OUR
TEAM
Meet the people behind our mission
Our Founder & CEO
Tara Chklovski
Tara Chklovski is CEO and founder of global tech education nonprofit Technovation (formerly Iridescent). Prominently featured in the award-winning documentary Codegirl, Forbes named Chklovski “the pioneer empowering the incredible tech girls of the future” and Discovery Science Channel named her its first “CEO Science Super Star Hero” for her work encouraging the next generation of innovators, problem solvers, and game changers. A frequent advocate for STEM education, she’s presented at the White House STEM Inclusion Summit, SXSW EDU, UNESCO’s Mobile Learning Week, and led the 2019 education track at the UN AI for Good Global Summit. Since founding the organization in 2006, Technovation has welcomed more than 130,000 children and parents, and 14,000 mentors, to participate in its programs in 100+ countries.
Board of directors
Ann Weeby, Board Chair
As Salesforce Director of Workforce Innovation, Ann leads Vetforce, Salesforce’s Military Veteran and Adult Workforce Development program.
Ulrich Aldag, Board Member
Ulrich was most recently Co-founder & CEO of Evotec BioSystems GmbH (now Evotec SE). Retired, his expertise spans science, engineering, & leadership.
Elyssa Elbaz, Board Secretary
Elyssa is Head of the Elbaz Family Foundation. Her areas of expertise include law, venture capital, & nonprofit foundations.
Bradlee J. Stroia, Board Treasurer
Brad is Director of Technology Development for Advanced Fuel Systems Research at Cummins. His expertise spans engineering, technology, & leadership.
Rachelle Davis, Board Member
Rachelle is a Lead Software Engineer at Blizzard Entertainment. She advocates for women in software engineering and women in games.
Dr. Sepehr Moghadam, Board Member
Dr. Sepehr Moghadam is Head of Special Projects, University Relations at Google focusing on underrepresented students in CS at the graduate level.
Kate Parker, Board Member
Kate is Uber’s Head of Safety & Insurance Brand, leading global marketing and social impact initiatives.
Rossana Wang, Board Member
Rossanna Wang is Co-founder & CMO of Wang & Partners. An award-winning marketer, she's held senior positions in Fortune 100 companies.
Deena Shakir, Board Observer
Deena is a Partner at Lux Capital where she partners with the world’s most audacious founders taking on the most challenging problems.
AI education committee
Alexis Joly
Computer Scientist; member of Inria; Creator of [email protected]
Angel Poyato
Senior Manager, Supply Chain Digitization at Li & Fung Limited
Dr. Anne Carpenter
Senior Director, Imaging Platform, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Christoph Windheuser
Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks
Dale Lane
Developer, IBM; Creator, Machine Learning for Kids
Edson Prestes
Professor, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul; Head of ϕ-Robotics Research Group
Fei Fang
Assistant Professor, Institute for Software Research, Carnegie Mellon University
Hugo Jair Escalante
Researcher Scientist, Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica y Electronica, INAOE
Qiang Yang
Chief AI Officer, WeBank; Chair Professor,
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Rada Mihalcea
Professor, Computer Science, University of Michigan; Director, Michigan AI Laboratory
Fredrik Heintz
Associate Professor of Computer Science, Linköping University
Justin Aglio
Director, Academic Achievement and District Innovation, Montour School District
May Casterline
Senior Solutions Architect, NVIDIA
Stefania Druga
Founder, Cognimates, MIT Media Lab; Ph.D candidate, University of Washington School of Information
Yexiang Xue
Assistant Professor, Purdue
Bistra Dilkina
Assistant Professor, Computer Science, University of Southern California; Associate Director, Center for AI in Society (CAIS)
Emilia Gomez Gutierrez
Lead Scientist, HUMAINT project at Centre for Advanced Studies, Joint Research Centre, European Commission
Gabriel Torres
Co-founder, MicaSense
Iolanda Dos Santos Carvalho Leite
Assistant Professor, Department of Robotics, Perception and Learning, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
Marie des Jardins
Dean, College of Organizational, Computational, and Information Sciences, Simmons University
Michael Fountaine
Technical Writer, Google, Engineering Education organization (engEDU)