Board of Directors
MVEF is a non-profit educational foundation run by an unpaid Board of Directors of dedicated parent and community volunteers who are elected annually. Their time, expertise and energy enable the MVEF to maintain a low overhead, so more of every dollar donated goes directly to fund our programs.
Dena Seki, Executive Director
Dena Seki started as the MVEF Executive Director in summer 2020, during the COVID pandemic. Prior to that she was an active volunteer in Palo Alto public schools starting in 2010. This has included serving five years on the Addison Elementary School PTA and Greene Middle School PTA executive board in various roles, including co-president at Addison. She was on the board of Palo Alto Partners in Education as Assistant Treasurer and then worked as Development and Campaign Manager. Prior to moving to Palo Alto, she worked for over twelve years in various finance and banking roles. She was a VP/Account Officer for Wells Fargo Foothill and worked in various positions for GE Capital, the most recent being as a Deal Manager. While working for GE Capital, she served as the Elfun Chapter Treasurer and acting Secretary. Elfun is a global organization of GE volunteers. Dena has a BA in International Politics from Penn State University and a joint MBA/MA from the University of Connecticut. dena@mvef.org
Dwight Rodgers, Board President
Dwight joined the MVEF board in 2013 and was elected President of the Board in 2020 after serving as Secretary for two years. He has two children, both in the Mountain View public school system. Dwight holds a BS in computer engineering from Princeton University. He is a Director of Engineering at Adobe by day, and can sometimes be found making short films and animations in his nights and weekends.
dwight@mvef.org
Patrick Neschleba, Vice President
Patrick joined the board in 2021. He and his wife Kerri have had kids in the Mountain View elementary and middle schools for the last 10 years, and have lived in Mountain View for over 18 years. Patrick served as the School Site Council Chair at Monta Loma Elementary from 2015-2017, focusing on addressing achievement gaps and school culture, and helping run the school's Walk-a-thon for 8 years. He has volunteered at the district level, serving on facilities committees implementing Measure G improvements. Patrick currently serves on the Measure B Parcel Tax Oversight Committee. Patrick brings significant fundraising and endowment oversight experience from his time serving as Chair and Fundraising lead on the Stanford Band Alumni Board. He is a 23-year technology veteran with multiple patents, and currently works in a Chief of Staff role at a major semiconductor company in Silicon Valley. He holds a M.S. in Materials Science & Engineering and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University.
Tamara Patterson, Treasurer
Tamara joined the board in 2019 to help the community raise our children to love learning and learn to work hard. Tamara is currently leading the California Equity and Excellence Initiative, focused on growing confident readers by 3rd grade. She is also on the board for Community Services Agency, which provides vital social services to our most needy residents. Prior to these roles, Tamara was a product manager and on the management team of a cleantech startup. She has a BA from Wesleyan University, a BS from Caltech, and an MBA from UC Berkeley. Tamara has three kids with her first at Gabriela Mistral and her other two in preschool. She loves making her children smile, family dance parties, and adventures on the road.
tamara@mvef.org
Aisha Rengan, Secretary
Aishwarya grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and has been living in the Bay Area for 17 years. She worked as medical device quality engineer with a focus in risk management. She is also passionate about education and has taught middle school math and science. Aishwarya fosters her love of education by teaching Math Olympiad at her local elementary school. She served as the VP of memberships and secretary for the local elementary PTA and volunteers in the classroom. Aishwarya’s educational background is in chemical engineering and math. She holds a B.S.E. in ChE from University of Michigan and and M.S. in Industrial Mathematics from Michigan State University.
Tamara Wilson
Tamara grew up in the Bay Area and has been involved in MVWSD schools since before her son was born, volunteering with Reading Partners at Castro Elementary. By the time her son was 3, she was spearheading a campaign for the construction of what is now Jose Antonio Vargas Elementary School. Most recently Tamara retired from the MVWSD Board of Trustees where she served as President and is thrilled to continue to serve our kids as an MVEF Board Member. In her day job, she works as a Research Geographer at the U.S. Geological Survey and is Deputy Director of the National Innovation Center. Her passion for education and reading stems from being a lifelong learner herself. She holds a BA in Environmental Studies from California State University East Bay and an MA in Geography from the University of Arizona. Tamara enjoys adventure travel, backpacking, scuba, cycling, and is trying to become a better runner while keeping up with her soccer player son who enters Crittenden this Fall 2021.
Brad Dux
Brad joined the board in 2020. Brad grew up in Toronto, Canada and then attended middle school through college in Arizona. He has been living in the Bay Area for 10 years. Brad has taught Math Olympiad at his local elementary school,and teaches several coding classes online. Brad's educational background is in math and computer science, and he holds a degree in both from the University of Arizona.
Cindy Chow
Cindy joined the MVEF board in the 2022-23 school year. One of her goals is to foster community connections among families in the Mountain View Whisman school district, especially following a time when in-person involvement and volunteerism on campus were limited. It's time for people to come together again in support of our children.
Cindy works part-time as an event and volunteer coordinator for a local nonprofit, Blossom Birth and Family. She and her husband are Canadians who have made MV their home since 2006. Their two children attended Bubb and Imai Elementary schools and in '22-23 are students at Graham.
Ania Mitros
Ania has three kids. After a brief experience at a private school, Ania dove into understanding how our public schools work. Realizing how key MVEF is to a well-rounded education for Mountain View students, she joined the board in 2017. Ania remains active with her PTA, seeing it as another piece of the puzzle of how our public schools achieve excellence on par with some private schools. Ania works as en electronic engineer designing battery monitoring systems for electric cars. She has a B.A. from Rice University and a Ph.D. from Caltech. She enjoys camping, bicycling, skiing, and writing.
ania@mvef.org
Rohan Taneja