The application period for the Summer 2024 Athena Fellowship has closed. Sign up for updates about future application cycles here.
Applications for the 2024 Summer Fellowship are closed. Sign up for updates!
Program Mentors, Instructors, and Speakers
Program Mentors, Instructors, and Speakers
Mentors for the Athena Fellowship are accomplished young women at the forefront of STEM. Program mentors are recent college graduates and current or incoming undergraduates, so they are uniquely equipped to provide relevant and actionable advice for younger students. The goal of the fellowship is to show students where they can be in the next five to ten years, and equip with them the resources to excel in their own journey.
Below are examples of mentors students will have the opportunity to learn from over the summer. Throughout the fellowship, students will have the opportunity to meet many more mentors of equal caliber.
Mentors for the Athena Fellowship are accomplished young women at the forefront of STEM. Program mentors are recent college graduates and current or incoming undergraduates, so they are uniquely equipped to provide relevant and actionable advice for younger students. The goal of the fellowship is to show students where they can be in the next five to ten years, and equip with them the resources to excel in their own journey.
Below are examples of mentors students will have the opportunity to learn from over the summer. Throughout the fellowship, students will have the opportunity to meet many more mentors of equal caliber.
Program Mentors,
Instructors, and Speakers
Mentors for the Athena Fellowship are accomplished young women at the forefront of STEM. Program mentors are recent college graduates and current or incoming undergraduates, so they are uniquely equipped to provide relevant and actionable advice for younger students. The goal of the fellowship is to show students where they can be in the next five to ten years, and equip with them the resources to excel in their own journey.
Below are examples of mentors students will have the opportunity to learn from over the summer. Throughout the fellowship, students will have the opportunity to meet many more mentors of equal caliber.
Jiwoo Lee
Harvard Medical School
Jiwoo is an MD candidate in the Harvard-MIT HST Program at Harvard Medical School. Prior, she studied computational biology and biomedical informatics at Stanford. In high school, Jiwoo was awarded Best in Category at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) for her CRISPR-Cas9 research, and she has continued to pursue her passion for science and research ever since.
Katie Mishra
Stanford University
Katie studied Computer Science at Stanford while working on NLP research at Oculus. Katie founded Kangaroo, a celebrity mobile gaming company, with Kiernan Shipka; she raised $3.3M from top venture capital firms to create an interactive AI storytelling engine and app. She is currently the first Product Manager at Astrocade, an AI gaming platform co-founded by Fei-Fei Li.
Shivani Aggarwal
Harvard University
Shivi recently graduated with a Master’s degree in Philosophy in Health, Medicine, and Society from the University of Cambridge. Prior, Shivi studied integrative biology at Harvard, where she graduated magna cum laude with a 4.00 GPA, and conducted research at the Harvard Business School. Shivi now works as an associate at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
Anne Lee
Stanford University
Anne studied Computer Science at Stanford and completed her degree in 8 academic quarters (~2.5 years). During high school, Anne worked at Microsoft as a software engineering intern. She also received the Cameron Impact Scholarship, a merit-based, full-tuition scholarship to attend any university, and was admitted to Harvard by likely letter (top 100 academic applicants).
Jenny Xu
MIT
Jenny Xu is a long-distance runner, artist, programmer, gamer, fitness instructor, Forbes 30 Under 30: Games recipient, and CEO of Talofa Games. She started making games and running at age 12, and in her 12 years in the gaming industry, she’s shipped 10 titles on the mobile app stores with over 9.2 million downloads. Jenny studied at MIT and graduated with a degree in computer science.
Jessika Baral
Harvard Medical School
Jessika is an MD/PhD candidate studying Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. Prior, Jessika studied Genomics and Computational Biology at Washington University in St. Louis through the Florence Moog Fellowship, a full-tuition scholarship. During high school, Jessika conducted research at the Stanford School of Medicine and was named a Science Talent Search (STS) Finalist.
Zoya Surani
Duke Medical School
Zoya is an MD candidate at the Duke University School of Medicine in the Primary Care Leadership Track. Prior, Zoya studied cognitive neuroscience and education at Harvard. Zoya has been passionate about both medicine and education since a young age; in high school, Zoya founded iConquer: Ubuntu and raised over $200,000 to educate youth about health and wellness.
Shreya Ravi
Stanford University
Shreya is a software engineer at Foundry, an AI compute startup. Previously, Shreya studied Computer Science at Stanford. In high school, Shreya was the co-captain of her robotics team and led 60+ students to win the International Creativity in Design Award in the FIRST Robotics Competitions. She also founded the Roboneers LEGO Robotics Camp to promote early interest in STEM.
Trisha Kulkarni
Stanford University
Trisha is a Master’s student in Computer Science at Stanford. As a female engineer with a disability, Trisha is passionate about increasing representation in technical fields. Trisha has served as the President of the National Association of Blind Students and interned at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Trisha has also interned at Microsoft and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Alexa Fein
Harvard University
Alexa is an incoming undergraduate at Harvard passionate about science and math. Alexa has conducted research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Research Science Institute (RSI), where she was recognized as a top 5 presenter. She also serves as the President of Tutoring for Tomorrow, a nonprofit that provides academic assistance to support local communities.
Amanda Kossoff
University of Pennsylvania
Amanda is an undergraduate studying Computational Biology & Operations, Informations, and Decisions at the University of Pennsylvania through the Life Sciences & Management Program. In high school, Amanda founded Pop for a Cause, a non-profit that raised over $36,000 to support charitable organizations. She also served as the Youth Advisory Board Co-Chair of the National Girls Collaborative.
Siya Goel
Stanford University
Siya is an undergraduate studying Computer Science at Stanford. In high school, Siya was a Research Science Institute (RSI) scholar and a 3x International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) Finalist, and she conducted research at the Purdue Center for Cancer Research, Tufts Medical Center, and the University of Michigan. This summer, Siya will be working as an AI software engineer at NVIDIA.
Lorena Aguilar
Harvard University
Lorena Aguilar is an undergraduate studying Computer Science at Harvard. Her high school did not offer any computer science courses, but she did not let this stop her. Lorena found other opportunities at Google and her community college and was named an MITES Semester Scholar (MIT program for students in STEM). She was also recognized as a recipient of the NCWIT Aspirations in Computing award.
Lorena is an undergraduate studying Computer Science at Harvard. Her high school did not offer any computer science courses, but she did not let this stop her. Lorena found other opportunities at Google and her community college, and was named a MITES Semester Scholar (MIT program for students in STEM). She was also recognized as a recipient of the NCWIT Aspirations in Computing award.
Isabella Delbakhsh
Stanford University
Isabella is an incoming undergraduate at Stanford University passionate about amplifying the voices of women. She is the Amazon best-selling author of “Freedom Speaks,” where she delves into the rich history of women in Iran. She also started a podcast with listeners in over 70 countries. At Stanford, she plans to continue pursuing her interest in mathematics while pursuing a career in medicine.
Amna Habiba
University of Toronto
Amna Habiba is an undergraduate studying molecular biology at the University of Toronto as a Lester B. Pearson Scholar. She is the Director of Youth Innovation & Technology at Teach the Future and the Founder of BloomED. She has been named a Global Teen Leader and an HP x MIT Girls Save the World Finalist, and has been featured by the UN, Malala Fund, and Business Insider.
Irene Wu
Harvard University
Irene Wu is a Bain Capital Crypto Venture Partner. Previously, she was Head of Strategy at LayerZero and an investor at Insight Partners, where she focused on blockchain infrastructure and developer tools. She also held design and engineering positions at IDEO and J.P. Morgan. Irene studied Computer Science at Harvard and was a founding team member of Harvard Blockchain Club.
Lauren Shen
MIT
Lauren is an incoming undergraduate at MIT studying computer science and mathematics. In high school, Lauren was a 3x International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) Finalist, a Science Talent Search (STS) Scholar, and a 3x US National Chemistry Olympiad (USNCO) National Finalist. She has conducted research at both the Research Science Institute (RSI) and NASA.
Isabel Duran
MIT
Isabel is an incoming undergraduate at MIT planning to study electrical engineering and computer science. She loves physics, chemistry, math, and anything to do with magnets! Following these passions, she researched magnetoelectric nanoparticles at the University of Miami, and started STEM GEM, an organization that mentors female students and distributes science kits.
Sahar Mohammadzadeh
Harvard University
Sahar is an investor at Insight Partners, a software venture capital firm. She is focused on investing in startups rebuilding the future of healthcare. Prior, Sahar studied government at Harvard and worked with several nonprofit organizations, including the Gates Foundation and National Geographic, to help allocate grants to changemakers in climate, healthcare, and education.
Ilona Demler
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Ilona is a Ph.D. student at Caltech, studying Computing and Mathematical Sciences as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and Caltech EAS Chair Scholar. Previously, Ilona studied Physics at Harvard, where she conducted computer vision and tinyML research for neurological disease diagnostics, and interned at Disney Research in the machine intelligence and data science group.
Erin Smith
Stanford University
Erin is a technologist and social entrepreneur. Previously, she was the founder of FacePrint, an AI startup building tools to detect and monitor Parkinson’s disease. She was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient and Thiel Fellow for her work. She priorly worked at Schmidt Futures & studied Symbolic Systems at Stanford. Erin began her research journey back in high school.
… and many more mentors!
Jiwoo Lee
Harvard Medical School
Jiwoo is an MD candidate in the Harvard-MIT HST Program at Harvard Medical School. Prior, she studied computational biology and biomedical informatics at Stanford. In high school, Jiwoo was awarded Best in Category at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) for her CRISPR-Cas9 research, and she has continued to pursue her passion for science and research ever since.
Katie Mishra
Stanford University
Katie studied Computer Science at Stanford while working on NLP research at Oculus. Katie founded Kangaroo, a celebrity mobile gaming company, with Kiernan Shipka; she raised $3.3M from top venture capital firms to create an interactive AI storytelling engine and app. She is currently the first Product Manager at Astrocade, an AI gaming platform co-founded by Fei-Fei Li.
Shivani Aggarwal
Harvard University
Shivi recently graduated with a Master’s degree in Philosophy in Health, Medicine, and Society from the University of Cambridge. Prior, Shivi studied integrative biology at Harvard, where she graduated magna cum laude with a 4.00 GPA, and conducted research at the Harvard Business School. Shivi now works as an associate at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
Anne Lee
Stanford University
Anne studied Computer Science at Stanford and completed her degree in 8 academic quarters (~2.5 years). During high school, Anne worked at Microsoft as a software engineering intern. She also received the Cameron Impact Scholarship, a merit-based, full-tuition scholarship to attend any university, and was admitted to Harvard by likely letter (top 100 academic applicants).
Jenny Xu
MIT
Jenny Xu is a long-distance runner, artist, programmer, gamer, fitness instructor, Forbes 30 Under 30: Games recipient, and CEO of Talofa Games. She started making games and running at age 12, and in her 12 years in the gaming industry, she’s shipped 10 titles on the mobile app stores with over 9.2 million downloads. Jenny studied at MIT and graduated with a degree in computer science.
Jessika Baral
Harvard Medical School
Jessika is an MD/PhD candidate studying Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. Prior, Jessika studied Genomics and Computational Biology at Washington University in St. Louis through the Florence Moog Fellowship, a full-tuition scholarship. During high school, Jessika conducted research at the Stanford School of Medicine and was named a Science Talent Search (STS) Finalist.
Zoya Surani
Duke Medical School
Zoya is an MD candidate at the Duke University School of Medicine in the Primary Care Leadership Track. Prior, Zoya studied cognitive neuroscience and education at Harvard. Zoya has been passionate about both medicine and education since a young age; in high school, Zoya founded iConquer: Ubuntu and raised over $200,000 to educate youth about health and wellness.
Shreya Ravi
Stanford University
Shreya is a software engineer at Foundry, an AI compute startup. Previously, Shreya studied Computer Science at Stanford. In high school, Shreya was the co-captain of her robotics team and led 60+ students to win the International Creativity in Design Award in the FIRST Robotics Competitions. She also founded the Roboneers LEGO Robotics Camp to promote early interest in STEM.
Trisha Kulkarni
Stanford University
Trisha is a Master’s student in Computer Science at Stanford. As a female engineer with a disability, Trisha is passionate about increasing representation in technical fields. Trisha has served as the President of the National Association of Blind Students and interned at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Trisha has also interned at Microsoft and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Alexa Fein
Harvard University
Alexa is an incoming undergraduate at Harvard passionate about science and math. Alexa has conducted research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Research Science Institute (RSI), where she was recognized as a top 5 presenter. She also serves as the President of Tutoring for Tomorrow, a nonprofit that provides academic assistance to support local communities.
Amanda Kossoff
University of Pennsylvania
Amanda is an undergraduate studying Computational Biology & Operations, Informations, and Decisions at the University of Pennsylvania through the Life Sciences & Management Program. In high school, Amanda founded Pop for a Cause, a non-profit that raised over $36,000 to support charitable organizations. She also served as the Youth Advisory Board Co-Chair of the National Girls Collaborative.
Siya Goel
Stanford University
Siya is an undergraduate studying Computer Science at Stanford. In high school, Siya was a Research Science Institute (RSI) scholar and a 3x International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) Finalist, and she conducted research at the Purdue Center for Cancer Research, Tufts Medical Center, and the University of Michigan. This summer, Siya will be working as an AI software engineer at NVIDIA.
Lorena Aguilar
Harvard University
Lorena Aguilar is an undergraduate studying Computer Science at Harvard. Her high school did not offer any computer science courses, but she did not let this stop her. Lorena found other opportunities at Google and her community college and was named an MITES Semester Scholar (MIT program for students in STEM). She was also recognized as a recipient of the NCWIT Aspirations in Computing award.
Isabella Delbakhsh
Stanford University
Isabella is an incoming undergraduate at Stanford University passionate about amplifying the voices of women. She is the Amazon best-selling author of “Freedom Speaks,” where she delves into the rich history of women in Iran. She also started a podcast with listeners in over 70 countries. At Stanford, she plans to continue pursuing her interest in mathematics while pursuing a career in medicine.
Amna Habiba
University of Toronto
Amna Habiba is an undergraduate studying molecular biology at the University of Toronto as a Lester B. Pearson Scholar. She is the Director of Youth Innovation & Technology at Teach the Future and the Founder of BloomED. She has been named a Global Teen Leader and an HP x MIT Girls Save the World Finalist, and has been featured by the UN, Malala Fund, and Business Insider.
Irene Wu
Harvard University
Irene Wu is a Bain Capital Crypto Venture Partner. Previously, she was Head of Strategy at LayerZero and an investor at Insight Partners, where she focused on blockchain infrastructure and developer tools. She also held design and engineering positions at IDEO and J.P. Morgan. Irene studied Computer Science at Harvard and was a founding team member of Harvard Blockchain Club.
Lauren Shen
MIT
Lauren is an incoming undergraduate at MIT studying computer science and mathematics. In high school, Lauren was a 3x International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) Finalist, a Science Talent Search (STS) Scholar, and a 3x US National Chemistry Olympiad (USNCO) National Finalist. She has conducted research at both the Research Science Institute (RSI) and NASA.
Isabel Duran
MIT
Isabel is an incoming undergraduate at MIT planning to study electrical engineering and computer science. She loves physics, chemistry, math, and anything to do with magnets! Following these passions, she researched magnetoelectric nanoparticles at the University of Miami, and started STEM GEM, an organization that mentors female students and distributes science kits.
Sahar Mohammadzadeh
Harvard University
Sahar is an investor at Insight Partners, a software venture capital firm. She is focused on investing in startups rebuilding the future of healthcare. Prior, Sahar studied government at Harvard and worked with several nonprofit organizations, including the Gates Foundation and National Geographic, to help allocate grants to changemakers in climate, healthcare, and education.
Ilona Demler
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Ilona is a Ph.D. student at Caltech, studying Computing and Mathematical Sciences as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and Caltech EAS Chair Scholar. Previously, Ilona studied Physics at Harvard, where she conducted computer vision and tinyML research for neurological disease diagnostics, and interned at Disney Research in the machine intelligence and data science group.
Erin Smith
Stanford University
Erin is a technologist and social entrepreneur. Previously, she was the founder of FacePrint, an AI startup building tools to detect and monitor Parkinson’s disease. She was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient and Thiel Fellow for her work. She priorly worked at Schmidt Futures & studied Symbolic Systems at Stanford. Erin began her research journey back in high school.
… and many more mentors!
