Letitia Austin

Letitia Austin has years of experience working in the government, private, nonprofit, and education sectors as a Public Relations, Communications, and Marketing professional. She holds an Executive Master of Business Administration degree in Marketing and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Broadcast Journalism.

Ms. Austin has given back to her community in a variety of ways that include volunteering to build U-Dome housing for the homeless, collecting school supplies for students in need, and donating essential items to the local women’s shelter. She has also volunteered to install a Born Learning Trail for young children and raised scholarship funds for African-American students graduating from high school and heading to colleges and universities.

Ms. Austin is a graduate of the Ventura County Leadership Academy (Class XII) and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She is in the process of obtaining an APR (Accredited in Public Relations) certification.

Stephanie Birnbaum

Stephanie Birnbaum, Ph.D. is an evolutionary ecologist who is passionate about exposing diverse students to the natural world around them. She received her B.S. in Biology from Emory University and her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Vanderbilt University. Stephanie has developed class and field curriculum for K-12 students and especially loves introducing students to the wonders of plants and insects! She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in Biology at Occidental College. Outside of her love for biology, Stephanie lives with her partner and dachshund in LA and loves hiking, beach trips, and exploring new restaurants.

machiko yasuda

Machiko Yasuda is a software engineer at Compiler, a small, woman-owned software consultancy that helps government agencies build open source, human-centered and secure solutions to support the delivery of services like public transportation. She’s been involved in connecting people in LA to their environment in various ways, from teaching confident city cycling to co-organizing free coding meetup events, where she taught people how to use code and geography tools to learn more about their neighborhood. She is active in park, public lands, and complete streets advocacy, thanks to Nature for All’s Leadership Development program in El Monte, and has served on the National Park Conservation Association's LA Young Leaders Council, and is an American Hiking Society NextGen Trail Leader. A former journalist turned software engineer, she is passionate about increasing access to STEM fields and public service for underrepresented youth.

Swapna Savant

Swapna Savant is the Engineering leader at Headspace health and currently leading the engineering teams responsible for expanding the platform capabilities for Fortune 500 companies and enterprise partners. She has 15+ years of industry experience in building large-scale systems and high-performing teams. She holds a Masters in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina. She started her career with multi-national companies and later decided to move to start-ups to feed her creative mind and have a significant impact on the success of the business. She is highly passionate about working towards creative ways to engage people with STEM programs and improving diversity and inclusion in tech. She is also involved in building strong leaders and empowering leaders to adapt to their roles. With that in mind, she founded a community, adaptUp, which helps people adapt to their roles.

Milind Nagarsheth

Milind is an accountant (CPA) by trade, and has spent over fifteen years helping clients and businesses in the field. Milind is an active member of the community and serves on a local tax board as well as advises start-ups and small businesses as they grow their businesses. He holds a B.S. in Accounting and Business Information Systems from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Kacie Anderson

Currently, Kacie is the Sr. Director of Brand Partnerships at Epic Records, where she excels as a top-line revenue driver and closer. Her previous experiences include opening the Nike Watts Community Store where she had a huge impact on the Watts community through amazing Watts Community partners.