OUR STORY

Founder

Ayala Hezi-Yamit PhD

Ayala founded OneSTEM Village to address inequities in STEM education between students from different socio-economic backgrounds and different genders.

Ayala brings over 20 years of successful STEM career, providing visionary leadership, management, and innovation.

Drawing from her own life story, Ayala founded OneSTEM Village to empower students to overcome their challenges and become the next generation STEM professionals.

In her vision, OneSTEM Village serves as a powerful innovative platform in which active STEM professionals guide students through the dynamic paths of health and technological industries.

Ayala offers a proven track of expertise in organizational development, has strong interpersonal skills and core competences of strategic planning and resource management. Above all, Ayala has a lifelong passion for science, medicine, and human wellness.

Before founding OneSTEM Village in December 2019, Ayala held leadership and management roles in several medical and bio-technology organizations.

In the past 19 years, between the years 2003 and 2019, Ayala served as VP of RD and regulatory affairs at Eliaz Therapeutics, Senior manager of Medical Affairs at Avinger and Senior Principal Scientist at Medtronic Cardiovascular. In these roles, Ayala led numerous strategic initiatives and innovative projects, managed tight budgets, firm timelines, encompassing complex data inputs and bringing together different teams towards their common goals.

Ayala’s efforts resulted in several clinical investigations, scientific discoveries and contributed to the development of a number of medical products, including drug eluting stent ‘Resolute’, atherectomy device ‘Pantheris’’ and others. Ayala has been published in more than 10 scientific journals, including Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. In addition, Ayala holds 5 United States Patents.

Personal Statement

I believe that science is not an elite occupation saved for the few. I firmly believe that science and engineering can be within the reach of every kid. Given a foundation, a relatable role model and a clear path to follow. Albert Einstein once said that ‘It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.”

I have been gratified with the life of a scientist, participating in human medical advancement. Overcoming humble beginnings and challenges facing professional women, I started OneSTEM Village to lay a groundwork for sustainable impact, where STEM professionals can give back, minimizing disparities and mapping the path to successful careers for every kid’s benefit.

Founder

Asha Hari PhD

Asha founded OneSTEM Village to address inequities in STEM education between students from from different socio-economic backgrounds and genders.

Asha brings over twenty years of experience in both biomedical research and science education.

With a PhD in the Life Sciences, Asha worked as a post-doctoral research associate at Harvard Medical School/Mass General Hospital, Boston. Asha’s original research in developmental biology has been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and she has presented her work at international conferences.

As an educator, Asha has many years of experience teaching and interacting with students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds in the East Bay. Before founding OneSTEM Village, Asha worked at Laney College, Oakland, teaching students Biology and Nutrition as well as at UC Berkeley Extension where she taught Developmental Biology to post-bac students. Asha holds a California Career Technical Education teaching credential for Health Sciences and Medical Technology. She has taught science to K-12 students of all ages and directed an inter-disciplinary 3-year STEAM program for the students of Berkeley Unified School District.

Personal Statement

I strongly believe that all students, irrespective of the zip code they come from, deserve an excellent science education. Having taught at various public education institutions, I witnessed first-hand the inequities that socioeconomically disadvantaged students faced in their STEM education journey. I founded OneSTEM Village to give an opportunity for these students to interact with culturally relevant, STEM role models, learn from them about the various STEM disciplines, and be guided to the many different real world STEM careers they aspire to.

Chief Operating Officer

Tony Green BS

Clean-tech and Sustainability Educator and Professional Tony’s 20+ years of experience in high-tech and clean tech as engineer, sales and marketing professional, and a science instructor/teacher allow him to speak “science” as well as “people” while explaining complicated topics in easy-to-understand terminology. https://www.speakinggreencommunications.com/

Tony is a EnCorp Teaching Fellow and has 5 years of experience teaching STEM subject to middle and high school students in traditional classroom as well in the virtual environment.

Tony holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware and M.B.A. with a specialization in Technology Management from University of Phoenix. Tony is a proud veteran, having served in the U.S. Navy aboard the Nuclear- powered submarine U.S.S. Topeka SSN 754 based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Tony was recently selected to the inaugural climatebase fellowship, an accelerator designed on spawning the next generation of climate-tech professionals. In his spare time, Tony serves on the Board of Directors of Tri-Valley Cares which is a watchdog organization with the goal of abolishing the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Personal Statement

In my time, there have been mentors who have guided my transition to a STEM career before it was referred to as STEM. I'd like to give back or pay it forward so the next generation of youth has the opportunity to embark on meaningful careers. The engineers of the future need to be diverse because the solutions these engineers design will be more likely to produce benefits and solutions for all people.