Our mission is to use science, technology and engineering to develop persistent curiosity and to show that knowledge is empowering.
Team and Family
Los Angeles TeamNew York City Team
Technovation Challenge Team
General Support Team
Board of Directors
Iridescent’s Inner Circle
Iridescent’s Family
Jenna Blanton, LA Science Studio Director
A native of Michigan, Jenna graduated from Western Michigan University with a degree in Environmental Science and Organizational Communication. Soon thereafter she began working for Disability Network Southwest Michigan, a non-profit that provides training and technical assistance to the public. The time she spent working there changed the course of her life. From that point forward Jenna knew that whatever she did she wanted it to be meaningful not only for herself but for others as well. As an AmeriCorps VISTA at the California Conservation Corps (CCC) she lived under the motto “Hard Work, Low Pay, Miserable Conditions…and more!”, and loved every moment of it. Her time with the CCC was a great experience that allowed her to make a positive impact on the lives of thousands of underserved young adults. She brings to Iridescent this same attitude and enthusiasm.
Vanessa Garza, Director of Family Science & Community Partnerships
Vanessa did not enjoy math or science as a kid in the traditional classroom setting. However, she was fascinated by her dad’s profession, an electrician, and enjoyed tinkering alongside him in the garage. Vanessa joined Iridescent because she can combine her passion for working with families in schools and learn about science and engineering from budding engineers and professionals. The spark and curiosity that was ignited in her as a child working alongside her father is re-lived each night of the family science program as she watches children and parents tinkering together. She’s driven by the goal of creating life-long learners who will communicate the beauty of science to others.
She loves working for Iridescent because there are no limits…
The team stops at nothing to ensure that the best programs are produced.
Iridescent participants (parents and children) break down walls of self-doubt and learn to take risks that result in A-ha! moments!
Vanessa holds a Master’s in Education from UCLA. She served as a fifth grade and middle school teacher in Los Angeles and New York City. Later, she co-led a Los Angeles charter middle school to a 70-point API gain in one year.
Luz Rivas, Director of Research and Corporate Partnerships, Iridescent Los Angeles
Luz has a background in engineering, STEM curriculum development, program management, and educational research. Most recently, she was the Director of Academic Programs at the Infrastructure Academy, an organization that integrates an environmental focus in STEM education. Prior to this, she was the Assistant Director of the Caltech Center for Diversity, where she managed educational outreach, recruitment, and retention programs for underrepresented students interested in pursuing science and engineering careers. Prior to joining Caltech, Luz was a research associate at the EDC Center for Children and Technology, where she worked on an NSF-funded project on data-use in schools and on an evaluation of an online professional development program for teachers. Before EDC, she worked for the American Museum of Natural History on a NASA-funded project that produced afterschool science curriculum units based on NASA resources. She started her career as an electrical engineer at Motorola working on the design of an automotive navigation product. Luz attended Los Angeles public schools where she first became interested in engineering and computer science as a fifth-grader after learning to program in Logo. She’s excited to be working for an organization that is engaging children in engineering. Luz has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from MIT and a Masters in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Amy Wood, Explainers Program Manager
Amy received a degree in aerospace engineering from Auburn University and earned a master’s degree in meteorology from Mississippi State University. Her true talents and passion were found in her ability to share her love, enthusiasm and knowledge of science and engineering with others. Often, people told Amy “engineering is too hard. I can’t do it.” She disagreed and wanted to prove that engineering is fun and that anyone can do it with hard work, dedication, and confidence! She began her career at the Maryland Science Center where she developed and implemented STEM related school programs, professional development workshops for educators, and live programs for NOAA’s Science on a Sphere. She continued her career as the Explainers Program Coordinator at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum before joining Iridescent. Amy joined Iridescent because she believes that there is no better person to teach children about engineering than actual engineers!
Bryan Johnston, NYC Iridescent-ONR Science Studio Director
Bryan’s passion for creating meaningful things that help people led him to join Iridescent. He believes in the infinite inherent potential of every human and is excited to join Iridescent in helping young people develop the skills and empowerment to get there. Previously the Director of Operations for Iridescent Bay Area, he started and now runs the South Bronx Science Studio, and is creating a STEM education pipeline to develop long-term impactful relationships with children and families in the Hunts Point community of the South Bronx. He has a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Southern California and a background in social entrepreneurship. He would like to change the world by helping children take ownership of their destinies. Blog.
Paige Teamey, Director of Engineering Education
A native of Oregon, Paige graduated from Wheaton College with a degree in both physics and environmental science. While Paige was in college she had the opportunity to work at a local middle school through an NSF grant and from there began focusing on science education. Upon graduation Paige worked for a non-profit education company, The Odyssey Project sailing on a tall ship and communicating with students throughout Europe and Japan where she realized she wanted to become a full time high school science teacher. Paige received her masters in science education from The City college and has taught the last seven years in a transfer high school in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn while participating as a S.T.E.M. fellow for the New York Hall of Science and performing research at Columbia University in nanotechnology.
Paige’s beliefs: Education unites as well as inspires a voice, an insight, and a quality of life that should be an equal right for all. Regardless of our pursuits we must invest in our communities where we can be producers of knowledge and recipients of change. Empowering youth through community partnerships will enable children and allow new visions, opportunities and a more realistic future of self-perpetuating sustainable technology.
Paige’s ultimate goal in the seven years she taught in Brooklyn was for her students to be impassioned and adhere to the following quote stated by George Washington Carver: “The ability to foresee, visualize, and create your idea in your mind is the most powerful resource you have.”
Ideas change with access to engaging learning and imaginative thinking. She looks forward to working with Iridescent and continually advocating for excellent education accessible to all. She hopes to facilitate and inspire a deeper understanding and connection to science education with youth as well as help children build healthy ideals that allow them to be dynamic citizens as future adults.
Dr. Angelica Torres, Director of Educational Technology
Angélica believes in applying research from anthropology, ecology, and psychology to create optimal learning environments. She first became acquainted with STEM while working in a kindergarten classroom as a NSF GK-12 graduate fellow. Angélica shares Iridescent’s vision of blurring the boundaries between industry, higher education, pre-K-12 classrooms, and homes to inspire budding scientists and engineers from underrepresented groups. She completed a Ph.D. /M.Phil. in Biological Anthropology and a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Child Study at Yale University and B.A. in Anthropology at New College of Florida.
Jeri Countryman, Director of Curriculum and Assessment
Ms. Countryman brings ten years of expertise in project management, development of trainings and resources, implementation and scale up of science, engineering and technology programs for girls. Jeri has led role model trainings and partnership development with organizations involved in outreach and has extensive experience working with role models. She has a Master’s degree in interdisciplinary computer science from Mills College and a Master’s degree in science education from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Jeri joined the Iridescent team to be a part of an organization that excites students about STEM fields in innovative ways. Her passion is to encourage more females to consider studying computer science and to dispel the stereotypes that exist about the field. She wants every girl in our program to know that a career in technology is creative and collaborative. She also want girls to have the confidence that they can become creators of technology and not just end users. The Technovation Challenge is a program that is teaching girls how to do this.
AnnaLise Hoopes, Director of Educational and Corporate Partnerships
AnnaLise holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Studio Art from the University of Notre Dame, a Master’s in Education from Harvard University, and a California teaching credential. In 2005, she founded a community-based organization called Teach Compassion, which brought university students into over 50 classrooms in ten regional schools to teach children about social and environmental justice issues. She then taught elementary school for two years in the Albany Unified School District before joining Iridescent in 2010. AnnaLise hopes to use her pedagogical background to provide young women the support and mentorship they need to be confident and successful in the high-tech fields.
Catherine Adriano, School Partnerships Coordinator
Catherine holds a Bachelor’s degree in Combined Science from Santa Clara University and recently graduated in June of 2011. During her time at the university she co-developed an afterschool program, Alma Verde, focused on environmental justice initiatives. More recently, she is the co-founder of the social good movement and organization, Be Social Change, that aims its efforts towards empowering, connecting, and organizing the ever growing world of social change. Catherine joined the Iridescent team because of the deep alignment between Iridescent’s core values and her own. It is her passion and endless goal to empower youth and provide them with the support and tools needed to achieve the dreams they hold for themselves. She hope to support students inside and outside the Technovation Challenge to see the endless possibilities that they can create for themselves and others, and instill in them the mindset that through innovative thinking and hard work, they can create the change they would like to see in the world.
Dr. Anuranjita Tewary, Founder, Technovation Challenge
Anu has a strong interest in the merger of entrepreneurship and technology and loves sharing her passion for technology with students. She also greatly enjoys teaching everything from physics and math to bollywood dancing. Anu is currently at AdMob, where she has gained extensive experience in mobile technology and advertising through her work in product management, marketing, and analytics. Previously, she was a program manager at Microsoft, where she worked with a team to develop novel media-sharing features for MSTV. She is very excited to see the Technovation Challenge come to life. Anu holds a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University and BS degrees in Physics and Math with Computer Science from MIT.
Tara Chklovski, Founder, CEO, Iridescent
Tara brings STEM content knowledge and executive administration abilities to the effort. She has previously worked as the principal at a 300 student K-6 school in India. She has consistently and cost-effectively doubled Iridescent’s impact every year by heavily relying on technology, synergistic partnerships, rigorous evaluation and volunteers.
Motto: “Every day, in every way, I’m getting stronger and faster.” – Santilhano
Resume. Phone.
Dr. Matthew Loth, Chief Scientist
Matt graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point with a BS in Physics, Mathematics and Psychology. He earned his PhD in Physics from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. After this period of intense focus on developing his own skills, he is ecstatic to be working with the Iridescent team to produce world-class science and engineering curriculum for children. Matt believes that the right combination of quality curriculum and teaching will empower and inspire children to become more comfortable and adept at asking questions, finding answers, and taking action — skills that are necessary to be successful as an engineer and as a citizen of the world. He is dedicated to ensuring that Iridescent’s curriculum has scientifically correct content and is based on best teaching/learning practices developed by both Iridescent and other organization.
Dara Olmsted, Ethnographer, Formative Evaluator and Grantwriter
Dara holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Harvard University and a Master’s in Environmental Policy and Urban Planning from Tufts University. She has taught science overseas and at Harvard, worked for a watershed association, helped to make Harvard more sustainable, run farmers’ markets, and directed Harvard’s Food Literacy Project. Dara joined Iridescent because she wants to wake up every day feeling excited and proud of her work and organization. She hopes her work will allow Iridescent to improve and expand, allowing children around the world to learn, grow, and see the world through a curious and analytical lens.
Kelly White, Ethnographer, Formative Evaluator and Grant Writer
Kelly has a B.A. in English from UC Berkeley. She has been successfully helping nonprofit organizations secure foundation, corporate and government funding for seven years.
For Kelly, nothing is more rewarding than watching a proposal turn into an effective program with a positive impact in the community. A lover of learning herself, when Kelly saw the smiling, engaged faces of kids and their parents “doing science” and enjoying the learning process, she knew that Iridescent was the place for her. Kelly is thrilled that her work will contribute to empowering children and youth with curiosity and knowledge.
Hope Hamilton, Bookkeeper
Hope Hamilton has worked for decades helping large and small nonprofit and for profit organizations and small businesses. Under her guidance, clients establish and maintain transparent, reliable, and well-run back-office, accounting, personnel, and organizational procedures. She owns the 30-year-old Perfect Pages consulting firm, which specializes in creating business processes (and supporting forms and procedures) to streamline operations. She is expert in a variety of accounting and spreadsheet software including: QuickBooks, Excel, and Quicken. For Iridescent, she oversees most personnel and payroll functions, and performs all functions related to accounts payable, accounts receivable, and bookkeeping.
Mariana Rutigliano, Dissemination Director
Mariana has a degree in Social Communication from Universidade Catolica de Santos, Brazil. She brings to Iridescent a 6 years experience in Marketing and Communication for the consumer goods industry in the global company Unilever. She decided to gave her career a different path when she moved from São Paulo to Los Angeles to study Global Sustainability, at UCLA, with the objective to orientate her skills to a more meaningful objective. She found at Iridescent the perfect opportunity to spread the message that knowledge is powerful for million students around the world and support them in finding a different life perspective.
Cristiano Meira, Producer
With 10 years of experience in production of commercial films and videoclips in São Paulo, Brazil, Cristiano have worked in several areas of the movie industry from the set to the post-production. He moved to Los Angeles to learn new Visual Effects techniques and softwares at Gnomon School. Currently, he works for the Hollywood movie industry at Post Mango studio. Passionate about image and motion, Cristiano knows how powerful it can be. He wants to apply the cinema enchantment to support Iridescent video library and help kids to find out the pleasure of learning.
Paul Lee, Contracts and Grants Manager
Dr. Timothy Chklovski is Chief Scientist at Factual. He brings start-up and
management experience through his role as the founder and CEO of aQuery, a document understanding company which has attracted top-tier venture capital backing and employed a large development team. Dr. Chklovski has graduated from MIT with a PhD in Computer Science and also holds M.Eng and Baccalaureate degrees from MIT in Computer Science, as well as Baccalaureate in Math.
Elyssa Elbaz manages the Elbaz Family Foundation, which supports environmental and educational causes. She is a former Assistant United States Attorney, where she was a member of the Violent and Organized Crime division. Prior to working as a prosecutor, she worked for the law firm of O’Melveny and Myers and clerked for a federal judge. She has also worked as a journalist for a number of newspapers and wire services in Los Angeles. Elyssa has a bachelor’s degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Claremont McKenna College and a Juris Doctor from the UCLA School of Law. She serves on the following non-profit boards: the UCLA Law Alumni Board, the Claremont McKenna College Center for Human Rights Leadership, Whole Child Foundation, and X Prize (as the ethics chairperson). She is also a partner of Los Angeles Social Venture Partners.
Eva Ho As the VP of Marketing and Operations at Factual, Eva manages all aspects of the brand, insides sales, HR and finance.
In 2008, she co-founded Navigating Cancer, a website and tools that empower cancer patients to navigate their best care. She is also very active in the non-profit sector, founding Whole Child LA in 2008, a community pediatric pain clinic, and sits on the board of First Descents and Iridescent. Prior, she was a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Google and Youtube for 5 years. Prior to Google, Eva was the head of marketing for Applied Semantics, a company that was sold to Google in 2003. Additional past employers include The Wilkerson Group, Procter & Gamble and IBM. Eva holds an MBA from the Cornell University Johnson School of Management as well as an AB in Biology from Harvard University.
Eva has a strong passion for providing underserved children, especially girls, with the knowledge base and toolset to become brilliant, capable, well-rounded engineers and scientists. When she saw firsthand the impact of Iridescent through the science centers and Technovation Challenge, it was a no-brainer to dedicate more energy and time behind this ultra-critical mission. She feels strongly that creative and effective STEM education to more children will be one of the key pillars that will drive accelerated innovation in the US and beyond. She is honored to be part of this amazing organization.
Dr. Margaret Honey is CEO of the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI). She is widely recognized for her work using digital technologies to support children’s learning across the disciplines of science, mathematics, engineering and technology. Prior to joining NYSCI, she served as a vice president of the Education Development Center and director of EDC’s Center for Children and Technology.
Dr. Paul Kim is Chief Technology Officer and Assistant Dean for Stanford University School of Education. His courses focus on contextualized innovations in education, mobile empowerment design, and enterprising higher education systems. He is currently one of senior researchers for Programmable Open Mobile Internet, an NSF project to develop and evaluate ubiquitous wireless mobile computing and interactive systems for K-20 formal and informal learning and assessment scenarios.
He is also working with numerous international organizations in developing mobile empowerment solutions for extremely underserved communities in developing countries.
Donald Lacey is Director of Citigroup Global Markets Asia. He provides support to Iridescent’s finance and strategic planning
efforts.Don advises financial institutions on M&A and capital raising across Asia, which is a job that fits well with his longstanding interest in development economics and emerging markets. His years of observing economic growth in emerging Asia have fueled Don’s conviction that societies are best served by providing the broadest possible access to high quality educational opportunities. He is delighted to be playing a small role in advancing that view via Iridescent. Finally, as a helicopter pilot, he appreciates the practical side of a STEM background!
Don is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and studied mathematics and economics at MIT, where he received his SB. He commenced his career as an investment banker at Goldman, Sachs & Co.
Dr. Shri Narayanan is a Professor of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Linguistics and Psychology at University of Southern California. He holds the first Viterbi Professorship in Engineering at USC. He is a recipient of an NSF CAREER award, USC Engineering Junior Research Award, USC Electrical Engineering Northrop-Grumman Research award, a Mellon award for mentoring excellence, an Okawa Research Award, an IBM Faculty Award and a faculty fellowship from the USC Center for Interdisciplinary research. His research interests are in signals and systems modeling with an interdisciplinary emphasis on speech, audio, language, multimodal and biomedical problems and applications with direct societal relevance. He has published over 350 papers and has 7 granted and 10 pending U.S. patents.
Aniket Ullal is Senior Director at Standard and Poor’s, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies. Aniket Ullal has over 10 years of experience in launching and managing knowledge based businesses. He currently has product management responsibility for S&P’s US Indices, including the widely tracked S&P 500 and S&P/Case-Shiller indices. He has also worked in McGraw-Hill’s education business, where he helped launch a successful online formative assessment product for school districts. Previously he has worked as a business development manager at Infosys Technologies and as a consultant with Andersen. He is a graduate of Mumbai University, the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management
Dr. Chaitanya Ullal is a Researcher in Material Science at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Gottingen,
Germany. Dr. Ullal is a graduate from MIT with a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering. He holds a B. Tech degree in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science from the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay)and was a visiting researcher at Bell Labs (Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, 2002-2003). Dr. Ullal has co-authored articles in leading peer reviewed scientific journals including publications from the Nature Publishing Group, American Physical Society, American Chemical Society, Optical Society of America, American Institute of Physics and the Wiley Publishing group. Dr. Ullal has 2 pending U.S. patents
Paul Yarin While growing up in New Jersey, Paul Yarin helped create the Young Inventors’ Club; this began his involvement in nonprofit science education. Paul is now an inventor, engineer, and educator whose passion is designing innovative electromechanical products. He is currently Director of Hardware Engineering at Oblong Industries, a computer tech startup developing a radically futuristic “spatial operating environment.” His consultancy, Blackdust Design, has developed an interactive trainer for laparoscopic surgeons, RFID-based medication trackers, networked devices for retail environments, and interactive sensors and displays for exhibits. Paul studied human-computer interaction at the MIT Media Lab after earning a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and a Bachelor’s from the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught at Stanford and UCLA as well as in Iridescent’s programs. His dream is that all children will one day have the chance to improve the world through invention.
Prof. Toby Cumberbatch, Electrical Engineering, The Cooper Union.
I was attracted to Iridescent because of the fantastic opportunities it presents for students and faculty at The Cooper Union to make a useful contribution to underserved kids in New York City. It is easy to forget that schools in the poorer areas of a large city frequently have access to far fewer resources than those in the more affluent areas. We do not have the financial resources to change the status quo but we do have people and knowledge. Through the Iridescent Engineers as Teachers program, we are able to show these kids and their families how exciting science and engineering are through Family Science Nights. More importantly, we form partnerships with these schools through which we are able to mentor and guide those interested in STEM.
In the longer term, I would like to develop teaching materials that can ultimately be used throughout the world in schools, which comprise no more than the shade of a tree and the natural resources at hand; materials that show children how exciting science and engineering are whilst enabling them to grasp the fundamental theoretical concepts. Through this, we all learn how to become better teachers, how to present complex material with simple experiments and clear exposition.
And of course I would like to see a society in which all kids have equal access to opportunity and resources! I believe that Iridescent has the opportunity to reinforce the idea that, given the right encouragement and access to resources, underserved kids in inner cities can aspire to the same dreams as those in the rich suburbs – and, in so doing, make the world a better and happier place.
We started in 2007 and wouldn’t have come so far if it wasn’t for the brave souls who believed in the vision and jumped wholeheartedly into battle.
Kara Christianson, VP (2007-2008)
Kara joined Iridescent after two years of teaching middle school math and science in Los Angeles with Teach for America. She worked with Iridescent to develop the Engineer training program, and to create stronger partnerships with area schools. After working with Iridescent, Kara moved to New York to join Uncommon Schools, a nonprofit organization that manages 30 high performing, college preparatory charter schools on the East Coast. Kara currently serves as the Senior Associate Director of Recruitment for all Newark and Brooklyn elementary schools in the Uncommon network.
Lindsey Jenkins-Stark, VP (2008-2009)
I joined iridescent to become part of a movement to inspire children to become something they didn’t know even existed, or didn’t know was within their reach: To be a scientist or engineer.
I learned so much about science, communities, and my own teaching in Iridescent. But most importantly, I learned how to communicate with people from very different backgrounds, and how to bring those people together to communicate with each other.
Sinchai Tsao, Director of Earned Income (2009-2011)
Kori Tsao, Researcher (2010-2011)
Erika Allison, Executive Director, Iridescent NYC (2010-2011)
Jennifer Hsu, Recruiting Director, Iridescent NYC (2010-2011)
