Science Learning Institute

Bruce M. Alberts, Ph.D.

Shyamoli Banerjee

Shyamoli Banerjee has a broad and varied background in deep technology, education and wellness. She started her career designing computer processor chips (semiconductors) for top Silicon Valley companies including Silicon Graphics, AMD and Evans and Sutherland. She then moved to volunteering her time at The Harker School where her two sons attended. She is a certified yoga instructor and taught yoga for several years in Bay Area wellness studios.  

Shyamoli holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stonybrook University in New York and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India. She currently serves as the president of the  Foothill-De Anza Foundation Board of Directors and is on the Advisory Board of the Harker School in San Jose. She and her husband live in Los Altos Hills. Her hobbies and interests include skiing, hiking, biking, reading and traveling. 

Jerry Cain

William “Bill” T. Coleman, III

Bill Coleman is a partner with Alsop Louie Partners, an early stage silicon valley venture capital firm. Previously Bill was Founder, Chairman & CEO of Cassatt, Inc. an enterprise cloud computing software company acquired by CA in 2009. As Founder, Chairman & CEO of BEA Systems, Inc. it became the fastest software company to reach $1B in annual revenue under his leadership. At Sun he co­‐founded Sun Federal; founded Sun Professional Services; and was VP system software where he led the initially development of Solaris and related products. Before Sun, he co­‐founded and was VP engineering at Dest Systems. Prior to that, he was the director of product development at VisiCorp during development of the first spreadsheet, VisiCalc; the first office suite of pc applications, the VisiSeries; and the first personal computer window system, VisiOn. He began his career in the USAF as chief of satellite operations, Office of the Secretary. Coleman holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from
the U.S. Air Force Academy and master’s degrees in computer science and computer engineering from Stanford and an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado where he and his wife Claudia founded the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities. He is a member of the board of directors of Framehawk, Resilient Networks and iControl Corporations, a director of Business Executives for National Security, a Commissioner of the Trilateral Commission and both Chairman of the Center for Science, Technology and Society and a Trustee of the University of the Santa Clara.

Bernadine Fong, Ph.D.

Joseph W. Goodman Ph.D.

William (Bill) Krause

Waidy Lee

Since her retirement in 2001, Ms. Lee has been an individual contributor to resolving Global Warming. She has been an EV driver since 2000 and owns two EVs. In 2004, she de-constructed her old home and built a straw bale passive solar home with two living roofs to set an example of zero fossil fuel use and to promote healthy sustainable environmental green living. She is a member of and activist for over 60 organizations, and an advocate on Electric Vehicles. She is knowledgeable and stays up-to-date with current policies and technologies of greenhouse gas reduction and water conservation. Waidy was born in China and grew up in Hong Kong. She became an engineer the hard way, by working her way up in Silicon Valley startups. Currently, she is an Independent Research professional and serves as a Pacific Rim Advisor at Coulomb Technology. Previously Waidy was a Startup Consultant at Exclara, Inc.; a Member of Technical Staff at Tensilica and Silicon Graphics; and a Release/QA Engineer at MIPS Technologies.

Richard M. Levy, Ph.D.

Richard M. Levy was chairman of the Varian Medical Systems Board of Directors from 2002-2014. He was General Manager of the Medical Business from 1986-1999 and CEO of the company from 1999 to 2006. Levy holds a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College and a doctorate in nuclear chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley.

Levy has been on the Board of Sutter Health, a $10B Healthcare system, since 2006 and was Chairman of that Board 2013-2014. He has served on the Board of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, an affiliate of Sutter Health, since 2002. He was on the Board of the United Way Silicon Valley 2002-2014, and served as Chair in 2008-2009. He has been a co-chair of the Advisory Committee of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and an active participant in summits for CCI (Center for Corporate Innovation, Inc.), with a focus on improvement of the national healthcare system. That focus remains one of his primary interests today.

Other Boards include The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, where he is Chairman; North Hawaii Community Hospital; Ravenswood Family Health Center; the Berkeley School of Public Health; and Cancer Commons, a not-for-profit company developing information to guide patients through the complexities and variations in cancer treatment. He is a past chairman of the board of directors of the American Electronics Association.

Judy C. Miner, Ed.D.

Effective August 1, 2015, Judy C. Miner was appointed Chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District which is headquartered in Los Altos Hills, California. She has worked as a higher education administrator since 1977 and in the California Community Colleges since 1979 where she has held numerous administrative positions in instruction, student services, and human resources at City College of San Francisco, the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office, De Anza College, and lastly, at Foothill College where she served as President from 2007 to 2015.

Regionally, she serves on advisory boards for the Los Altos Library Endowment; San Francisco Opera Education Programs; WestEd’s Reading Apprenticeship Community College STEM Network; and the Pebble Beach Authors and Ideas Festival. She is also on the Board of Directors for Year Up Bay Area and the Board of Trustees of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. She has been appointed an expert advisor by Hewlett Packard and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) to their Silicon Valley initiative aimed at increasing underrepresented student enrollments in computer science. Miner is also the Silicon Valley CEO representative to the Economic Development and Program Advisory Committee for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

Nationally, she serves on the External Advisory Committee for the University of Wisconsin-Madison National Science Foundation Study on Financial Aid Impact on STEM Students; Board of Directors for the League for Innovation in the Community College; Board of Directors for the American Council on Education (ACE); Board of Directors for the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and the CHEA International Quality Group (CIQG). Miner currently serves as the chair of the planning committee for the 2016 American Council on Education national conference.

Internationally, she has been an invitee to present on American community colleges to the Fundacion Ciencia y Vida (Santiago) and on workforce training to the International Conference on Community Colleges (New Delhi).

In 2011, under the auspices of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), she served on the Working Group that produced Report to the President, Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates with Degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The White House published the report in February of 2012. On March 23, 2012, Science magazine published her editorial entitled “America’s Community Colleges” with an accompanying podcast that highlighted the science initiatives at Foothill College.

Recent awards include Hillel Pillar of the Community; Silicon Valley Business Journal Women of Influence; Year Up Core Values: Engage and Embrace Diversity; and Rotary International Paul Harris Fellow.

She earned her B.A., summa cum laude, in history and French at Lone Mountain College in San Francisco; her M.A. in history at that same college; and her Ed.D. in organization and leadership (with a concentration in education law) from the University of San Francisco. She also holds an honorary A.S. from Imperial Valley College.

Gary J. Morgenthaler

Gary Morgenthaler joined Morgenthaler Ventures as a Partner in December 1989. He has a national reputation as a successful executive in the software industry and currently emphasizes investments in information technology. Morgenthaler Ventures is based in Menlo Park, California.

He was a past Director of Siri, Inc., which was acquired by Apple in April 2010 and BlueArc Corporation, which was acquired by Hitachi Data Systems in September 2011. Gary is a current Director of Nominum, NuoDB, OneChip Photonics and Overture Networks. Gary was also a co-founder and past CEO of Illustra Information Technologies, Inc., where he served as a Chairman of Illustra’s Board until its acquisition by Informix in 1996. He also served as Director of Catena Networks (acquired by Ciena (CIEN)), Nuance Communications, and Premisys Communications and led the firm’s investments in Force10 Networks and QuickLogic.

From 1980 until 1989, Gary co-founded and served as CEO and Chairman of Ingres Corporation, a leading relational database software company. Previously he was with McKinsey & Co. as a management consultant, with Tymshare in software development and management, and with Stanford University in software research and development. He received a BA from Harvard University in 1970 in International Studies.

Armand Neukermans, Ph.D.

Armand Neukermans holds EE and ME Degrees from Louvain University, and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University. Since 1962, he has held various research and senior management positions within the organizations of KLA-Tencor, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox and General Electric. He founded Xros, an optical switch company where he served as Chairman and CTO, which was acquired by Nortel Networks in 2000. He is the author of 40 publications, and is the inventor of over 75 patents in diverse fields. He was named Silicon Valley "Inventor of the year" in 2001. He serves on the board of both public and private companies, and as a lecturer in entrepreneurship at Louvain University. Since his retirement, he has been involved in various environmental projects (including the foundation of the Big Sur Environmental Institute) and in fostering the causes of various social entrepreneurs, such as D-Rev, Jaipur Foot, and Benetech's Landmine Project. He was instrumental in setting up the Portola Valley Solar Community project, which became a landmark model for community buying of solar power. He now leads a group of scientists and engineers doing technology research for application in marine cloud whitening with seawater nuclei, an innovative climate mitigation effort.

Thuy Thi Nguyen, J.D.

Thuy Thi Nguyen (Thúy Thị Nguyễn) serves as the seventh President of Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California, a position she has held since July 2016. Nguyen is believed to be the first Vietnamese American college president in the country.

Prior to her arrival at Foothill, Nguyen served as interim general counsel for the California Community College’s Chancellor’s Office. As overseer of equal employment opportunity plans for 72 community college districts and 113 colleges, she led the move to an innovative funding approach that encourages community colleges to assess and strengthen their efforts in equal employment opportunity. Nguyen also organized regional training workshops covering such topics as why diversity in hiring matters and how to address unconscious bias, highlighting evidence that a diverse faculty helps close the student achievement gap.

For over eleven years, Nguyen was the General Counsel for the Peralta Community College District. At different points during her tenure at Peralta, she served in additional roles as Acting Vice Chancellor for Human Resources, District-wide Strategic Planning Manager, and legislative liaison. From January to June 2015, Nguyen took temporary leave from Peralta CCD to serve as Interim President and Chief Executive Officer of the Community College League of California.

When she was 3, she and her family joined the wave of “boat people” who fled Vietnam after the end of the war. They drifted in the Pacific Ocean on a boat for more than 20 days before a commercial ship rescued them and took them to a refugee camp in Japan. Eventually, the family relocated to Wichita, Kansas, and then moved to the warmer climate of New Orleans.

When she was 14, the family settled in the Oakland. Nguyen attended a predominantly African American and Latino school, Castlemont High, where she embarked on a path of community leadership and service. At Castlemont, she served as a student representative on the Oakland Unified School District’s Board of Directors and cadet colonel brigade commander in the Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. Upon graduation, the mayor of Oakland declared June 23, 1993 “Thuy Thi Nguyen Day” recognizing her community service.

Nguyen is the founding board chair of California L.A.W. Pathway, a non-profit organization that coordinates the unprecedented statewide 2+2+3 Community College Pathway to Law School program that Nguyen initiated with the State Bar of California’s Council on Access and Fairness. The Pathway includes six California law schools, six undergraduate universities, 28 community colleges and 16 high school law academies. She also helped spearhead a Spanish language court interpreter program at Peralta. In 2016, Nguyen received the coveted Diversity Award from the State Bar of California, an award given to an individual who has helped diversify the legal profession.

She co-published a book, “25 Vietnamese Americans in 25 Years,” showcasing the contributions of 25 distinguished Vietnamese Americans to American society to mark the anniversary of the fall of Saigon. The book is archived in the Library of Congress and available at the Viet Museum in San Jose and many public and university libraries across the country.

Nguyen was an adjunct instructor teaching education law for several years at what is now California State University, East Bay. She is immediate past board president of the Marcus Foster Education Institute, which promotes excellence and educational opportunity in East Bay and San Francisco public schools.

In 2002, Thuy was listed among “30 Most Influential Asian Americans Under 30” nationally by Rainmaker Political Group (politicalcircus.com). In 2007, she was named one of eighteen “Best Lawyers Under 40” in the country by the National Asian American Bar Association. In 2011, the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Northern California gave her its Trailblazer Award and in 2012, the Minority Bar Coalition presented her with its Unity Award. She is the founding president of the Castlemont High School Alumni Association and has been inducted into the school’s Alumni Hall of Fame.

Nguyen earned her B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, where she was a member of the inaugural class of the Public Interest Law and Policy Program. Nguyen is a Rotarian and a Paul and Daisy Soros for New Americans Fellow.

William J. Rutter, Ph.D.

Bill Rutter is Chairman and founder of Synergenics, LLC, which owns/controls a portfolio of biotechnology companies at various stages of development. Bill, with two colleagues, founded Chiron Corporation in 1981, a pioneering biotech firm that developed the first recombinant vaccine (for Hepatitis B), the first sequencing of the HIV genome in 1984, and the discovery, cloning, and sequencing of the Hepatitis C virus (1987). Chiron also developed quantitative diagnostic tests for determination of "viral load", a new concept that opened the way for development of therapeutic drugs and vaccines against these viruses. In 1995, the Swiss Pharma Company Ciba-Geigy acquired 49% of Chiron in a transformative transaction. Subsequently, Sandoz merged with Ciba-Geigy to form Novartis. Rutter joined the Novartis Board of Directors, and remained with Chiron until 1998. Novartis purchased the remaining portion of Chiron in 2005. Bill played a key role in developing UCSF into a major scientific institution. He joined UCSF as head of its new department of Biochemistry and Biophysics in 1968, and helped build the science enterprise during the period of major developments in recombinant DNA technology, based on discoveries of colleague Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen of Stanford. After the formation of Chiron, Bill became director of Use's Hormone Research Institute, a post retained until 1989, when he joined Chiron full time. Bill has published more that 380 scientific articles and holds over 25 patents. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received numerous awards for his contributions to science and the biotechnology industry.

Archana Sathaye, Ph.D.

Archana Sathaye is the CEO & Founder of Proxmal Systems, Inc., a safety devices company. She had a career spanning industry, academia, and nonprofits. She was a Principal Engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation in the Advanced Systems Engineering Group.  

She was an adjunct Electrical Engr professor at the University of Pittsburgh, a tenure-track Professor in Computer Science was at San Jose State University, and an adjunct professor in the Business School at Santa Clara University. 

She has 28 peer reviewed publications in fault-tolerant systems modeling, control systems, and database systems. In the non-profit area, Archana served as the President of the Board of Directors of Foothill-De Anza College Foundation, Board of Directors of The Tech Museum of Innovation, Advisory Board Member of The Harker School. She currently serves on the Carnegie Mellon University Electrical & Computer Engr Advisory Council, Advisory Board Member of the Foothill College Science Learning Institute, Board member of Air Systems Foundation Scholarship Board, and an Advisory Board Member of Sunday Friends Foundation.

Archana has a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, a Masters in Applied Mathematics from Virginia Tech, and a Masters in Pure Mathematics from Bombay University.

William J. Spencer, Ph.D.

William Spencer was named Chairman Emeritus of the International SEMATECH Board in November 2000 after serving as Chairman of SEMATECH and International SEMATECH Boards since July 1996. He came to SEMATECH in October 1990 as President and Chief Executive Officer. He continued to serve as President until January 1997 and CEO until November 1997. During this time, SEMATECH became totally privately funded and expanded to include non-US members. Many gave SEMATECH part of the credit for the US semiconductor turn around in the 90's. Spencer has held key research and management positions at Xerox Corporation, Bell Laboratories and Sandia National Laboratories. Before joining SEMATECH in October 1990, he was Group Vice President and Senior Technical Officer at Xerox Corporation in Stamford, Connecticut from 1986 to 1990. He established new research centers in Europe and developed a plan for Xerox retaining ownership in spin-out companies. Prior to joining the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) as manager of the Integrated Circuit Laboratory in 1981 and as the Center Manager of PARC from 1982 to 1986, Spencer served as Director of Systems Development from 1978 to 1981 at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, and Director of Microelectronics at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque from 1973 to 1978, where he developed a silicon processing facility for Department of Energy needs. He began his career in 1959 at Bell Laboratories. Spencer received the Regents Meritorious Service Medal from the University of New Mexico in 1981; the C. B. Sawyer Award for contribution to "The Theory and Development of Piezoelectric Devices" in 1972; and a Citation for Achievement from William Jewell College in 1969, where he also received a Doctor of Science degree in 1990. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of IEEE, and servers on numerous advisory groups and boards including as advisor to the Premier of Taiwan. He was the Regents Professor at the University of California in the Spring of 1998. In 2003, he received the IEEE award for engineering leadership. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Engineering and the Haas School of Business and has taught at the University of Texas in Austin. He is a Research Professor of Medicine at the University of New Mexico. Spencer received an A.B. degree from William Jewell College, an M.S. degree in mathmatics and a Ph.D. in physics from Kansas State University.

Richard Swanson, Ph.D.

Richard Swanson was born in Davenport, Iowa in 1945. He received his BSEE and MSEE from Ohio State University in 1969 and the PhD in Electrical Engineering from Sanford University in 1975. After completing his PhD, he joined the Electrical Engineering faculty at Stanford. His research investigated the semiconductor properties of silicon relevant for better understanding the operation of silicon solar cells. These studies have helped pave the way for steady improvement in silicon solar cell performance.

In 1991 Dr. Swanson resigned from his faculty position to devote full time to SunPower Corporation, a company he founded to develop and commercialize cost-­‐effective photovoltaic power systems. Today, SunPower produces the highest performance photovoltaic panels available. Dr. Swanson has received widespread recognition for his work.

In 2002, he was awarded the William R. Cherry award by the IEEE for outstanding contributions to the photovoltaic field, and in 2006 the Becquerel Prize in Photovoltaics from the European Communities. He was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 2008 and a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2009.

He received the 2009 Economist Magazine Energy Innovator Award. In 2010 he was awarded the IEEE Jin-­‐ichi Nishizawa Medal for the conception and commercialization of high-­‐efficiency point-­‐contact solar cell technology, and in 2011 the Karl Boer Solar Energy Medal of Merit Award.

Art Swift

Art Swift has more than twenty years of executive-level history for some of the world’s leading semiconductor, nanotech, and processor IP companies. He has held a range of general management and senior marketing leadership roles including CEO at low power chip-maker Transmeta, CEO of nanotech innovator Unidym, and vice president of marketing at MIPS, a leading provider of microprocessor IP. Earlier in his career Swift was COO at embedded software provider Lynuxworks and vice president and general manager of several large divisions of chipmaker Cirrus Logic.

He also held senior marketing, business development and engineering positions with Summit Microelectronics, Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment, Bipolar Integrated Technology, and Fairchild Semiconductor.

Swift holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University. He is co-inventor of three U.S. patents relating to programmable logic architectures.

Marc Tarpenning

Marc Tarpenning started building and programming computers as a teenager and earned a B.A. degree in Computer Science from University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, he spent the next five years with Textron in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 1997, he co-­‐founding NuvoMedia with Martin Eberhard, which produced an innovative electronic book reader and the first secure content distribution system accepted by the publishing industry. Mr. Tarpenning was both VP of Engineering and CFO until that company’s sale to Gemstar/TV Guide in 2000 for $170M.

In 2003, he reunited with Martin Eberhard and co-­‐founded Tesla Motors, a company shaking up the automotive industry with the first production battery electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster. At Tesla Motors, Marc ran the electrical engineering group in addition to being acting CFO for the first three years.

Since leaving Tesla Motors in 2008, he has been Entrepreneur in Residence at Mayfield Fund, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm and is a Mentor at Greenstart in San Francisco. Marc sits on several company Advisory Boards and is an elected School Board Trustee for the Woodside School District.