HANDSONSTEM
The Team
Who We Are
Andrew Zhang
President
Andrew Zhang is a senior at Niskayuna High School in Niskayuna, New York. For the past five years, he has been teaching Science lab classes to elementary school students at the Chinese School of the Capital District of New York. Under his leadership, Hands-On STEM Inc. has partnered with public libraries, community centers, tutoring services, and other institutions to deliver engaging STEM programs for younger students. This summer, Andrew co-organized a one-week STEM summer camp for 29 students. He is a third degree black belt in Taekwondo and an Taekwondo instructor at Pai's Taekwondo Academy for 3 years. He is also a dedicated math tutor at the Chinese Community Center Math Club.
Liping Huang, PhD
Chair of the Board
Liping Huang is a professor of Materials Science and Engineering and the Associate Vice President for Research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. With over 20 years of experience, she has been deeply involved in research, teaching both undergraduate and graduate students, and supervising them alongside postdoctoral research associates. Her work focuses on the study of lightweight and durable glasses, which have applications in personal electronics, automobiles, solar panels, buildings, and telecommunication optical fibers.
Yi Lei
Board Member
Yi Lei has served as the Vice President of the CCC Chinese School in the Capital Region since 2019. In this role, she oversees youth teachers, teaching assistants, and the youth team. Before relocating to Albany, she worked as a Software Verification Engineer in Ottawa, Canada, for 10 years.
Haiyan Sun, PhD
Board Member
Haiyan Sun is team lead at New York State Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)
focusing on renewable and hydrogen technologies. She has 20+ 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.
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.
Yunfeng Shi, PhD
Treasurer
Yunfeng Shi has been a professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York since 2008. He is passionate about teaching physics and coaching basketball to kids. He also serves as an academic liaison for RPI's men's basketball team.
Claire Chen
Secretary
Claire is a freshman student at Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. She has been a teaching assistant for the Hands-On STEM class at the Capital Region Chinese School for 1 year. She participated in Math Count, and Science Olympiad competitions in her middle school years. She also loves drawing and running.
Jeffrey Chen
Founder
Jeffrey Chen is a junior 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.
Vincent Shi
Past President
Vincent Shi is a Sophomore at JHU.