Advisory and Board of Directors

Our team of advisors and board members work hard to ensure that Olimpico Learning has the best resources possible to help our hundreds of students improve their academic abilities. With their time and guidance, Olimpico Learning’s programs have expanded and developed to become an impactful opportunity for students, parents, teachers, and volunteers.

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.

Precious Nyarko is President of Me Too Club and Black Student Union at Mountain View High School. She is also a member of AVID and Student Government. In her free time she coaches gymnasts at Gold Star Gymnastics in Sunnyvale. She plans on working in education after college!

Jerry Davis is CIO at NASA Ames Research. His provides leadership and technology solutions in support NASA’s mission to answer mankind’s pressing questions: How did we begin, are we alone and what is our future? Jerry served as Program Executive for NASA’s global Security Operations, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security at Department of Veterans Affairs, Chief Information Security Officer, and Director of Information Assurance for the Department of Education.

Lauren Ortiz is a bilingual elementary educator currently teaching first grade. She has taught with Olimpico for five years and developed curriculum to best support the program's diverse learners. Lauren has her Masters in Urban Education and Public Policy. She enjoys designing curriculum and helping her students achieve academic success.

Marcos Herrera is a graduate of UC Berkeley, Santa Clara University, and SJSU in Engineering. He serves on the Olimpico Learning Board, 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, and part of the Pastoral Care Staff at Regional Medical Center. He is involved with Santa Clara and USA Catholic Charities.

Katherine Healzer is a student at Mountain View High School who is passionate about bioengineering and teaching. She is the founder of Student2Student Tutoring, a free tutoring service where she leads over 50 tutors. She is a science and music TA. She received the FujiFilm Innovation Award and hopes to inspire students in bioengineering, innovation, and a desire to make a difference in the world.

Clarence Hurt is a senior at Purdue University and is currently pursuing a degree in Engineering. He is a member of the Childcare Design Solutions EPICS team, which focuses on designing innovative engineering products for local daycares, and the Purdue Engineering Outreach club, which teaches STEM classes to students from elementary through high school.

Adeleny Farias Cruz is a junior at Mountain View school. Adeleny is a bilingual Lead TA at Olímpico Learning and created weekly Posts for Parents and she is a social media outreach expert and an influencer. Adeleny is active in several school clubs and excited to attend college.

Professor Dariush Rafinejad, PhD has over 30 years of product innovation and senior executive experience in the semiconductor and solar energy industries and was a corporate vice president at Applied Materials and Lam Research Corporations. Dariush taught sustainable product development and manufacturing at Stanford University and Presidio Graduate School where he also served as the provost. Dariush is passionate about lifelong learning and tutors/mentors underserved students.

Sanya Attari, Manager of User Experience Research at Immersion Corporation, leads research activities in a wide variety of verticals involving physical interactions, including smartphones, wearables, AR/VR, gaming, advertising, and automotive interfaces. Her research background includes qualitative and quantitative user experience research for Cisco systems and pervasive computing academic research during her PhD studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Chris Cheng is General Counsel at Nomad Health. He grew up in the South Bay and is an alumni of Columbia University, graduating with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He attended University of California, Hastings College of Law. After working as an engineer, Chris worked in the legal departments of various technology companies. His passion is to mentor students to help them achieve their dreams.

Monica Starr Feldman is a Lead Software Engineering Manager 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.

Cameron Steinback is an educator with a decade of experience in formal and informal learning environments. Currently, a graduate student at Antioch University Seattle, Cameron is working on a Master of Education in Urban Environmental Education. His work includes environmental justice, community engagement, curriculum development, and education for a sustainable future.

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, Kiwanis, 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.

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.

Mike Yaghmai is an Associate General Counsel at Facebook. He has 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.

Wesley Chang is an avid violinist and is the concertmaster of both the MVHS and SJYCO chamber orchestras. He also is vice president of the linguistics club and tutors in the MVHS tutorial center regularly. He also was a volunteer TA/Tutor for Olimpico Learning in the summer.

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 for over twenty years. He is a resident of the City of San Jose and is passionate about education in his community.

Christopher Liu is the president of the Biology Club at Mountain View High School, Communications Director, and an AP Biology tutor for the Student2Student Tutoring, a free service online. He also volunteers for his local soup kitchen and the team leader of his Church, where he provides services to underserved communities. He aspires to pursue a career in medicine.

Elena Kamas is a junior at Stanford University studying product design. Currently a product design intern at the firm Designs By White, Elena is a maker at heart - she loves sewing, 3D printing, machining, and finding the intersections between design and engineering. With Olimpico, she hopes to create hands-on STEAM curriculum accessible to all students worldwide.

Nicholas Verzic is a senior at Khan Lab School with a passion for robotics and artificial intelligence. He interns at NASA Ames working on Project PHALANX. Currently, he leads his school's COVID-19 task force, where they 3D print sanitary door handles. He co-founded ChildrenGiving.org and partnered with Microsoft in order to design and deliver weekly free virtual programming workshops.

Jun Xie is a senior software engineer at Google. 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 technology.

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.

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.

Sharren Cayetano is a 3rd grade teacher at Kennedy and has taught STEM. 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.

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 taught summer school and provided support to Beginning Teacher Support induction program.

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.

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.

Francesca Barrientos is a senior UX designer and strategist at Cisco and previously worked at NASA. 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 good in the world and bring out the creativity in teams.

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.

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.

Cassie Lee is a college student pursuing Biological Sciences and STEM fields. Cassie is an advisor to several educational organization including Olimpico Learning and the Santa Clara County Office of Education's Walden West outdoor programs.

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