Past Instructors

Michael Zhao graduated from Lynbrook High School in San Jose in 2021. He has been deeply involved in STEM throughout his middle school and high school years and founded Silicon Valley STEM 4 Youth to share his passion and knowledge in STEM with others in the community.

Michael’s passion for STEM runs deep. He is the founder and president of Lynbrook's Science Olympiad Club and also loves biology. He frequently participates in STEM competitions. Michael has been recognized as a 2-time USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) National Finalist (Top 20) in 2020 and 2021, has won national invitational, state-level medals in Science Olympiad and regional awards in the Synopsys Science Fair, and  was a member of the 2017 National Middle School Science Bowl Champion team as well as 2021 Bay Area High School Science Bowl Competition Champion Team.

Michael was also actively involved in his school community as ASB (Associated Student Body) President, and was previously a national officer in Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), leading 230,000 members in the world's largest student business organization. Michael is not only named as one of 161 US Presidential Scholars, the highest honor for the high school student in the nation, he is also the recipient of a $20,000 scholarship as a Coca Cola Scholar for his dedication to leadership, service, and action that positively affects others. Michael was admitted to Harvard, Stanford, Yale and MIT, he will matriculate to Harvard in the fall. 

In his free time, he likes to play french horn and is a member of the California Youth Symphony Senior Orchestra.

Angela Jiao is a senior at Lynbrook High School in San Jose and the current president of its Science Olympiad Club. She has been recognized as a 4-time USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) National Semifinalist and received the Recognition of Academic Excellence by scoring in the top 50 on the 2022 USABO Semifinal Exam. She is also a 2-time US National Chemistry Olympiad (USNCO) National Exam Qualifier and received the Honors distinction (top 150, 1%) in 2022. Additionally, Angela has 7 years of competitive experience in Science Olympiad, having won 1st place medals at the NorCal State Finals and placed in the top 5 at national invitationals. 

Outside of exploring STEM, Angela is a Platinum medalist in the National French Contest. She is also a competitive writer and dancer. She has won a National Gold Medal in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards as well as multiple regional awards, and she has received various national-level dance awards.

Angela will be attending MIT in the Fall of 2022.

Raymond Shao is a rising senior at Lynbrook High School in San Jose. Raymond has been involved with STEM in the form of Science Olympiad throughout middle school and high school. He has joined Silicon Valley STEM 4 Youth to share his experience with others. Raymond has competed in other STEM competitions such as USNCO and AIME and has seen successful at the regional and state levels of Science Olympiad. 

In addition to STEM, he also enjoys economics, teaching, and anime being involved with the economics and anime clubs at school.

Nathan is rising junior at Lynbrook High School. He started in Miller Science Olympiad in 6th grade and some of my favorite events have been fossils, oceanography, GameOn, Boomilever, and Mission Possible. I’ve also done FIRST Lego League since fourth grade and love building and programming. In my spare time, I like to play ping-pong and bake treats.

Antone Jung is a rising senior at Lynbrook High School with interests in biology and biosciences. He has competed in and placed at numerous Science Olympiad events, was distinguished as a USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) semifinalist, and has been involved in the National Science Bowl for three years. In the spring of 2019, Antone, under the strong leadership of Andrew Yuan, placed 1st at Regionals and advanced to compete at the National Science Bowl tournament, where the Miller Middle School team placed 2nd. In the winter of 2019, he and Lynbrook Team B placed 2nd at the first annual Lynbrook Invitational. In 2018, Antone, along with another student, was awarded first place in the Cupertino library’s S^4 competition, which he hopes to mentor this summer.

When not grinding textbooks, Antone enjoys running cross-country and track and field and playing the piano.

Boheng Cao is a rising junior at North Hollywood High School who is passionate about science, which manifests through their extracurriculars, hobbies, and recreational activities. Boheng enjoys biology, having qualified for the USABO semifinals twice consecutively and becoming recognized as top 100 nationally, in addition to receiving a silver medal at the International Medicine Olympiad. Additionally, Boheng enjoys recreational math, having participated in a wide diversity of competitions ranging from Mathcounts to ARML to the AMC series. A three-time AIME qualifier, Boheng is involved in the organization of their school's math club in addition to tutoring math elsewhere. Among other distinctions, Boheng has also been recognized as a USAPhO semifinalist. In their free time, Boheng enjoys reading, playing tennis, playing the piano, and reading but ultimately not understanding textbooks.

Rishab Sakalkale is a rising senior at Lynbrook High School. He has been a part of Science Olympiad since 6th grade, competing in events such as Designer Genes/Heredity, Protein Modeling, and Digital Structures/Boomilever, and has consistently medaled in the regional and state tournaments each year. Other than Science Olympiad, he is part of many CS-oriented clubs at Lynbrook, and enjoys learning more about machine learning. He loves teaching, and is very excited to mentor the future generation of STEM students at SVSY.

In his free time, Rishab is either going down Wikipedia rabbit-holes, playing with his dog, or attending practices as the head drum major of the Lynbrook Marching Band.

Dylan Li is a rising senior at Valley Christian High School. He is heavily involved in STEM programs in his school such as math program, Physics Olympiad and the research programs. He is two-time AIME qualifier, as well as semi-finalist for the USA Physics Olympiad. He has also conducted research on the chaotic Lorenz systems for the Synopsys Science Fair and studied the effects of microgravity on electrolytic cells. In his free time, Dylan enjoys cooking and getting boba with friends.

Rohit Suresh is a rising senior at Lynbrook High School, and he is interested in the interface between biology and engineering. Starting from sixth grade, Rohit has been a part of Science Olympiad, and he has medaled in events such as Anatomy and Physiology, Disease Detectives, Optics, and Battery Buggy. 

He has been recognized as a USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) Semifinalist. In addition, he is the treasurer of Surgery Interest Club and an active member of numerous scientific and medical clubs on campus such as Science Club, Science Olympiad, and Pre-Med. Furthermore, he has participated and won awards in international robotics competitions over the past four years. 

Outside of STEM, Rohit enjoys playing chess, tennis, and piano for which he has won multiple awards for his playing.

Edwin is a rising senior at Lynbrook High School. He has a strong interest in STEM and has participated in various science competitions including Science Bowl and Science Olympiad. He has been a team member of Science Olympiad since 7th grade and has won medals in many events at various regional and state level competitions, including Dynamic Planet and Fossils. He is passionate about various topics related to earth science.

In his free time, Edwin enjoys playing piano as well as solving Rubik's cubes.

Olivia Zhao is a rising sophomore at Granada Hills Charter High School. Olivia has participated in Science Olympiad, Science Bowl, and Biology Bowl in the past. She has been teaching a variety of online classes since the start of the pandemic. She has taught kids science experiment classes that aim to educate and spread the wonders of science through fun and easy ways. She takes leadership roles in many organizations, all of which help her excel in communication  and public speaking. She loves teaching and hopes to touch the lives of many more kids! In her free time, she loves baking, arts and crafts, playing piano, and reading. She also folds an obsessive amount of origami for fun!

Jerry Yang is a rising freshman at North Hollywood High School. He has three years of classroom teaching experience, both online and in person. He has taught classes in coding, speech and debate, fun math, and English. He has also won several awards in Speech and Debate competitions, and in several categories. He recently won state champion in Congressional Debate as well as in Prose and won Overall State Speaker. He has several years of First Lego League robotics competition experience, with great ranks. He also won 4th place in the LA County Science fair. I am the second instructor for Life Science Botany class.

Ronak Badhe is a rising senior at Lynbrook High School. Ronak has been involved with STEM in the form of Science Olympiad throughout six of his middle school and high school years. He has joined Silicon Valley STEM 4 Youth to share his experience with others. Ronak frequently competes in STEM competitions such as USAAAO, F=MA, SVCE and has seen success at the regional and state levels of Science Olympiad. In SVCE, his team's e-bike won medals in acceleration and efficiency.

In his free time, Ronak likes to play chess and has done well in tournaments all around California. He is almost an expert in chess and has volunteered to help teach kids in Bay Area Chess. Ronak also enjoys programming, having picked it up three years ago.

My interests include many sciences, including physics, biology and chemistry. I like to understand how things work at a molecular level. I have competed on the Lynbrook science olympiad team B. At regionals, I got 1st and 2nd at 2 events; WICI and Water Quality. I qualified for the USAPHO semifinal test this year (2020-2021).

Sohan Talluri graduated from Lynbrook High School in San Jose in 2021. STEM has been Sohan's passion since middle school. He has competed in Science Olympiad for five years, winning many Regional-level and State-level awards. Sohan has been the Vice President of Study Events for Lynbrook's Science Olympiad Club since the club's founding.

Sohan is primarily interested in biology, and has been recognized as a USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) Semifinalist. He has conducted research into the epigenetics of mental disorders at UC Santa Barbara, and has participated in the Synopsys Science Fair. Sohan's other STEM interests include astronomy and math, where he is a two-time USA Astronomy Olympiad (USAAAO) Semifinalist and an American Invitational Math Exam (AIME) competitor.

Outside of STEM, Sohan has been serving his community through Boy Scouts for the past six years. He is currently the Assistant Senior Patrol Leader of his troop of 80 scouts, and has achieved the rank of Life Scout. Sohan enjoys playing the clarinet and bass clarinet in his free time.

Catherine Zhou is a rising junior at Lynbrook. She has been competing in Science Olympiad for four years, and has placed in the top five at national-level invitationals, regionals, and states. She is passionate about biomedicine, and she enjoys conducting research and participating in science fairs.

Outside of STEM, Catherine is interested in the arts. She also enjoys playing basketball, playing piano, and volunteering.

Jocelyn is a rising senior at Lynbrook High School. She is passionate about computer science and earth science. She has competed in Science Olympiad for four years in events such as Experimental Design and Chemistry Lab. She is also on the Lynbrook Ocean Science Bowl team. She is the president of Girls Who Code San Jose and has taught middle school students coding for the past two years. Outside of school, she enjoys reading and graphic design.

Sidharth Kannan is a junior at Lynbrook High School. He has medaled in the Mystery Architecture and Meteorology.

Crag Liu is a junior at Lynbrook High School. He has medaled in the Herpetology and Forensics.

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Albert Tam is a rising senior at Lynbrook High School. He has been recognized as a two-time USABO Biology Olympiad semifinalist, top 50 semifinalist in 2020 and National Finalist (Top 20) in 2021. He has also qualified for the AIME four times, competed as a member of Lynbrook's Science Olympiad club, and conducted research on nanopore-based DNA sequencing for the Synopsys Science Fair.

He's also passionate about STEM outreach. Outside of SVSY, with other organizations, he regularly hosts workshops on the human body for children in elementary and middle school and has helped develop the curriculum for a series of first aid and preventable disease classes to be taught at 50+ schools in Liberia.

In his free time, Albert enjoys playing the double bass, reading, and eating tiramisu.

Hi! My name is Angela Kwon, the Vice President of my school's Girls In STEM Club. I am passionate about math and physics. I am on my school's science bowl team, and we have gotten 10th place in the 2021 regional competition. My friend and I have also done Science Olympiad Medal-Only Competitions for Game-on and Amazing Mechatronics. 

Some of my hobbies are Korean traditional dancing, drawing, writing, and walking, and I also love hanging out with my friends! 

Nathan is a rising senior at Lynbrook High School in San Jose. He is passionate about science and technology, specifically the intersection between biology, chemistry, engineering, and computer science. He has been actively involved in his school’s Science Olympiad team since 8th grade and has won top 5 medals in multiple events. Nathan has also led a winning biomedical engineering project at the Synopsys Science Fair, and competed at the California Science and Engineering Fair. Over the summer, he taught a Python programming class to middle school students. During his free time, Nathan enjoys reading and researching about his interest subjects, playing music, and soccer. He is very excited to give back to his community through SVSY.

Arthur Sun, a local high school student in the Granada Hills region. I have participated in my local science team for the past 2 years, doing activities such as Science Bowl and participating in USABO competitions. Over the past summer, I participated in the SVSY program and found it to be a good experience and resource for which to meet new people and develop my skills regarding Science Bowl and various science related competitions. I desire to expand on such ambitions, helping bolster the science and tech based community in my local region, starting with highschool and middle school students. 

Joe is a rising senior attending Lynbrook High School. He is passionate about Computer Science and loves studying STEM subjects in general. He actively participates in clubs on campus, such as Science Olympiad and Speech and Debate. He has also been serving as the Junior Class President, and will be Lynbrook’s ASB President for the 21-22 school year. 

Since 6th grade, he has been a part of the Science Olympiad team, where he has placed in the top five for many events, including Battery Buggy, Detector Building, Dynamic Planet, Gravity Vehicle, Meteorology, and Mousetrap Vehicle. 

Recently, he’s been studying various areas of Machine Learning, mainly Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing. He’s taken a Stanford student-led Machine Learning course at Inspirit AI and an EECS Berkeley course covering Linear Algebra, Circuits, and Machine Learning. 

Joe has also participated in the regional Synopsys Science Fair, where he worked on a project to help alert people when they are slouching. His project received 1st Place in the Biomedical category and was admitted into the California State Engineering Fair.

Kaylia graduated from Lynbrook High School in San Jose in 2021. She has been with SVSY for three years. She has been competed in Science Olympiad for five years, winning multiple medals in states, regionals, and invitationals. She specializes in engineering and build events.

Kaylia is passionate about STEM. She was a founding member of the Lynbrook Science Olympiad Club and has been its Vice President of Build Events for two years. She is the current Programming Captain in her FIRST Robotics Competition robotics team which has won various awards, and she has been elected by the team to be a Dean's List Semifinalist. She is the Curriculum Lead in the Girls Who Code Club at Miller Middle School run by Lynbrook students and has taught basic courses in Javascript and Python. She has regularly volunteered at the Tech Interactive assisting and explaining concepts to guests.

She enjoys playing music on the alto saxophone, baking, creative literature. Her robotics team is also a Girl Scout troop, and she sells approximately 80 cookies per year. She is the Public Relations Officer in the Lynbrook ArtReach Club and makes crafts to donate to the community.

Aaron is a rising senior at Lynbrook High School. Despite being less competitive than others, he is still motivated to learn more about people’s mental and physical states. He believes that finding the underlying factor behind diseases, regardless of if it is mental or physical, is being underlooked in the science and medical field. He has done community volunteering work for the past two to three years and has raised money for those in need.

Tiffany Hwang graduated from Lynbrook High School in San Jose in 2021. She has competed in Science Olympiad since middle school, and has won medals at regional and state level. Her experience includes Write It Do It, Ecology, Water Quality, Towers, Sounds of Music, and Experimental Design. 

Despite playing piano and clarinet in her free time (and also a fellow musician at California Youth Symphony Senior Orchestra), she is not as proficient at Sounds of Music as she would like. She advises those interested to study up on physics and be prepared to build instead of stockpiling jazz theory concepts. The test writers stick to classical theory.

Other hobbies during quarantine include reading, attempting to write, exploring different genres of music, singing too loudly, anime, and taking long naps instead of practicing. 

Annie graduated from Lynbrook High School in San Jose in 2021. Annie has been part of Science Olympiad for most of her high school life. As a flutist, Sounds of Music, an event from Science Olympiad, has helped enhanced her knowledge of music. Impacted by her experience in Science Olympiad, she joined Silicon Valley Stem 4 Youth in order to give back and help others enjoy similar experiences. During her spare time, Annie enjoys playing the flute, the piano and watching anime. She is currently a flutist in California Philharmonic Youth Symphony's Senior Orchestra. 

Alec graduated from Lynbrook High School in San Jose in 2021. Alec has been working on both Science Olympiad and with SVSY for three years. For each year of SVSY, he has taught Crime Busters/Forensics Science, and has placed 3rd at States in Crime Busters and 2nd at Invitationals in Forensics. In addition, he has placed 2nd at States in Optics and 1st at Invitationals in Ping Pong Parachute.

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Alec's favorite part of Science Olympiad is viewing fun chemical reactions (explaining why he's stuck with Crime Busters/Forensics for so long). He spends his time writing and listening to music. He can probably be bribed with candy or boba.

Aarushi Mehrotra is a junior at Lynbrook High. As part of the Science Olympiad team for five years, she’s been exploring a vast variety of science topics ranging from thermodynamics to cryptography, earning medals at each regional/state-level competition. She loves learning about all areas of science and hopes to share her love of knowledge with students at SVSY as a third-year teacher. She particularly loves biomedicine and is a Pre-Med Club officer. She’s also conducted research on the effect of inflammatory pathway inhibitors on the symptoms of Alzheimer’s as part of the Synopsys Science Fair.

Besides science, Aarushi is a self-taught coder. She can code in various languages and has taken a machine learning course from Stanford. Using this knowledge, she has experience in single-cell data analysis and has placed well in online data science competitions. She’s also a flutist at the California Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and a half-marathon runner.

During the pandemic, Aarushi has organized an effort with the Science Olympiad team to assemble face shields at home and has currently donated 500 face shields to Sutter Health. Her other quarantine hobbies include cooking meals for her family, working out, reading, and attempting to beat her brother in basketball.

I'm Katy and I’m an incoming freshman at Castilleja. I’m very passionate about STEM, especially science and I’ve taught myself Biology and Chemistry. I’ve also participated in the AMC 8 and MAGIC (more active girls in computing) where I coded a math game that helped donate money to cancer research for children. 

In my free time I enjoy playing tennis, dancing, and reading. One of my favorite books is “Into the Magic Shop” which is an autobiography by a neurosurgeon, I highly recommend it! 

I'm an upcoming 8th grader at Miller Middle School and I have an interest in Math and Science. I decided to join SVSY because I've wanted to be a tutor/teacher.  From being a student and attending summer camps at SVSY before, I can foresee that I will enjoy working with other members and learning new skills and concepts as a group. STEM has fascinated me since I was in 5th grade and I'm curious to learn more. I will try my hardest to teach well in fun and interactive ways, organize events, and be a responsible and organized person.

Eric Liu is a 7th grader in CLC charter school going to 7th grade this fall. He participated in ACSL (Including four sections - computer number systems, Boolean algebra, infix and postfix, and Graph Theory) and finished the first two sections with scores 4 out of 5 and 5 out of 5, respectively. He learned Scratch, Java and HTML in 5th grade and has been learning Python since he started his 6th grade. He has a knack of developing tricky programs such as a tic-tac-toe game and he never gives up on a project. 

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He conducts research using the Internet to tackle challenges in his school projects and presents them confidently. He takes outside of school public speaking and programming classes on Zoom. Eric is currently participating in a CoderZ Sprint Challenge Junior competition and his team is in third place, with most of his points contribution and team assistance, of the mid-Atlantic (with 65 teams). He is also participating in the IEEE Centre County engineering competition partnered with a boy Micah Hall for the main competition with a hover scooter design project, and for his personal pet project of the competition with an Lego Ev3 cart that uses color sensors to complete a line following maze.  

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Eric is friendly and pleasant.  In his free time, he likes to play soccer, tennis, ski/snowboard, skateboard, and badminton along with his classmates and friends. Eric also joins the rock band at school (plays keyboard/piano and drums) and is a good defense player on his recess soccer team.

Jianyu Wang is an rising sophomore at Lynbrook High School.  He has participated in Science Olympiad for 3 years. He has won many medals in his events, which include density lab, write it CAD it, and road scholar. Jianyu has also participated in Science Bowl for 2 years, and his team won 5th place at the nationals. In his spare time, he enjoys programming and talking with his friends.