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Who we are:

We are scientists and engineers. We are real people with real experience in real research. And we are brought together every year with a common passion for STEM and a common goal of bringing out the best for the high school students we mentor. 

Leadership

Leadership & Administration

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David Linnevers

Director of Operations

Over two decades of experience in working in higher education administration and admissions at institutions such as UCLA Medical School. 

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Edward Njoo

Director of Research & Development

Experienced organic chemist, educator, scientist, and Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University. Co-author on multiple peer-reviewed papers in biochemistry, chemical biology, and organic synthesis. 

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Ankur Gupta

Director of Educational Outreach

Graduate of U.C. Berkeley, current M.D. candidate at Louisville. Experienced molecular and cell biologist passionate about translational science and biomedical education.

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Phil Mui

Board Member

Phil Mui, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President of Technology in Salesforce, and of the Office of the CTO.  He received his S.B., M.Eng., and Ph.D. from MIT, and an M.Phil as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford.

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Jimmy Qian

Director of Admissions

Current M.D. candidate at Stanford Medical School, several years of research experience in theoretical systems biology. Holds an M.S. in Chemistry, B.A. in Biophysics from the University of Pennsylvania. 

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Robert Downing

Chair of CS & Engineering

Four decades of experience in the high-tech and data systems industry (3COM, IBM, etc.) and as a professor and instructor at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. 

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Avery Kruger

Director of Communications

Ecologist and marine wildlife scientist with extensive research experience in ecology, evolution, and marine biology. Avery has previously been editor in chief of our student journal.

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Sahar Jahanikia

Chair, Biological & Life Sciences

Experienced neuroimaging researcher and data analyst with knowledge in Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroimaging, Behavioral Sciences, Design Thinking, and Bioinformatics.

OCF Board of Directors

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Joni Jen

Board President

Educator and founder of Olive Children Foundation with over a decade of experience in education and in community service in the Fremont and greater East Bay Area.

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Sara Mithra

Board Member

Sara completed her undergraduate studies at UC Santa Cruz and a Master's degree at UC Berkeley in literature and creative writing.

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Tammy Long

Board Member

Tammy holds a Master's of Education from CSU East Bay and a Master's in Christian Formation from North Park Seminary. 

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Edward Njoo

Board Member

Experienced organic chemist, educator, scientist, and Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University. Co-author on multiple peer-reviewed papers in biological and organic chemistry.

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Research Investigators

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Robert Downing

Data Science, Machine Learning, Applied Engineering, & Astrophysics

Four decades of experience in the high-tech and data systems industry (3COM, IBM, etc.) and as a professor and instructor at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. 

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Sahar Jahanikia

Neuroimaging, Bioinformatics

Experienced neuroimaging researcher and data analyst with knowledge in Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroimaging, Behavioral Sciences, Design Thinking, and Bioinformatics. Extensive experience in designing, collecting, and analyzing state of art neuroimaging studies using all forms of modality (fMRI, NIRS, EEG, simultaneous EEG-fMRI). Co-author of  multiple neuroimaging research papers.

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Clinton Cunha

Bioinformatics

Clinton has a Masters in Bioinformatics (University of Guelph) and a Masters of Science in Cellular and Molecular Medicine (University of Ottawa). He also has an Honors Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences (Carnegie Mellon University). His main areas of focus include Bioinformatics, Data Analysis, Python programming, Biology, Science, Cancer Research and ESL. Professionally, Clinton is a qualified Bioinformatician/Biologist/Instructor. 

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Larry McMahan

Quantum Physics

Dr. McMahan holds an M.S. and Ph.D. from Rice, and has four decades of experience in industry (Hewlett-Packard) and in academia as a professor. 

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Martin Kushnerov

Computational & Structural Biophysics

Martin received his MSc in Medical Genetics and Genomics at University of Glasgow and BS in Human Biology at UC San Diego. His main area of focus is in genetic and epigenetic regulation in biological systems, with previous experience studying viral genetics and genomics. His research group at ASDRP works on the interface of data-based genomics and genetics.

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Neelima Sangeneni

Physical & Electrochemistry

Dr. Sangeneni holds a PhD in nanomaterial chemistry, and has been involved in several successful startups in the Bay Area. The Sangeneni Lab at ASDRP works on the interface of physical chemistry & nanomaterials engineering.

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Pragati Dharmale

Electrical Engineering

Prof. Pragati Dharmale has 14 years of academia / industry research experience and received her M. Eng in Digital electronics and M.S. in computer science from Southern New Hampshire University, NH.  Her research interest includes application of EEG analysis with machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as STEM based applications designed for Raspberry PI with Python programming.

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Akira Yamamoto

Biomaterials Engineering

Akira received his M.Sc. from Shinsyu University in Materials Engineering and has served as the Director of Materials Science & Engineering at BioPharmX prior to coming to ASDRP. The Yamamoto group at ASDRP performs research in biomaterials engineering.

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Suresh Subramaniam

Data Science 

Seasoned executive and data scientist with experience in managing large operations and applying data science to solve business problems.

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Joseph Laurienzo

Applied Mathematics

Joseph holds an M.S. in applied physics from Case Western University, and is an ambitious scientist interested in using mathematical models to understand physical and biological phenomena.

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Bharat Poudyal

Biotechnology & Agronomy

Dr. Poudyal, a native of Nepal, received his PhD in Agronomy from the University of Hebei and MS degree from the University of Edinburgh. He is interested in the convergence of plant cell culture, community-based agriculture, and science-informed plant biology that enables new developments in human health. 

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Zane Chen

Chemistry

Dr. Chen completed his PhD in Biochemistry at Oregon Health Sciences University with a thesis: Regulation of carnitine palmitoyltransferase I gene expression in vivo. He received his MD from Qingdao Medical College. He has done his Post-Doc at Oregon Health Sciences University.

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Vasudha Salgotra

Biology & Chemistry

Vasudha Salgotra is a research professional with a background in analytical chemistry and pharmacy. She has years of experience in supporting preclinical activities in drug development and delivery for small and large biologics. Her professional journey includes designing and validating plate-based immunoassays (ELISAs) and other bioanalytical techniques.

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Dr. John Wang

Principal Scientist; Molecular & Cell Biology

Dr. John Wang received his PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from Indiana University, and following that was a postdoctoral reserach fellow at Stanford Medical School in Oncology. Following this, Dr. Wang has been a leader in modern cancer immunotherapy, and has served as the chief scientific officer of a leading biotech company. Dr. Wang and his colleagues have previously placed multiple candidates, including most recently an interleukin-15 construct, into human clinical trials with the FDA. 

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Edward Njoo

Organic & Medicinal Chemistry

Experienced organic chemist, educator, scientist, Stanford PhD chemist. Co-author on multiple peer-reviewed papers in biochemistry, chemical biology, and organic synthesis. 

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Phil Mui

Computer Science

Phil Mui, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President of Technology in Salesforce, and of the Office of the CTO.  He received his S.B., M.Eng., and Ph.D. from MIT, and an M.Phil as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford.

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Omar Amer

Civil Engineering

Dr. Amer holds a PhD in civil engineering from Clemson University and is interested in developing next-generation green materials for carbon-sequestration.

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Harman Brah

Computational & Structural Biophysics

Experienced biochemist at UCSD Medicine; former scientist at UCSF who specializes in computational biochemistry & drug discovery. Oversees admissions process.

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Gayathri Renganathan

Medicinal Biochemistry

Gayathri obtained her M.Pharm at Anna University and has served as a lecturer in Inorganic & Analytical Chemistry, and in her area of expertise, medicinal biochemistry.

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Connor Adams

Ocean Science

Connor is a graduate of U.C. Santa Cruz with an M.S. in ocean science and a B.S. in environmental science. His research experience includes fisheries management of Belize’s spiny lobster (Panulirus argus), and aggression/fecundity in mangrove rivulus fish (Kryptolebias marmoratus). 

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Raymond Chen

Analytical Chemistry

Raymond is a former scientist at Thermo Scientific and at Twist Biosciences. The Chen lab at ASDRP uses high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to determine stability of pharmaceutical entities.

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Tracy Zhang

Cancer Biology & Oncology

Dr. Zhang holds a PhD in biomedical sciences and has coauthored over twenty publications in precision oncology and molecular cancer biology.

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Michael Amadi

Biotechnology & Synthetic Biology

Former UCSF scientist and founder of Jikoro Sciences, Michael is a scientist who is interested in the interface of biotechnology and synthetic biology. The Amadi lab at ASDRP works on projects related to genomics, metabolomics, and biotechnology/bioengineering.

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Prabhjeet Kaur

Microbiology & Genetics

Prof. Prabhjeet Kaur graduated from CSU Bakersfield with an MS in Microbiology and a BS in Biology with an emphasis in Microbiology. She has been a full-time Microbiology Instructor at COS Visalia. She have been teaching college level biology courses for the last 5 years, and is currently an adjunct Anatomy Professor at EVC San Jose. Her thesis research included work on Coccidioides immitis, the causative agent of valley fever in the Northwestern Mojave Desert, and the Kaur lab here at ASDRP is interested in a variety of ecological-microbiological scientific questions.

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Viktoriia Liu

Chemistry

Experienced computational chemist with knowledge in ML/computer vision, bioinformatics, robotics, and structural biology. She received her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from UC Riverside.

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Joey Pazzi

Chemistry

Joey's current research interests include economical point of care diagnostics, the development of synthetic cells, and facilitating membrane fusion reactions with cells

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Chris DeGrendele

Applied Mathematics & Advanced Supercomputing/ Computational Aerosciences

Chris DeGrendele is a computation scientist who is working on his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at the University of California Santa Cruz. He is currently a researcher at NASA Ames Research Center in the Advanced Supercomputing Division - Computational Aerosciences Branch.

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Dr. Valens Nteziyaremye

Principal Scientist; Engineering

Dr. Valens Nteziyaremye was born in Kigali, Rwanda. In 2008 he was selected among the top students in science in Rwanda and received the Rwandan Presidential scholarship to study at the University of Arkansas at Little, USA in Systems Engineering Mechanical from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

 

He received his PhD and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida where he worked on the interface of surface engineering for biomedical devices. 

He has worked for Intel, Tokyo Electron (TEL) and Lam Research Corporation.

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Staff & Facility Managers

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Sophia Linnevers

Website and Communications Manager

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Tuyen Tran

Lab Staff

Former Faculty Advisors

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Kavya Tallapaka

Cancer Biology

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Nardeen Mikhail

Microbiology

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Karishma Johnson

Data Science and Ecology

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Asmita Dani

Electrical Engineering, RF Physics

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Nicholas Papano

Computer Science and Engineering

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Avery Kruger

Ecology and Evolution

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Scott Clark

Organic Chemistry

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Carly Truong

Molecular Neuroscience 

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Ankur Gupta

Molecular and Cell Biology

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Calvin Leung

Quantum Mechanics and Physics

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Sam Fendell

Machine Learning, Software

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