ShapeSTEM LLC
The T in STEM
Technology
Technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry.
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.
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 onhis 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.
Grettel Juárez
Grettel Juárez is an aspiring data scientist currently studying machine learning fundamentals. She works as a Performance Engineer at Accenture with over 12 years of experience serving a wide range of clients in the performance test and diagnostics space. Grettel has experience leading teams in high profile fast paced projects with complex delivery schedules across multiple industries. She is proficient in implementing leading methodologies to certify system readiness as well as ensure test processes and tools align with business and technology goals. Grettel earned her Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from the University of Miami. She begins most days weightlifting in her home garage gym. Her proudest lifts so far are a 125-lb clean and jerk and 215-lb deadlift. Additionally, Grettel enjoys open water swimming, travel, and salsa dancing.
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!)
Manan Shah
In Manan's words himself: "I am currently a Business Program Manager at Microsoft where I work on improving an enterprise customer’s support experience with Microsoft. I took a very roundabout way of getting to where I currently am: Having always been good at Science/Math, I obtained a double degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Florida in 2012. Upon graduation, I started working for Rolls-Royce designing, building and repairing aircraft engines that power some of the biggest airplanes such as the Boeing 777 and the Airbus A380. I started pursuing my MBA at the Tepper School of Business in 2015. While at Tepper, I had the opportunities to intern at SpaceX and Amazon which allowed me to witness firsthand the ongoing 4th Industrial Revolution through IoT, Cloud Computing and Robotics in a manufacturing and a warehouse floor. In my free time, I love to cook Indian food, travel and play board games."
Rishi Gupta
Rishi Gupta is currently the Director of International Technology at Taco Bell. Rishi has spent three years at Taco Bell in various roles. He started leading new technology delivery in restaurants and quickly moved to focusing on leading the fastest and most successful kiosk deployment in the QSR space. He grew his role to have responsibilities for all digital experiences and new customer experiences on premise. Towards the end of 2019 he transitioned to stand up and lead a software engineering organization and has just recently transitioned into his current role of leading international technology. Prior to joining Taco Bell, Rishi spent about nine years at Deloitte Consulting in their Technology Consulting practice. During his time at Deloitte, Rishi worked in various industries (State Government, Automotive, Media, Telecommunications, and Financial Services). His roles included helping his clients stand up support models, various program and project management assessments and refinements, driving the creation of custom software solutions, collaborating closely with the operations teams to create processes for new market offerings, technology road mapping, digital marketing as well as organizational assessments and definitions. Rishi credits his ability to align his past experiences to his new roles (regardless of how different) as a main factor in his success across his broad projects.
Rishi grew up in Southern California where he attended UCLA and holds degrees in Computer Science and Economics. During his tenure at Deloitte, Rishi also took a 2-year break and received his MBA from The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
Shiv Naik
Shiv Naik is currently a Director within the Strategy and New Business Development group at Verizon. He works on all things strategy, i.e., how do we grow the business and create shareholder value. Shiv majored in Biomedical Engineering and graduated from Rutgers School of Engineering in 2008. After Rutgers, he joined Accenture Consulting in their Systems Integration practice. In 2012, Shiv decided to get his MBA from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. After his MBA, he spent three years in Strategy Consulting within Telecom, Media and Tech at Altman Vilandrie & Company. In 2017, Shiv transitioned from consulting to Verizon. At Verizon, he has had several roles including in the Mergers & Acquisition group and the Corporate Strategy Group. Outside of work, Shiv enjoys golf, travel and photography.
Ross Millenacker
Ross Millenacker is a senior product manager at Delphix, where he manages the roadmaps for platform security and end-user experience. Prior to Delphix, Ross worked as a product marketing manager at Autodesk delivering the go-to-market strategy around Fusion Lifecycle, a SaaS PLM solution, and Forge, Autodesk's PaaS service. Long before making a career switch to the business side of industry, Ross worked as a design engineer for a MEMS semiconductor startup building micromachines. Ross received his MBA from the Carnegie Mellon - Tepper School of Business. He also attended UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz for undergrad as part of the 3/2 dual degree program earning a BS in Mechanical Engineering and BA in History.
Amanda Rosemark
Amanda Rosemark is a Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft where she works with customers to design solutions in Azure -- a role that blends her love for technology and business strategy. Amanda has an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering and a background in hardware development. She spent eight years in various roles at IBM before pursuing her MBA from Carnegie Mellon with a focus on Operations and Technology Strategy. In her free-time Amanda can be found spending time with her family, traveling, or doing anything artistic and crafty.
Nicole Woon
Nicole Woon is a program manager at Microsoft working on SharePoint site and publishing features. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with an M.S.E. (mechanical engineering) and two B.S.E.s (bioengineering, entrepreneurial management). Nicole previously worked as a SharePoint support engineer at Microsoft, and has interned in the financial industry at Goldman Sachs, Barclays, and S&P Capital IQ. She enjoys volunteering with the Society of Women Engineers - in fact, she was recruited by Microsoft at a SWE conference - and other diversity programs. Nicole also loves exploring Seattle’s rich culinary scene and will happily discuss food any time (her Instagram as proof).
KC Kern
KC Kern is a Product Manager and Sendbird, overseeing the voice and video solution Sendbird Calls. Prior to Sendbird, KC worked at Samsung in a number of capacities, including internal management consulting, product planning, data analytics, and Chairman’s staff. KC also worked at Friendemic, a social media and reputation management firm focused on the automotive industry, working primarily on data and analytics initiatives. He received an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he focused on economics, information systems, and the principles of entrepreneurship. KC started his career at Accenture, working with large clients on a variety of systems integration and new application development projects. His interests lie at the intersection of technology, business, and international relations. KC lives and works in South Korea, and does much of his work speaking Korean, and also speaks French. He enjoys reading books, playing the piano, and has been active in several basketball leagues.
Vikram Balakrishnan
Vikram Balakrishnan currently works as a Manager of New Product Development at Power Integrations, a power semiconductor company. He joined PI in 2013 after finishing his masters in Electrical Engineering at UCLA. Although his academic focus and prior work experience was in analog/mixed IC design, Vikram joined PI in an IC definition role which, over the last 7 years, has had evolving responsibilities including system engineering, product management, technical sales, and strategic marketing. Over the years Vikram has defined chips with over 1 billion units sold, involving markets from cell phones, appliances, industrial equipment, and electric vehicles; his chips are likely in your house right now. He also took the world's first high voltage GaN technology to production volumes, enabling an ongoing revolution in high density power conversion. Vikram has a BS in Electrical Engineering, also from UCLA. Outside of work he is a soccer fanatic, but he also loves to travel, hike, and cook. He's born and raised in the south Bay Area.
Martin Jung
Martin Jung is a Principal Product Manager at Oracle, leading development of new Big Data cloud services. Prior to Oracle, he was a Senior Product Manager at AWS, where he was responsible for AWS Relational Database Service, and a Senior Manager of Product Management at Teradata, where he oversaw the development of Data Warehouse and Analytic cloud services. Martin holds an MBA degree from Carnegie Mellon, Tepper School of Business, a master’s degree in data science from UC Berkeley, and a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Yonsei University in South Korea. His undergraduate degree is in Computer Science from Handong Global University in South Korea. Prior to working as a Product Manager, he worked as Technical Analyst and Technical Consultant at Oracle where he was responsible for communicating with customers to propose architectures and technical solutions related to Oracle Database products.
Akshay Nemlekar
Akshay Nemlekar currently leads a large-scale transformation program within AT&T. Prior to leading B2B transformation, he led 5G cellular product strategy within the Internet of Things product organization. Akshay began his career at AT&T in the Leadership Development Program, leading a crew of installation and repair technicians in south-east Dallas where he oversaw the 2016 State Fair of Texas, along with several large-scale repair projects in the city. Since then, he has rotated through projects around business operations within DirecTV Latin America and the Product Marketing organization. Prior to AT&T, Akshay’s background is in Technology and Operations. He has led teams to qualify cloud-based financial services software, and solved process problems by digging deeply into the micro-structures of Flash
memory chips that power today’s mobile technology. Akshay holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, and a Masters of Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University. He currently lives in Wylie, TX with his wife Jenny and daughter Kayden. He is often seen lugging his beloved tennis equipment to and from work and is a self-proclaimed toddler-Pictionary master.
Sara Abdelmotalleb
Meet Sara Abdelmottaleb, a Product leader, mom of an active and curious 9 year old girl, and Archer. She is currently a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft driving the customer support experience for Azure strategic customers. Prior to her current role, Sara spent 4 years as a program manager in Windows OS group working on various projects spanning core fundamentals, Developer experience, and Windows Applications. Sara started her career at Microsoft in 2008 as a Software Test Engineer where she drove the quality strategy and execution of Windows OS in Bi-Directional languages (those that flow from right-to-left). She broke through the tech industry through her background in Hebrew language (her major). With her deep passion for learning and growing in new domains, she had a successful career switch into Tech. Sara holds an MBA in Technology Management from Foster Business School at University of Washington. She is a former professional Archer (the bow and arrow sport) competed nationally and internationally representing her home country - Egypt. She has a strong passion for mentoring early-in career professionals to help them achieve their career goals and grow in their professional life.
Samantha Tran
Samantha Tran is a second-year full-time MBA candidate at the Tepper School of Business. She started her career in public accounting and spent three years as an auditor. Samantha then joined Convoy, a startup transforming the trucking industry with technology. Being at a fast-paced and disruptive startup sharply contrasted with her experience in the traditional industry of public accounting, which inspired her to expand her reach outside of accounting and lead her to pursue her MBA to pivot into the strategy side of the tech industry. She spent the past summer interning with Amazon Web Services as a Program Manager and is currently a Strategy and Analytics Associate at an early-stage private aviation startup.
Darrell Eng
Darrell Eng is currently a Staff Analyst for Tesla focused on improving accuracy and automating financial reporting for the automotive vertical. He has previously worked in finance at Apple for four years, internal consultant for the San Francisco 49ers, owned/operated a retail business for ten years, been a programmer for Oracle, and performed cancer research at Georgetown Medical Center. Through all of these roles/companies the common theme that has allowed Darrell to succeed is the ability to break down complex problems into parts, improve processes, and draw insights from large datasets. He holds an MBA from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon (2015) and a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins (1998). His spare time is spent with his wife and two kids, competing in endurance sports (15x Ironman finishing including twice at Ironman Hawaii), and developing his woodworking skills.