The Team

Who We Are

Jeffrey Chen

Founder, President

Jeffrey Chen is a freshman at McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, with college research experience in material science. He founded HandsOnSTEM in December, 2020, during the middle of pandemic to help young kids learn science and technology through hands-on, interactive and fun experiments. He was also an instructor for science experiment class at the local Chinese school, and math instructor at Mathnasium.

Haiyan Sun, PhD

Chair of the Board

Haiyan Sun is team lead at New York State Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)
focusing on renewable and hydrogen technologies. She has 18 years of combined experience in research and development,
new product introduction, customer application and business strategy, with unique background from working in large corporate America, small startup, as well as government agency.

Chris Bianchi

Board Member

Chris Bianchi is a science teacher at Van Antwerp Middle School. He is certified in Biology and 7th - 12th grade general sciences with 20 years of experience teaching introductory biology, chemistry and physics at middle school level.

Gautam Parthasarathy, PhD

Board Member

Gautam Parthasarathy has worked at GE Research since 2002. He has participated in and lead

several initiatives within both the Niskayuna, NY community where he resides and the GE Research community where he works. He has experience working with both advisory, non-profit and private boards.

Feng Chen, PhD

Treasurer

Feng Chen has been a principal staff engineer in GlobalFoundries, Malta, NY since 2017. He coordinates cross functional global teams and provides critical support to customers in the semiconductor industry. He also worked in General Electrical Global Research Center for 12 years focusing on research and development in microelectronics.