Advisory Board

Lisa Rijhwani is Chair of the Advisory Board, and Program Supervisor at NOVA in Sunnyvale. Lisa has been a Program Supervisor at NOVA for over 10 years. NOVA is a federally funded employment and training agency that provides customer-focused workforce development services. Lisa has served on the High Tech Advisory Board for over 9 years, with the goal to assist the High Tech Academy to develop and maintain training programs that are relevant to the job seeker and business community.

Hemant Gaidhani is Senior Manager of Technical Marketing at VMWare in Palo Alto. Hemant has over 17 years’ experience in software design & programming, quality assurance, performance benchmarking and technical marketing for multi-tier application and system software. His work experience includes both Fortune 500 companies as well as Silicon Valley startups, such as Unisys, Informix, Commerce One, EMC and VMware. He received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Engineering from B.I.T.S., Pilani, India, and an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University. He has presented at several industry conferences and is the author of numerous publications. He has been teaching at the SCAE’s High tech Academy for many years.

Raimonds Turaids is IT Director at Cadence Design Systems in San Jose. Raimonds started his career with computers in the early 1980s by playing video games. While attending UCSB, he worked at the Instructional Computing lab help desk helping resolve minor computer issues on campus. Off campus, he volunteered in a shelter as a teacher, helping people pick up computer skills to help them in job search. After graduating with a degree in Biological Sciences, Raimonds started working at a San Mateo computer accessories firm as a software quality assurance engineer. During this time, Raimonds began moonlighting at SCAE as a teacher for the school's Networking Fundamentals program. After two years of teaching networking, Raimonds was involved in starting the Windows Server class, which he presently teaches along with GNU/Linux. Raimonds has since moved from Quality Assurance to Infomration Technology. He presently works as an IT director for a San Jose-based electronic design automation firm.

Deepak Vyas is President and CEO of Mastermind Educational Systems, Inc., in Santa Clara. He has over 15 years of IT experience and has formed many hardware and networking programs for the High Tech Academy over the years. He was recognized by the California Legislative Assembly (Council for Adult Education) for Excellence in Collaboration, and by NOVA as an Outstanding Community Partner. His areas of expertise include UNIX Systems, Network and Security administration.

Boris Levit has been a member of High Tech Advisory Board since it's inception in 1998. He brings to the Board an extensive network and many years of experience in Semiconductor and Automation industries. Recently, Mr. Levit served as Vice President of Technology and Strategic Development at Amcor/Anam. He also held executive management positions at companies such as National Semiconductor, Bechtel and others. Boris started his career as a tenure professor of Physics and a researcher at a Maritime University. He holds PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Physics.

Rosa Levit served as the first Program Manager of the High Tech Academy within Santa Clara Unified School district, prior to joining the board. Due to her tireless effort in founding the academy, developing its extensive curriculum, and establishing the Advisory Board, the program received some of the highest awards and recognition within California and nation-wide. Mrs. Levit has many years of experience in adult education. She holds BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering.

Tabitha Kappeler-Hurley is Public Information Officer and Director of Career Technical Education for the Santa Clara Unified School District. She has been in Secondary Education for 15 years. Her position includes public relations and donations, a girl’s science and math program, as well as a number of special programs focused on helping teens see career possibilities for themselves. In addition to her efforts in career education, Ms. Kappeler-Hurley is an active community volunteer, Relay for Life Captain of the SCUSD team, and wishes she had more time for her gardening.

Sonia M. Martin is Project Director for the Career Technical Education grant at Ohlone College in Fremont. Sonia has been in Secondary Education since 1967. She has taught English, Social Science, Chorus and Technology, as well as Report Writing at the community college level.. Though retired from her day job, she still teaches Cisco Networking in the Santa Clara Adult Education High Tech Academy. She is also a substitute teacher in SCUSD. Currently, she is the Project Director for the Ohlone Career Technical Education grant (SB70 – now in its fourth round of funding) which supports career technical education in Santa Clara Unified, Fremont Unified and other districts within Ohlone College’s purview. In her spare time, she enjoys reading books, fishing, hunting and traveling with her husband in their motorhome.

Rochelle Kelly is Director of Educational Operations at the Santa Clara Unified School District. Rochelle began working at Adult Education in September of 1984 as a teacher in the high school diploma program. She became Program Manager of that program in 1990 then Assistant Principal of the school in 1996. In 2006 she became Principal of the Adult School, then Director of Educational Options in 2009. Educational Options is the umbrella for Adult Education, Family Child Education and Wilson Alternative High School in the Santa Clara Unified School District. Rochelle received her Bachelor’s degree and teaching credential from Santa Clara University. She went on to earn her Administrative Credential and Masters in Education from San Jose State University in 2000.

Kathy Martarano shares the responsibility of Director of Educational Options with Rochelle Kelly. Kathy has worked for Educational Options for 30 years as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, and now director. In adult education, she is currently focusing on a new mission of workforce development: Citizenship/English as a Second Language, Basic Academic Skills, High School Diploma/GED, Career Technical Education and transition to the workforce and/or post-secondary education. What Kathy enjoys most about her job is creating programs to serve the community and being able to work with a diversity of people.

Ludmila Ponomarenko is Program Supervisor of the High Tech Academy at Santa Clara Adult Education. Ludmila has over 20 years’ experience in software programming and quality assurance. Her combination of administrative skills and experience in the high-tech industry helps to run the program that constantly adapts to rapidly changing industry needs.

Christine Berdiansky is Program Supervisor of Career and Technical Education at Santa Clara Adult Education. Christine has a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership and an Administrative Credential, and has spent her career in adult education. She has been a supervisor at Santa Clara Adult Education for seventeen years, working in many of the programs offered by the school, and has served in elected position in the California Council on Adult Education. She currently works in Career and Technical Education (CTE).

Teaching Staff

Vladimir Gorlovetsky received his MS degree in Electronic Engineering from Taganrog Technical University in Russia. He has 30 years extensive practical experience in project and program management, systems engineering, production, quality, integration and testing of various products ranging from large complex systems to handheld computers. He has worked for various Silicon Valley companies for many years, specializing in software quality.

Yefim Belenky received a MS degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Moscow State University of Communications, and a Ph.D. degree for Aerospace Survey and Image Processing from Central Research Institute of Geodesy, Aerophotography and Cartography in Moscow. Yefim worked for fifteen years in the Russian space program, including work on missions to Mars and Venus. After moving to the U.S., he worked as a scientist and software engineer at various Silicon Valley companies for 10 years, specializing in software development and numerical analysis. Currently, he works as a senior software engineer for Numerical Technologies, Inc. He has taught at SCAE for five years, teaching C, C++ and Java.

Michael Bezman graduated from UCLA with Master Degree in Applied Mathematics in 1995 and has been working in the Silicon Valley since 1997. He is currently employed at a EDA software/design company. His areas of expertise are:

Scripting programming using Perl for prototyping and data analysis

Efficient Data-structures analysis and development

File format processing and Computational Geometry using C++

Mike Darevsky received his degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Moscow State University in 1986. Since then, he has worked for various companies for 16 years, specializing in software development and database administration. This is his seventh year teaching software development and database administration at SCAE.

Carrie Huang conducts trainings in Windows Server 2008 Courses. She has taught in University, Community College, Adult School and Private Companies. She held different positions in various high-tech companies including International Business Machines, Seagate Technology and Conner Peripherals. Connie obtained a Ph. D. and MS in Physics, and a MS in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University, as well as a BS in Physics from Nankai University in China.

Alex Gantvarg has received his BS degree in Computer Science from State Technical University, St. Petersburg, Russia. He has many years of experience in system analysis, computer application development, and database design. For the last few years, he has been working on Internet applications development specializing in Visual Basic, JavaScript, SQL Server, XML. This is his sixth year of teaching Visual Basic and Programming in .NET at SCAE.

Mary Ann May-Pumphrey has many years of experience as a software quality assurance engineer, at companies including Sun Microsystems, Yahoo!, and StumbleUpon.  She also has worked for shorter stints as a tech support engineer, tech writer, accessibility program manager, tech editor, and developer of online course materials.  She has a BA in English and an MS in Computer Science.  For many years, she has served as an adjunct faculty member for De Anza College's CIS Department, where she has taught Computer Software Quality Assurance, Programming in Perl, Introduction to UNIX/Linux, Advanced UNIX/Linux, Shell Programming, World Wide Web Page Development, and Client-Side Programming with JavaScript.

Alexander Tuger has more than 20 years of experience in research, software design, programming and quality assurance. He received his Master's Degree in Applied Math from Moscow State University and his PhD in Applied Math from Moscow Physical and Technical Institute. He has been teaching at the SCAE’s High tech Academy for many years.

Albina Datsukova has over 25 years of experience in programming, quality assurance and automation testing for multi-tier application software. She was working for successfully sold companies such as WWK (sold to IDC), Aurigin (sold to MicroPatent), EDS (sold to HP)  & Coremetrics (sold to IBM). Albina received her Bachelor of Applied Mathematics from Yaroslavl’ university (Russia) and her Masters degree in Applied Mathematics with a minor in Computer Science from Kharkov’s University (Ukraine). Albina has CA teacher credential. She has been teaching on/off in SC adult education school since 1999.

Adil Lotia has over 20 years of experience in the areas of programming, testing and system design. He has worked almost exclusively on Unix- and Linux-based systems. He worked at Sun Microsystems for over 16 years and then moved to Google where he worked on automating tests for a web-based consumer facing program. He currently works for a small company that specializes in Mac-based computer forensics and e-Discovery solutions.

Majid Tajrishi's bio will be posted shortly.

Sunil Kumar's bio will be posted shortly.

Justin Locketz's bio will be posted shortly.

Bhava Avula's bio will be posted shortly.