The E in STEM

Engineering

Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings.

Dallas Fox

Meet Dallas Fox, a Hydrogen Refueling Interface and Station Infrastructure Engineer at Toyota Motor North America, R&D. Dallas’ obsession with all things automotive is only eclipsed by his passion for clean energy, the environment, and nature. After cutting his teeth in the hydrogen fuel cell industry at an R&D and testing agency in Long Beach, California, Dallas soon realized that the alternative energy, electrified vehicle, and renewable hydrogen industry was where his strengths as an engineer would be best put to positive use. A foray into the landfill-gas-to-energy industry further honed Dallas’ skillset and broad knowledge base in the field of gas transmission, processing, thermodynamics, and related standards. Finally, as Toyota’s dedicated engineer responsible for refueling the 100% emissions-free Mirai for both the current and next generation, Dallas has finally put the rubber to the road with both of his passions: automotive and alternative energy. It is here that Dallas is able to leverage his acute attention to detail in an industry that is made or broken by the success or failure of even the smallest oversight. Dallas’ background as a Chemical Engineer with a B.S. degree from UCLA put him in a unique position in the automotive arena. Able to bridge the gap between research and results, Dallas proves to be an invaluable asset to Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cell vehicle program.

Engineering: About

Nina Patel

Nina Patel is currently a Customer Success Manager at Sounding Board. Prior to her current role, she spent three
and a half years as a Consultant at ZS Associates. Nina holds an MBA degree from Carnegie Mellon, Tepper School of Business where she was a Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellow. Her undergrad degree is in Bioengineering from the University of the Pacific. Between earning her undergraduate and graduate degrees, Nina worked as an Engineer at Applied Biosystems for seven years. Through working as an engineer, she realized her skills excelled in communicating and bringing people together. It was in her experience at Applied Biosystems that she learned she was more interested in being customer facing than working in a lab. As a result, Nina decided to pursue business school to get the background of business to combine it with her technical skills. She is currently a Co-Lead of the Culture First SF Chapter. Nina holds certifications in Design Thinking and is a Gallup Certified Leadership Coach. She is an amazing bowler and has participated in a bowling league for eight years!

Ander Dobo

Ander Dobo is a Senior Product Manager at Amazon leading development of new payment experiences to enable access to ecommerce by customers globally. Prior to that Ander led launches of some of Amazon's cross-border online shopping experiences. He has always been a curious learner and developed an early passion for solving complex problems with technology. This organically led to a career leading multifunctional and multi-cultural teams to develop and deliver tech-driven solutions to customers. He obtained a BBA in Management with a Minor in Computer Science from the University of Botswana, where he grew up. After graduating, Ander joined Dimension Data Botswana to deliver technology solutions to businesses, Government and organizations, first as a Senior Account Manager then Projects Manager. Ander then joined Orange Botswana, where he went on to lead the business unit that oversaw the fixed ISP business, custom business solutions, corporate sales, as well as roaming and interconnect teams. He went on to obtain his MBA from Hult International Business School in San Francisco, where he was Co-President of the Hult Venture Group, before joining Amazon. Ander is a traveler, backpacker, fitness enthusiast and “lifelong autodidact with many interests".

Olivia Zhu

Olivia Zhu is currently a Senior Technical Program Manager at Amazon, where she works on solving business problems using AI on the Economic Technology team. She also manages the TPM team for her org. Olivia first began to consider a career in tech as a junior at Duke University, where she was studying Biophysics; that summer, she went on to become a software engineering intern at Google. While she learned a lot about the tech industry during her internship, she became interested in getting a higher-level view through program management, and she started work as a PM at Microsoft after graduation. Soon after, she began working at Microsoft Research on the Sales AI team, building and deploying novel machine learning models to help sales teams at Microsoft. It was through her experience on that team that she developed a passion for solving business problems through AI and machine learning. She worked briefly at Pinterest as an engineer, and has now continued her work in envisioning and executing new reinforcement learning solutions as a TPM at Amazon. Her team works on building models to influence business strategy across a wide range of areas on Amazon's website including pricing, search, and ads, all while maintaining cutting edge ML at its core.

Kunal Kothari

Kunal Kothari is a Product Manager at percipient.ai, an artificial intelligence startup building products focused on the national security community and a tech lead at the Defending Digital Democracy Project. He is passionate about emerging technologies and the intersection of tech and policy. Kunal previously helped design products to combat misinformation, and wrote whitepapers on election system security as well as autonomous vehicle technology while obtaining a Masters in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Before that, he spent two years applying emerging tech to social issues and funding social innovation at Google.org. Kunal previously held roles in product, systems integration, sales engineering, and enterprise cybersecurity at Kiva.org, Google, and Citrix Systems. He earned his BS in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from UCLA in 2008. In his free time, Kunal enjoys traveling, hiking, cooking, and playing soccer.

Grace Lefebure Alderks

Grace Lefebure Alderks is currently a Group Leader at Belcan who leads the Academic to Industry program, a co-op program for engineering college students. She develops strategic program framework and provides technical and professional development guidance for program participants. Previously, she worked as a stress analysis engineer at Boeing across various teams from 2012 to 2018. Grace is actively involved with the Society of Women Engineers and served as President and Vice President on the SWE-Pacific Northwest executive council from 2015-2018. Her hobbies include cycling, yoga, and crafts.

Shalindra Fernando

Shalindra Fernando is currently a Software Development Manager at Amazon Music. His team focuses on big data solutions and integrations with Music's partners such as music labels, publishers, charts, and lyrics providers. Prior to his role at Amazon, he spent nine years at Northrop Grumman where he held multiple positions and roles as a Senior Software Engineer, Systems Engineer, R&D Business Lead, Proposal Manager, and Corporate Auditor. Shalindra graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering and a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Southern California. He has always held a fascination with technology since he was a young kid playing on his first PC. Shalindra holds certifications as a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Project Management Professional (PMP). In his spare time, he loves to play basketball (Go Lakers!), photography, learning magic, and spending time with his family including chasing his 10-month old around the house.

Stas Neyman

Stas Neyman is a Director of Product Marketing at CyberArk, where he is responsible for defining the product marketing strategy and bringing new products and services to market for the Workforce Identity portfolio. He transitioned over to CyberArk as part of the acquisition of Idaptive, where he oversaw the Product Marketing function for the entire product portfolio. Prior to Idaptive, Stas managed product marketing programs at Centrify, Amazon Web Services, and HP. Earlier in his career, Stas led Riverbed’s IT Security and Compliance function and helped evaluate the integrity, availability, and security of internal controls for over 30 clients as a Senior Technology Risk Consultant at Protiviti, Inc. Stas received his MBA from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University and graduated with Distinguished Leadership and Distinguished Service. He also attended the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he received his Bachelor’s degree in Business Economics with an emphasis on Accounting and Technology Management.

Jon Chong

In Jon's own words: I was born and raised in LA and still have an irrational love for that city and all the diversity it stands for (apologies in advance for when you get me started on LA vs SF debates - I will stan LA forever). Currently, I work as a Global Strategic Partner Manager for Google, in the mobile games space - so yes, I do get to play games at work for a living but no, it isn't the endless fun my 10 year old self imagined it would be. Previously, I’ve worked on the media side with a stint at NBCUniversal working on the G4, E!, and Style networks in Post Production and, most recently, at Intel Sports doing everything from Product Management to helping manage Ecosystem and Asia partnerships. When not working or spending time with family/friends, you’ll find me trying to help with Asian-American representation causes, driving Allyship with unrepresented groups, reading up on election/sporting prediction models, planning out my next travel adventure, watching fighting game tournament videos, and staying active (as much as we can under lockdown at least!)