Our Board of Directors
Melissa Rancourt, Chairman & Founder. Melissa is an engineer herself and loves the Big Bang TV show, so much so that she does a workshop based on it which has proved to be one of the favourites of the girls. Melissa is a true science geek and doesn't mind who knows this! Her story is our story so check it out here!
Joyce Lualaba is part of the Board of Directors and the Africa & Event Activities Chair. She is based in Kinshasa! Joyce believes in project management as a way of being successful in business and life. She loves all sciences related to plants, animals and planets and is addicted to... the Discovery Channel! Read more about Joyce's g4g Projects here.
Sarah Thomas is part of the Board of Directors and the Americas & Education Chair. She is the ultimate teacher. She works in International Education and looks forward to our future work with teachers to bring fun new ideas into the classroom. It isn't the surprising to know that Sarah loves to learn -- and she loves to dive into the fun detail of the science experiments. Her work with g4g in the US here!
Chandana Bhattacharya is part of the Board of Directors, and the Asia & Gender Equity Chair. She loves technology and loves research! She is our leader in gender equality and we all learn so much from her. Chandana brings passion to everything she does - and this is contagious for all of us. Read more about her work with g4g in India here!
Advisory Board & Project Managers
Aurelia is on our advisory board for corporate partnerships and is our diversity & inclusion expert, global Cisco contact, AND Project Manager for g4g in Amman, Krakow & now Barcelona! She’s piloted our‘g4g@work’ concept w/ Cisco, which we will use with other companies around the world! As a “world citizen” in Brussels, she loves kitchen science and watching "The IT Crowd"! She hopes to inspire the next generation of female STEM leaders around the world! All about her launch in Jordan here!
Jelena Lucin is our Project Manager & Science Advisor in Brussels HQ. From global communications & event coordinating, she manages various g4g internal projects, creates science workshops, supervises our lovely young interns and ambassadors and loves to lead the DNA workshop across the globe! She loves all things science, but what really gets her going is studying the core of all living things... the molecules of life! Get in contact with here here!
Kelly Torres is our Country Manager for Brazil. She can tell you the best time of the year for star-gazing! She is our resident Astrophysicist and we wouldn't be surprised at all if the number of scientists in Ouro Branco, Brazil triples due to Kelly's passion in sharing her knowledge about the stars.
Milena Amvrazi-Diamantopoulou is the Project Manager for Athens, Greece. Although her business field is in PR she is fascinated by science and wishes she could be a surgeon! She coordinates our new "g4g in the Museum" project in collaboration with the Herakleidon Museum and is constantly looking for opportunities to launch new and challenging projects in Greece!
Andrea is our Project Manager in New York! She has been a teacher for 15 years. Her goal is to bring experiential learning into the classroom, whether it's math, science or even making history come alive. But she would teach Math all day long if she could! When she's not teaching, Andrea loves to spend time traveling, kayaking, and cooking. Read up on a blog about her first event in NY here.
Cate is our Project Manager currently in Dresden, Germany. She is passionate about nanotechnology and the physics of light, so much that her PhD project focuses on that. She enjoys spreading her passion for science and technology to others especially to girls! "You do not need to look like a nerd to be into science & tech" :-).
As a long-term volunteer, Hasnae is always looking for more ways to get involved! She is our Project Manager in Morocco, coordinating all our activities there and will lead us the the first ever g4g Day there. She is based in Brussels and regularly volunteers to help at events and run projects!
Project Leaders & Coordinators
Alexaundra Zanella is a Project Coordinator for g4g in Brussels HQ. Having grown up wanting to be Indiana Jones, she loves to find new ways to combine her passions for science, history, languages and world travel. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree and co-teaching an after school science program.
Mayte is manager of an amazing group of 20 engineers at Cisco in Brussels & a Project Coordinator for g4g in Barcelona! Her passion for people & technology has driven her to lead many initiatives in Inclusion and Diversity, promoting STEM among young girls & empowering women in technical careers & is being recognised for manyawards for it! She is a proud mum of two kids and her favourite TV series? The Big Bang Theory!
Maite is a one of our PC for g4g in Barcelona & a Networking Engineer w/ Cisco focused on different Security Technologies for the last 9 years. She enjoys sharing her knowledge and working with people. She believes education is the key for a better future. In her free time she loves travelling, learning and specially spending time with family and friends.
Acaria is the Project Lead for the very first Cisco led g4g event in Goa, India. She is a Relationship Manager with the Global Engagement Team for Cisco Capital in San Jose, California, and Director of Global Operations for Goa Sudharop, a non-profit organization based in California. She represents Cisco’s commitment in g4g which brings about support and opportunities to young girls pursuing careers in STEM.
Gwen is a project co-ordinator from London. She is a PhD student at Imperial college, creating fabrication techniques for the electronics of the future. Starting as an electrical engineer she has a passion for understanding how everything in the world works and is keen to promote that STEM subjects should be accessible to all!
Dasha is our Project Coordinator & Cisco POC intern for 2016. She will be working to help launch Cisco events around the world. She graduated with a degree in management and finance from Boston University. Dasha loves fashion and she is looking forward to experiencing the link between fashion and science.
Esther is an engineer at Cisco in Data Center technology & a Project Coordinator for g4g in Barcelona! She was born in a small farmers town in Spain and always loved to play with technology. She wants to show how fun working in technology can be and to make sure that everybody is given the same opportunity to choose their career. She was awarded European Digital Woman of the year in 2014.
Ria is one of the Project Coordinators for g4g in Goa, India. She is an Electrical Engineer and works in the Transportation Industry designing new Light Rail Transit Systems in Oakland, California. In her free time she enjoys traveling, yoga and cooking!
Sonia Mohan is a teacher of Biology and Chemistry at European School Mol and Project Leader for g4g. Ever since the first g4g event at ISB in 2010, she has been an avid believer in what g4g stands for. In 2012, she organised the first g4g Day in Flanders, as well as g4g Day@Mol in hopes of encouraging more girls to pursue careers in STEM! She enjoys a good crime thriller book & loves genetics!
Jess is our Project Leader for g4g Day@London! She is a PhD researcher in the Department of Physics and Centre for Plastic Electronics at Imperial College London. Jess spends her time in the lab printing flexible electronic circuits from conducting polymers, and all her time out of it telling school kids how great science is. Read about Jess’ science teaching!
Ro'ya Hatamleh is one of our Project Coordinators for g4g Jordan. She is a communications engineer and a team leader at Estarta - Cisco TAC. She loves volunteering, especially when it comes to girls' futures! As a kid, she was AMAZED at how they could make science experiments just from a home kitchen! Since then she's been highly attached to everyday science and engineering.
Rana Itani, one of our Project Coordinators for g4g Jordan, is an Industrial Engineer. Her passion for Science, Technology and Engineering is ever-growing and for more than six years now she has focused it in the field of Engineering Management. She is in love with Mathematics and Engineering, so much so that she is fond of creating graphs & analyses on Excel!
Rania Halabi is one of our Project Coordinators for g4g Jordan. She is a computer engineer and now a Senior engineer at Estarta-Cisco TAC. She loves being around young people, and enjoy volunteer work, especially discovering the strength in young people. She enjoys working in the networking field, considering network issues a puzzle needing to be solved.
Ewa Zuba is one of our Project Coordinator for g4g in Krakow, Poland. Ewa works as Network Consulting Engineer. She loves math, networking and working with people. In her free time she travels with a photo camera, and enjoys a good game of volleyball!
Gosia is part of the Krakow g4g team as Project Coordinator. She works at Cisco as a Security Customer Support Engineer. She plays computer games, always smiles, and loves ice cream.
One of our project coordinators for g4g in Krakow, Aga has been working at Cisco’s IT department for over 3 years as an analyst and a project manager. Her passions include user centric design, human-computer interaction and travelling. She hopes to inspire young women that working in IT is full of passion and creativeness!
Ola is one of the Project Coordinators for g4g in Krakow, Poland. She has been a Cisco TAC Engineer for 3 years. She is passionate about new technologies and enjoys sharing her knowledge to promote science especially with young female students.
One of our project coordinators for g4g in Krakow, Anna joined Cisco in October 2013 as a BI Analyst in GBS BI team and loves creating stories based on the numbers provided :). She likes challenges, process improvements and project management. In her free time, she loves cooking, travelling and meeting with people.
Nevena Kostic was our global coordinator in Brussels . She enjoys finding the fun in our everyday work and inspiring girls to find this as well! She loves telling people that Albert Einstein signed her lab coat at her very first greenlight for girls event.... and he really did!
Elena is our Germany Ambassador! She is Italian and lives in Munich. She teaches science there in the European school. She's known about us since g4g Day@Brussels 2013 and she's been a fan since day 1! She 's going to look into getting g4g to come to Germany!
Ana Paula Urzedo is an Agrobiologist and shows our greenlight girls and her university students about the importance of Chemistry and Biology of the plant and harvesting world!
Melissa Cieto attends Bridgewater State University where she is pursuing her bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. She loves meeting future scientists everyday as she encourages her students to explore the STEM fields.
Elisangela is the person we go to for learning about Physics. She brings her knowledge of how physics is a part of our everyday life right into her university classroom.
