About AMSA > Founders
The Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School was founded by the joint efforts of a group of enthusiastic people:
Julia Sigalovsky, the Lead Founder and Executive Director of the Academy, has B.S. and M.S. degrees in geology and geochemistry from Moscow State University and a Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Sigalovsky has over 25 years of experience in academia and industry, including ten years of entrepreneurial experience as founder and president of GeoTek Engineering, Inc., a geotechnical engineering consulting and drilling company. Dr. Sigalovsky’s academic background includes intensive research at the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in material sciences. She has authored or co-authored over 50 scientific publications.
Anna Charny, Chair of the Board of Trustees, received her MS and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. She works as a researcher in the field of Telecommunication Networks and is currently employed by Cisco Systems, Inc. She is also a Visiting Professor at the Imperial College of London. Dr. Charny has a long-standing interest in bringing high quality math and science education to secondary school, and has been involved with several after school math programs.
John Bayle, Chair of the Governance Committee, is a 24-year Marlborough resident. He is a Computer Engineer and works in EMC. Mr. Bayle has a decade-long interest in education, he was a candidate for a Marlborough School Committee in 1994 and authored a number of articles on school education.
David Foster, Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees, is a 22-year Marlborough resident, father of six children, an educator and an organizational performance consultant. He has a masters degree in business and organizational behavior from the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University and also attended the BYU Law School. He is a member of the Board's Governance Committee and applies his expertise in performance improvement to assist the Academy's leaders.
Andrzej Herczynski is a faculty member in the Department of Physics at Boston College where he is Director of the Laboratory and a Lecturer. Professor Herczynski received a M.S. degree in mathematics from Warsaw University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Lehigh University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Assistant to the Executive Director of the American Institute of Physics, and Assistant Vice Provost for International Education at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Evelyn Lima, Treasurer, an English and Portuguese teacher and interpreter, works in Marlborough. She will serve on the Outreach Committee of the Board as a liaison with Brazilian community.
Mikhail A. Shubin is currently Matthews Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Professor Shubin received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Moscow State University, as well as a Doctorate of Science in physics and mathematics from the Russian Academy of Sciences. Professor Shubin worked previously at Moscow State University, Moscow Institute of New Technologies, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also an elected member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and a cofounder of the Independent University of Moscow. He has published 11 books and more than 150 research papers in connection with his work in mathematics. He has also co-edited or co-authored 11 other books, including seven volumes of the Springer Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences. He is a member of the editorial boards of three international journals and the World Scientific Monograph Series in Mathematics.
Sandra Witkos, Chair of the Community Outreach Task Force, is a paramedic and has thirteen years of experience in the field of Emergency Medical Services. Ms. Witkos serves on Academy’s Board of Trustees as the Clerk.
Gene Buchman holds a M. A. degree in Experimental Psychology and Special Education from Goddard College, and a B.A. degree in Social Sciences from Harvard University. He began his undergraduate education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a Clinical Specialist in Psychology and a Designer of Adaptive Equipment for people with special needs at the Fernald Center in Waltham, MA, and also a Behavioral and Educational Consultant for several local school systems, with 30 years experience in these fields. He was certified to teach grades K – 12, with specialties in Experimental Education, and Curriculum Consulting, in Vermont. He has extensive tutoring experience. Prior to commencing his graduate studies, Mr. Buchman worked as an Aerospace Electronics Engineer for 11 years, much of it on the Apollo Manned Spaceflight Program. Mr. Buchman serves as Academy’s consultant in Child Psychology and Special Education.
Mikhail Khmelnitskiy the Director of Curriculum of the Academy, is a secondary school teacher with over 18 years of teaching experience. He received a M.S. degree in mathematics from Moscow State Pedagogical University; taught students from regular middle school to advanced math and science high school to college; developed curricula in mathematics and computer science for different programs; founded and led the School of Young Programmer; served as the Assistant Principal of a Moscow school with advanced Math and Physics curricula; and organized an Olympiad in Computer Science for Moscow high school students. He participated in the Gelfand Correspondence Program in Mathematics at Rutgers University.
Josef Novotny, a 14-year local area resident, is a computer specialist who turned to teaching recently and obtained teacher certificate while working in school. He graduated from MIT and believed that high quality education is a good long-term investment. He received BS in Mathematics from Komensky University in Bratislava Slovakia, MS in Civil Engineering from Czech Institute of Technology in Brno Czech Republic and MS in Engineering from MIT in Cambridge Massachusetts. He has extensive industry experience in computer-aided design, scientific applications software development, image processing, and computer art. Mr. Novotny has worked for 20 years as software engineer and has extensive experience in teaching and tutoring high school and college mathematics. Mr. Novotny is a Math teacher at the New Bedford public high school and at the MetroWest School of Mathematics, an after school Math program in Framingham. Mr. Novotny participated in developing the Academy’s original curriculum in Computer Science for grades 6th through 11th.
Victoria Vainer holds master’s degree in Comparative Literature from Michigan State University. She started her professional life in Russia as a violinist, playing, among others, in the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra. After graduating from The Moscow State University School of Journalism, she had been working for many years as a journalist, writing music, literature, and theater reviews for different Moscow art magazines. She also worked for five years as one of the editors and a staff writer of the Dionysus, an international magazine on theater and arts. Her teaching career started in 1987, when she was invited to participate in creating the Department of the History of Culture in the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (the most prestigious institute of its kind in Russia, analogous to MIT). She created and taught courses on the History of Russian Literature, Theater and Drama for students majoring in physics and computer science.
Sandra Stotsky is a Research Scholar in the School of Education at Northeastern University. From 1999 to 2003, she was Senior Associate Commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Education and directed complete revisions of the state’s standards in English, mathematics, science, history, geography, civics, and economics as well as its regulations for licensing teachers and teacher training programs. Editor of and contributor to What’s at Stake in the K-12 Standards Wars: A Primer for Educational Policy Makers (Peter Lang, 2000), she is also the author of Losing Our Language(Free Press, 1999, reprinted by Encounter Books, 2002). From 1991-1997, she served as editor of Research in the Teaching of English, the research journal sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English. She received a B.A. degree from the University of Michigan and an Ed. D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Samuel Rodriguez, a resident of Maynard, is a Cornell University graduate and an attorney. Mr. Rodriguez has served on a number of community boards in the Boston area relating to education and education advocacy. Also for a period of two years Mr. Rodriguez was the Executive Director of the Latino Parents Association and non-profit organization geared towards the parent training.
