Advisory and Board of Directors

Josephina Fernandez is Director of Infrastructure Security in Cisco Global Infrastructure. She is an alumni of UCLA in Computer Science and Engineering. She has fifteen years experience in Technology and Information Services. Her passion is in learning languages and education for minorities and woman in engineering.​

Dr. Harvey Cohen, MD, PhD is Professor at Stanford University Medical Center, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, Dept. of Pediatrics. His research interests extend from hypothesis-driven studies in biochemistry and cell biology to discovery-driven interests in proteomics and systems biology to clinical treatment.

Shara Hegde founded Cornerstone Academy with the support of the Building Excellent Schools Fellowship. Cornerstone Academy has been amongst the highest performing schools in the City of San Jose and was named a California Distinguished School in 2014.

Nadia Ghaffari is a student at UC Berkeley. Nadia is the founder of TeenzTalk, which breaks down the stigma around mental health through open conversation and storytelling. She spearheaded TeenzTalk's first-annual Teen Wellness Conference at Microsoft Silicon Valley in Sep. 2017, bringing together 220 youth from 88 schools and 15 counties in California.

Jerry Davis is CIO at NASA Ames Research. Jerry’s primary mission is to provide thought leadership and technology solutions in support of NASA’s mission to answer mankind’s most pressing questions: How did we begin, are we alone and what is our future? In addition to his CIO role, Jerry also serves as the Program Executive for NASA’s global Security Operations Center. Previously, Jerry held the position as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for NASA and the Director of Information Assurance for the Department of Education.

Marcos Herrera has graduate degrees from UC Berkeley and Santa Clara University and Bachelor’s degree from San Jose State all in Engineering. Marcos participates in nonprofit boards and volunteers. In addition to serving on the Olimpico Learning Executive Board, he serves on the Boards for Alum Rock Counseling Center, Amigos de Guadalupe, Respite and Research for Alzheimer's Disease, Mabel B. Wright Education Fund, José Valdés Math Institute, MESA, Companions in Ignatian Service and Spirituality as well as part of the Pastoral Care Staff at Regional Medical Center. He is heavily involved with Catholic Charities of Santa Clara and USA.

Susan Germeraad, PhD, has had a long standing career as a science educator. In her first career, she was a Research Scientist and University Professor. For the past fifteen years, she has taught Middle School science and served as an advisor to the CA Dept. of Education on STEM testing materials. She is an advocate of educational leadership for teachers.

Susan Kim attended Title I schools, and then became a teacher serving the same population. She has taught for twenty years. She has an Education degree with Multi Subject Credential with Cross Cultural Education Emphasis, ESL, LDS, CLAD and two single subject in English and History. She loves to design ELA curriculum with a focus on students’ life-long success.

Doris Watson is currently an instructional technology specialist and has taught for twenty years in 3rd-5th grades. She has an Education degree with emphasis in Instructional Design and Technology and holds both a Multiple Subject BCLAD and a single subject credential in ICT.

Sharren Cayetano is a 3rd grade teacher at Kennedy and has taught STEM for twelve years. She has been a science instructor with Girl Scouts and currently the technology support at her school site. She has a Multiple Subject Credential from SJSU. She provides students with the opportunity to experience inquiry-based hands on projects while learning important science concepts. She is lead teacher implementing the NGSS.

Carolina Rodriguez is a 6th grade science teacher that has taught engineering courses and is the coordinator of the STEM program at DCP Alum Rock Middle School. She is excited to work with Olimpico Learning's campers in order to cultivate creativity and curiosity in the sciences!

Gil Gallardo is an alumni of the Alum Rock School District, the East Side Union High School District, Santa Clara University, SJSU, and UC Davis School of Law. He has served as a senior legal advisor, business leader and legal executive in the Silicon Valley for over twenty years. He is a resident of the City of San Jose and is passionate about education in his community.

Malia Schoch-Rodriguez is a Strategic Planning Manager at Intel. She is an alumni of MIT Sloan School of Management and has graduate degrees in Business Operations and Naval Architecture. Her passion is to be a role model for young women and minorities and inspire young leaders toward careers in technology.

Francesca Barrientos, PhD, is a senior UX designer and strategist at Cisco and previously worked at NASA and Xerox PARC. She is a product of the California public school system. She earned her PhD in computer science at UC Berkeley and has a mechanical engineering degree from Cornell University. She tries to do some good in the world and bring out the creativity in teams.

Socorro Anaya is a Corporate Real Estate Program Manager at Adobe. She has over twenty years experience working in Technology industry including at Adobe, Apple and Exodus. She educates parents about the innovative public school systems in the Silicon Valley. Her passion is to be an advocate for the San Jose community and parents.

Hung Le has been an engineering and product technology leader in circuit chip design. He is an alumni of MIT in Electrical Engineering with Specialization in Device Physics. He is a longtime volunteer and active in his community. His passion is to focus on eliminating poverty and educational excellence.

Patty Buchanan is a former English Learner and Spanish teacher. She has a Bilingual Multiple Subject Credential and has taught in bilingual immersion schools. She is currently serving her second term as a Trustee in a Bay Area school district and is an ESL teacher for the Community Committee for International Students at Stanford University.

Nancy Rafati is the founder of Olimpico Learning. She is a Teaching Fellow at EnCorps STEM Teachers Program. She has served on the board at Camp Galileo, AYSO, Music boosters, and other educational foundations for the past ten years. Her vision is to ensure access for underserved K-5th graders to enrichment learning essential for them to compete, contribute, and enjoy meaningful and productive lives.

Nandini Ramani is vice president of engineering at Twitter. She is a Silicon Valley leader in hardware and software design, Java, UX, and open source. Her passion is to excite young girls and minorities to explore coding and computer science and to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

June Xie is a senior software engineer at Oracle. Her technical expertise are enterprise infrastructure software development, cloud computing, storage virtualization and object-oriented software design and programming. She has graduate degrees in Computer Science and Biostatistics. Her passion is to inspire girls to pursue careers in science and technology.

Mike Yaghmai is an Associate General Counsel at Facebook. He has overseen and advised the leadership on navigating IP and product legal matters. He is a Bay Area native and an alumni of San Jose State University. He attended DePaul University College of Law. Mike has been a trusted counsel to high tech companies. His passion is improving access to outstanding education for all students.

Monica Starr Feldman is a Lead Software Engineer at Apple. She is passionate about working with people and code to turn great ideas into great products. By trade, her focus is on software and web development, and when she's not "at work", she enjoys creating things (with some combination of yarn, thread, fabric, metal, leather, wood, paint, code, food, etc), learning (specifically the French language), meeting new people, and trying new things.

​Jeannice Fairrer Samani, PhD, MBA is an operational leader at Anita Borg Institute, Grace Hopper celebrating woman in computing. She is an entrepreneur, professor at Menlo College and drives initiatives in long-term operational excellence and sustainability. Her focus is to bridge Silicon Valley with Africa and the Middle East and expose young minds to global solutions.

Elizabeth Alvarez is Director of Franklin McKinley Children's Initiative, Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County. She is an alumni of San Jose State University and a long-term Community Organizer with PACT. Her passion is to focus on narrowing the education and opportunity gap in Silicon Valley.

Tam Nguyen was elected to the San Jose City council in November of 2014. Prior to his election, he was an attorney. He left the engineering world to study law so he can represent the Vietnamese-American community after learning from his MBA research assignment that his community needed help in legal representation. His goals are to keep neighborhoods clean and safe so families can prosper at City of San Jose.

Cynthia Miller has a MBA from Stanford University and holds Computer Science and Economics degrees from Dartmouth College. Her work has focused on product marketing and strategic planning. She volunteers in K-8th helping with math and science. She is interested in technology as a way to improve and better differentiate learning. She is a member of a bay area school board and volunteers with the American Association of University Women's Tech Trek STEM summer camp for middle school girls.

Tali Weissberger has worked in the technology and design field and co-founded the photo-editing website Citrify. Tali has developed tutorial for Rhino CAD and other 3D printing technology via her learning website DrawingPost.com. Tali is working with Olimpico as the 3D Printing Designer and she is currently pursuing her teaching credential in Information Communications and Technology and looks forward to becoming a credentialed teacher.

Natalie Gallagher is an Intervention Resource Teacher and collaborates on reading and writing for K-5th. She taught 4th and 5th grades at Castro Elementary School. She is serving on the leadership team that is closing the Achievement Gap with Latino students and implementing turnaround model for School Education Excellence Honor Roll. She is passionate about designing curriculum for ELA. She thought summer school and provided support to Beginning Teacher Support induction program.

Nicole Data is a 2nd grade teacher at Mariano Castro Elementary, where the focus is on closing the Achievement Gap for minority students and those living in poverty. Nicole is passionate about serving students and implementing curriculum that is both engaging and will prepare students for the future. She has a strong background in the Arts. She earned her BA in Child and Adolescent Development at San Jose State University and earned her MA in Education from UC Santa Cruz.

Linda Yung is a kindergarten teacher at Theuerkauf Elementary School. She celebrates the diversity of her students and sees every challenge as an opportunity for growth for her students. Linda helped start a bilingual preschool called Living Stones Academy. She developed early childhood curriculum that fostered creative learning and implemented parenting workshops and family events to engage parents. Her experience has broadened her perspective of preparing her students for a future that embraces global education.

​Masoud Foudeh is a UC Davis alumni in Computer and Electrical Engineering and worked at Microsoft managing silicon development programs for XBOX. He is on a transition path to the non-profit sector and has been working voluntarily teaching technology to middle school children, and at an environmental company doing research and program development on renewable energy. He is pursuing an MBA in sustainability management at Presidio Graduate School and has a passion for environmental sustainability.

Kelsey Fargas is a Technical Program Manager Intern at Facebook. She is student at USC studying Applied and Computational Mathematics. She serves on The Society of Women Engineers and promotes Computer Science among young women. Her passion is to mentor students to explore the STEM fields. ​

Feixing Tuang is a senior UX Designer at Cisco. She is passionate about discovering delightful practical solutions to challenging problems using Technology. She actively engages in a few socially-driven projects as lead designer, helping to identify and shape user experience. She also serves in hospital lobbies as a pianist.