time increasingly consumed by community service, a pursuit he continued after graduation by serving in the Peace Corps. He was stationed in a small northern village in Nicaragua, where he worked to implement sustainable farming projects and find peace in the small talk of his numerous neighbors. Within months of being stateside, Derek found himself in Lowell working as the Farm Project Coordinator at UTEC. He is thrilled to wake every day to the prospects of working with youth, growing vegetables and building community capacity.