The Team
Who We Are
Vincent Shi
President
Vincent Shi is a senior at Niskayuna High School in Niskayuna, New York. For the past three years, he has been teaching Hands-On STEM lab classes to elementary school students at the Chinese School of the Capital District of New York. Under his leadership, Hands-On STEM Inc. has partnered with public libraries, community centers, tutoring services, and other institutions to deliver engaging STEM programs for younger students. Vincent is also a varsity volleyball player for Niskayuna High School and works as an intern focusing on research in quantum computing in the School of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York.
Liping Huang, PhD
Chair of the Board
Yi Lei
Board Member
​Yi Lei has served as the Vice President of the CCC Chinese School in the Capital Region since 2019. In this role, she oversees youth teachers, teaching assistants, and the youth team. Before relocating to Albany, she worked as a Software Verification Engineer in Ottawa, Canada, for 10 years.
Haiyan Sun, PhD
Board Member
Haiyan Sun is team lead at New York State Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)
focusing on renewable and hydrogen technologies. She has 20+ years of combined experience in research and development,
new product introduction, customer application and business strategy, with unique background from working in large corporate America, small startup, as well as government agency.
Gautam Parthasarathy, PhD
Board Member
Gautam Parthasarathy has worked at GE Research since 2002. He has participated in and lead several initiatives within both the Niskayuna, NY community where he resides and the GE Research community where he works. He has experience working with both advisory, non-profit and private boards.
Yufeng Shi, PhD
Treasurer
Yunfeng Shi has been a professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York since 2008. He is passionate about teaching physics and coaching basketball to kids. He also serves as an academic liaison for RPI's men's basketball team.
Andrew Zhang
Secretary
Andrew Zhang is a sophomore at Niskayuna High School in Niskayuna, New York. He has participated in math competitions such as MathCounts and the Lexington Math Tournament (LMT) for multiple years. Since entering high school, he has also become an active member of the Science Olympiad team. In addition, Andrew has served as a teaching assistant for the Hands-On STEM lab classes at the Chinese School for the past three years. He is a dedicated math tutor at the Chinese Community Center Math Club and also instructs Taekwondo at Pai’s Taekwondo.
Jeffrey Chen
Founder
Jeffrey Chen is a junior at McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, with college research experience in material science. He founded HandsOnSTEM in December, 2020, during the middle of pandemic to help young kids learn science and technology through hands-on, interactive and fun experiments. He was also an instructor for science experiment class at the local Chinese school, and math instructor at Mathnasium.
