Staff

Shawna Young is the executive director of the Office of Engineering Outreach Programs (OEOP) at MIT. In the past, Shawna has served as an instructor for the MITES Genomics Course and a counselor for the SEED Academy Life Mastery course. Shawna also served as the administrator for the Diversity Initiative and Educational Outreach Program at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Before joining the Broad, Shawna worked at the Educational Development Center as an online curriculum developer/facilitator and she also taught science for several years in North Carolina. Shawna received a BS in Chemistry from Howard University and MAT in Science Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill .Shawna has a great deal of experience working with students and helping them prepare for college and careers in science.

Julian S. Green

Manager of Community Outreach Programs

jsgreen@mit.edu

Julian is the Manager of for Community Outreach Programs in the Office of Engineering Outreach Programs (OEOP) in the School of Engineering at MIT where she focuses on strengthening OEOP's relationships with other community-based organizations She also manages the Saturday Engineering & Enrichment Discovery (SEED) Academy and the Confronting Obstacles and Realizing Excellence (CORE) Program. She earned her B.A from Brandeis University & Masters degree from Columbia University. Before coming to MIT, her passionate interest in the development of communities of color on the domestic and international level has led her to volunteerism with non-profit organizations focused on educational and leadership development for students and peacebuilding initiatives for conflict zones.

Sandra Tenorio

Administrative Assistant

stenorio@mit.edu

Sandra (Sandy) Tenorio joined the Office of Engineering Special Programs in November 2002 from the Headquarters of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science where, among her countless other administrative responsibilities, she coordinated the successful Lattice 2002 Conference. Sandy is no stranger to undergraduate and pre-college education. Before joining LNS, she spent four years with the Department of Athletics with responsibility for the Intramural Sports Program and the MIT Summer Day Camp. Also, Sandy speaks Spanish, and has a reputation for her warmth, efficiency, and skill.

Brenda Pérez Alvarado

SEED Academy Student Coordinator

brendapa@mit.edu

Brenda is a senior at MIT studying Materials Science & Engineering. She is originally from Riverside, CA but moved to Sunnyside, WA at age 16. She is the eldest of four and is very proud of her Mexican heritage. While at MIT she has been involved with numerous organizations: MAES (Society of Latino Engineers and Scientists), Mujeres Latinas, LUChA (La Union Chicana Por Aztlan) and others. Apart from being the SEED Academy Student Coordinator she is also one of the Program Assistants at the MIT Women’s and Gender Studies Office. Brenda was a member of the MITES Class of 2006 and was a TA for the MITES Class of 2008 and 2009.

Instructional Staff

9th Grade Mechanical Engineering

Marc M. Graham, Ph.D.

Instructor

polo@mit.edu

http://www.jotls.com

Originally from East Cleveland, Ohio, Marc specializes in product design, machine design, and engineering design process. He has been a SEED Academy instructor since 2004. Marc brings experience from both the classroom and industry to SEED Academy. He has served as an instructor for the MITES program and several undergraduate courses and programs at MIT, including Project Interphase, The Second Summer Program, Design and Manufacturing I, Introduction to Technical Communication, Pathways to Peace, NASA RISE, and Poetry in Progress (a writing course started by Marc).

In addition, Marc has worked as a Mechanical Design Engineer for Corning, a Thermal Test Engineer for General Motors, a Mechanical Engineer for TRW, a co-founder of Goso, LLC, an Associate Principal at TIAX, LLC, and as the Senior Design Engineer for Stryker Development. Also, he has written a book, Journey of the Lost Souls, and produced an accompanying audio CD. Marc received his B.S., S.M., and Ph.D. from MIT in Mechanical Engineering.

Lisette Lopez

Teaching Assistant

Lisette Lopez is currently a junior in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. She is originally from the warm and sunny Los Angeles, California. Lisette was a member of the MITES Class of 2007 and has also been a TA for the MITES Class of 2010. She was a TA for Civil Engineering in SEED Academy last semester and is excited to TA Mechanical Engineering this semester.

10th Grade Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering

Allison “Allie” Anderson

Co-Instructor

Allie is from a small town in Missouri. She went to undergrad at the University of Southern California and majored in Astronautical Engineering. She is currently working on two Masters degrees from MIT, one in Astronautical Engineering and another in Technology and Policy. She plans on earning her PhD in Astronautical Engineering. Her dream job is to be an Astronaut, but would also like to be a professor or work for NASA. In her spare time she likes to cook, hike, and fly kites.

Jonathan Battat

Instructor

Jonathan Battat grew up outside Boston. He received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University and a Master's of Science in Space Management from the International Space University. He is currently pursuing a master's/PhD in aero/astro at MIT. Jonathan is interested in the future of human spaceflight. He has worked on different aspects of this topic at a private space company, under the guidance of former astronaut Dr. Buzz Aldrin, and continues now in his current graduate research.

Carlos Ruvalcaba

Teaching Assistant

Carlos Ruvalcaba is from Pomona, California, which is about 45 minutes east from Los Angeles. He is currently a senior undergraduate student in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at MIT. He enjoys aircraft engineering and enjoys studying how air behaves in everyday life. He likes to play soccer and basketball. He also enjoys cooking, especially Mexican food since it is so hard to get real Mexican food in Boston.

11th Grade Robotics

John Pope

Instructor

johnp@mit.edu

John is a graduate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also attended MIT for his undergraduate education. His current work deals with using artificial intelligence to create educational systems for science and math.

Megan Cherry

Teaching Assistant

Megan Cherry is a sophomore at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is pursuing a B.S. in Mathematics and Chemistry minor. After graduating in 2013, she plans to defer enrollment to Medical School in order to join the Peace Corp. As this year’s Robotics teaching assistant, she looks forward to helping students create interesting and innovative technology.

12th Grade Synthetic Biology — Biological Engineering

Noah Davidson

Instructor

Noah received a B.S. from Caltech in 2006 in applied physics. In high school, he was obsessed with physics, engineering, and space propulsion systems. He stills want to go to space, but now just for the fun of it. Throughout his college career he lost most of his interest in Space and the infinite and instead turned toward earth and the infinitesimal. He started becoming infatuated with Nanostructures and Nanotechnology that could be applied to biological organisms, especially people. He thought that if we were able to have tiny programmable machines at our fingertips to do anything we could imagine the possibilities would be endless.
He applied to become a PhD candidate in electrical engineering to do nano-fabrication at Princeton University. But he couldn't find any interesting research that was directly applicable to biological organisms. He then turned to Dr. Ron Weiss and synthetic biology and then soon after we moved to MIT. Noah personal note: “It turns out that we already had tiny programmable machines that could do anything... _Cells_. Merging the design principles from engineering and the biological techniques from biology we are able to reprogram cells to do whatever we can imagine. Now the sky is the limit.”

André Green

Co-Instructor

André is a third-year PhD student in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Department at Harvard. He earned his BS in biology at MIT (2008) and AM in molecular and cellular biology at Harvard (2010). He is broadly interested in the emergence and evolution of “functional” complexity across the different scales of biological organization i.e. molecules, cells, and organisms. His current work involves uncovering the molecular genetic basis of organ size specification, and determining how these factors contribute to the evolution of reproductive traits in flies.
Although he has spent most of his life as a student, André has accumulated some experience on the flip side of the learning coin as a teacher. He has taught high school students and undergraduates topics from genetics to chemistry to synthetic biology (as a SEED instructor). When completely divorced from school, André enjoys attempting to write fiction, listening to music and long-distance driving (while listening to music).

Ryan Alexander

Teaching Assistant

Ryan Alexander is a junior at MIT majoring in biology and minoring in biomedical engineering. Much of Ryan's focus as an undergraduate has been directed toward his research at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research through MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. At the Whitehead Institute, Ryan studies how microRNAs, small molecules that cells make that control gene expression, can be used to make novel therapeutics. Specifically, Ryan studies how microRNAs can be used therapeutically in metabolic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and fatty liver disease. Ryan recently wrote a scientific review on this topic in which he describes the prospects, advantages, and challenges of using microRNAs to treat such diseases. Ryan also spent the last summer doing biomedical research in Bangkok, Thailand, and in the future he aspires to contribute to the development of drugs that will benefit the developing world. Ryan has found his previous experience working for SEED Academy to be very rewarding and greatly enjoys teaching. He is considering becoming a professor as he progresses through his career. Ryan's hobbies include reading, creative writing, and martial arts.

Kamil Gedeon

Teaching Assistant

My name is Kamil Gedeon. I was born in Queens, New York; I lived there until I was three. I moved to Long Island and lived there until I was 15 years old. Now my family has settled in Queens again. I am of Haitian descent, as both of my parents are Haitian. Currently at MIT, I am a senior in Course 10B (Chemical-Biological Engineering). My future goal is to perform pharmaceutical research. I want to work at a pharmaceutical company, working on therapeutics that help people. In my spare time I like to read, play soccer, and watch TV.

Life Mastery

Etienne Toussaint

9th & 10th Grade Life Mastery Instructor

Etienne Toussaint, a native of New York City, is currently in his second year at Harvard Law School. He holds a Masters of Science in Environmental Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Driven by a passion for service, Etienne has worked with a wide range of students in numerous tutoring and mentoring programs. At MIT, he served as a mentor in STEM during his sophomore year, a math and science enrichment program for elementary school students. He also served as a physics TA in the summer of 2006 for Project Interphase, an intensive math and science summer program for admitted MIT students, and as a TA in the OME’s Second Summer Program in 2007. At Johns Hopkins University in the fall of 2008, Etienne served as a teaching assistant in an environmental engineering course, where he worked with undergraduate and graduate students on international development issues. In the summer of 2009, Etienne served as an instructor in C2 Academy in Glen Burnie, Maryland, where he helped high school students prepare for the SAT and helped middle school students strengthen math and reading skills. His interests and hobbies include learning about climate change and energy issues, playing sports, writing, traveling, and volunteering in the community.

Kevin A. Foster

11th & 12th Grade Life Mastery Instructor

Kevin is a graduate of Washington University with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Policy. He earned his Masters of Business Administration from the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University . He is a seasoned business strategist with experience in leading cross-functional, multi-national teams as well as global projects from concept development to successful implementation. He has extensive experience working with executive levels of management from several Fortune 500 companies as either an employee or as a partner. He is currently the Global Alliances Marketing Manager for Novell. As a Life Mastery Instructor & LEAF counselor, he will work with seniors and juniors and take the lead on planning and facilitating the Life Mastery course for our sophomores, juniors and seniors.

School of Engineering

OEOP