Mona Foundation Board

Board Members Emeritus

The Board Members Emeritus are recognized for their selfless efforts in sustained and significant service to the board of directors of Mona Foundation, and who continue to support its goals and serve as consultants.

Dr. Randie Gottlieb
Dr. Manaji Suzuki
Patrece Banks
Craig Lewis, Ed.D.

Advisory Board Members

Ata Egrari, MD
Sepher Egrari, MD, PAC
Shannon Javid, President, Knots
Sam Rabbani, President, Ava Enterprises
Robert Rosenfeld, President, Idea Connections

Associate Board Members

Mrs. Gouya Zamani

Regional Office Directors

Mrs. Pune Ghebleh, Director, Phoenix Office
Mrs. Gouya Zamani, Director, Northern California Office
Diane Marie Samandi, Co-Director, Southern California Office
Sima Mobini, Co-Director, Southern California Office

Board Member Biographies

Mahnaz A. Javid, Ed.D.

Mahnaz Aflatooni Javid has a doctorate in educational leadership, with focus on educational technologies, instruction design, and human-software interface. She is committed to, and has been involved in community service and social and economic development projects in the US, South and Central America and Africa for the past 15 years. She has served as Director of Readiness at Microsoft Corporation. She is currently Senior Director of Learning and Development at Avenade, a global IT consultancy, and continues to serve as an adjunct faculty at the University of Washington.

She is a recognized expert in integration of technology across disciplines to enhance learning, and has authored several articles in scholarly publications. She is as well the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, and is a frequent presenter at conferences focused on educational leadership.

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Duy-Loan, Le

Duy-Loan T. Le is a Texas Instruments Senior Fellow, and National Instruments Director. She came to America in 1975 with no father and a family of 9, mostly women and children. She received her BSEE from the University of Texas with High Honors and her MBA from the University of Houston. In 1982, Duy-Loan started as a memory design engineer at the age of 19 with Texas Instruments. She managed world wide project teams and was responsible for bringing up TI memory devices with joint venture partners on 3 continents for the 'first' time in TI's history. She is currently the Digital Signal Processor (DSP) Advanced Technology Ramp Manager, managing development projects using cutting edge technology at Texas Instruments.

Duy-Loan has received many awards over the years including: “Top 20 Houston Women in Technology” from the Association of Women in Computing, “Women In Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame”, “National Technologist Of The Year” from Women of Color, Asian American Engineer of The Year, Who's Who of American Women, “Golden Torch Award” from Vietnamese American National Gala. Duy-Loan's service to the community includes: Director of Mona Foundation, Founding member & Advisory Board Director for Sunflower Mission, bringing educational assistance to children in Vietnam, Founding member & Honorary Board Director for Science National Honor Society, promoting math and science at high schools and many others.

In 2002, Duy-Loan became the first Oriental and the first woman to be elected TI Senior Fellow in Texas Instruments' 75 years of history, joining 4 other men who hold this prestigious title TI world wide, and today she remains the only woman with this title. Duy-Loan holds 34 patents with 8 pending applications. She has been featured in IEEE SPECTRUM, Asian Enterprise trade journals, a book titled “The Pride of Vietnamese”, and numerous local and international newspapers. Duy-Loan serves on the Board of National Instruments, a NASDAQ company headquartered in Austin. Duy-Loan is a registered Professional Engineer (PE).

Duy-Loan Le has been married to her husband Tuan N. Dao for 24 years. She has two boys, Quy-Dan 14 and Quy-Don 10. She enjoys deep sea fishing, classical music, painting, and Tae-Kwon-Do.

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Diane Samandi

Diane Samandi is the owner/designer of Jonquil, Inc., a fashion design company celebrating its 25th anniversary selling to fine stores worldwide. She currently serves on the Multicultural Organization for Neighborhood Arts Board which brings the arts and virtue training to children in need, focusing primarily on outreach programs to children in shelters and group homes.

Stephen Waite, Ed.D.

Dr. Stephen Waite is an internationally recognized expert in implementing social and economic projects. He has spent most of his life in developing countries including India, Western Samoa, and presently in Swaziland serving as the principal project manager, consultant and principal of several schools.

The educational institutions which he has directed, including the Panjgani School in India and the Setsembiso Sebunye High School in Swaziland, are recognized in their respective countries as exemplary schools with highest academic achievement, skill-based trainings, and community outreach programs, addressing the vital needs of the community, and serving its most needy.

Rita Azizi Egrari. Pd. D.

Rita has a PhD in Public Health with an emphasis on maternal and child health in developing countries from UCLA. She completed her internship and doctoral work in Kenya. She has been a volunteer at the Mona Foundation for 1 1/2 years with a focus on health issues and in leading the Office of Development. Rita passionately believes that poverty can be alleviated through education, particularly the education of women and girls. She is a mother of three young children and lives in Seattle, WA.

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Sima Mobini

Sima Mobini has a Masters Degree in Structural Engineering from UCLA. She worked in her field in private and public industries for fifteen years until 1997. She stopped working to spend more time with her three children, with the ultimate hope of getting involved with meaningful projects that serve humanity.

She happened to learn about Mona Foundation in the year 2003. Her heart was touched by its efforts throughout the world. Since then she has been volunteering with the Foundation.

Additional biographies.

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