Board of Trustees - Supporting & Protecting GATE's Student-Focused Mission
GATE Academy is a California non-profit corporation with Board members serving on a voluntary basis. The Trustees have oversight responsibilities for financial management of the school and governance to mission.
GATE's mission is to cluster cognitively gifted students in small groups with their intellectual peers, and provide them with an inquiry-based, accelerated, self-paced curriculum, in a school environment that celebrates them for who they are.
GATE Academy's mission-based program and philosophy contemplates that each 8th grader will graduate with specific life skills -- a practiced understanding of the process of inquiry learning and their personal responsibility, so that they can: (i) ask well-thought out questions about a topic of their choosing; (ii) investigate possible answers to those questions and organize the information they find in a clear way; (iii) synthesize and analyze their results into clear and appropriate answers to their questions; (iv) communicate their findings articulately to a diverse audience; (v) treat self and others in a caring, responsible, and respectful manner; (vi) create and respect a space to learn in; (vii) work to be an integral member of the school community.
GATE Academy's board members are listed below. Each deeply understands GATE Academy's mission-based program and philosophy. Both separately and together, each brings experience, knowledge and dedication to GATE, keeping our school financially sound and operationally healthy, and ensuring that our mission, philosophy and program operates independent of ideology and politics. This support permits GATE to safely nurture and serve its astounding K-8th grade students.
GATE's mission is to cluster cognitively gifted students in small groups with their intellectual peers, and provide them with an inquiry-based, accelerated, self-paced curriculum, in a school environment that celebrates them for who they are.
GATE Academy's mission-based program and philosophy contemplates that each 8th grader will graduate with specific life skills -- a practiced understanding of the process of inquiry learning and their personal responsibility, so that they can: (i) ask well-thought out questions about a topic of their choosing; (ii) investigate possible answers to those questions and organize the information they find in a clear way; (iii) synthesize and analyze their results into clear and appropriate answers to their questions; (iv) communicate their findings articulately to a diverse audience; (v) treat self and others in a caring, responsible, and respectful manner; (vi) create and respect a space to learn in; (vii) work to be an integral member of the school community.
GATE Academy's board members are listed below. Each deeply understands GATE Academy's mission-based program and philosophy. Both separately and together, each brings experience, knowledge and dedication to GATE, keeping our school financially sound and operationally healthy, and ensuring that our mission, philosophy and program operates independent of ideology and politics. This support permits GATE to safely nurture and serve its astounding K-8th grade students.
Douglas Wick
A veteran teacher with over 24 years of experience, Doug Wick started teaching at age 18 for a commercial SAT review service and has never stopped. He worked as a graduate teaching assistant at Duke University, served as science department chair at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, and is currently teaching physics and engineering at Branson. Doug is also co-director of the Branson Science Symposium, which is the culminating inquiry project for 9th grade physics at Branson and for the 11th grade science electives. He holds undergraduate degrees in music and physics from Princeton and UT Austin respectively, and master’s degrees in education and physics from UT and from Duke. His current area of professional growth is in learning robotics with arduinos and digital manufacturing tools and techniques in Branson’s maker space. Doug's two daughters have attended GATE.
A veteran teacher with over 24 years of experience, Doug Wick started teaching at age 18 for a commercial SAT review service and has never stopped. He worked as a graduate teaching assistant at Duke University, served as science department chair at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, and is currently teaching physics and engineering at Branson. Doug is also co-director of the Branson Science Symposium, which is the culminating inquiry project for 9th grade physics at Branson and for the 11th grade science electives. He holds undergraduate degrees in music and physics from Princeton and UT Austin respectively, and master’s degrees in education and physics from UT and from Duke. His current area of professional growth is in learning robotics with arduinos and digital manufacturing tools and techniques in Branson’s maker space. Doug's two daughters have attended GATE.
Xander Barbar
Xander Barbar is part of People Development at Boeing in Seattle, WA. A student whose academic and needs were met by accelerated and independent education, Xander brings the perspective of a more recent student-in-the-trenches perspective to GATE. Xander understands that meeting the cognitive and social/emotional needs of kids with high academic potential is an essential part of any diversity, equity and inclusion lens, and that this requires peer grouping, acceleration and inquiry-based learning. From leading an initiative in the Seattle public school system on entrepreneurship, to teaching English as a foreign language in Japan, to serving as a parliamentary assistant in Dublin, Ireland, to helping create STEM program design at the Seattle Zoo, to serving as UCLA president of on-campus housing, Xander has been involved with helping and educating others from his high student days. Xander is a graduate of UCLA, Honors College, and was awarded the highest departmental honors for his culmination thesis.
Xander Barbar is part of People Development at Boeing in Seattle, WA. A student whose academic and needs were met by accelerated and independent education, Xander brings the perspective of a more recent student-in-the-trenches perspective to GATE. Xander understands that meeting the cognitive and social/emotional needs of kids with high academic potential is an essential part of any diversity, equity and inclusion lens, and that this requires peer grouping, acceleration and inquiry-based learning. From leading an initiative in the Seattle public school system on entrepreneurship, to teaching English as a foreign language in Japan, to serving as a parliamentary assistant in Dublin, Ireland, to helping create STEM program design at the Seattle Zoo, to serving as UCLA president of on-campus housing, Xander has been involved with helping and educating others from his high student days. Xander is a graduate of UCLA, Honors College, and was awarded the highest departmental honors for his culmination thesis.
Steven A. Nielsen, JD
Steve Nielsen is a registered patent attorney writing patents in the fields of mechanical and electrical engineering, optics and medical devices. Steve manages Nielsen Patents, a boutique patent prosecution law firm in Marin. A graduate of UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, Steve has also chaired the Marin County Bar Association's Intellectual Property Section, and is the author of several continuing legal education videos on patent prosecution, ethics, and elimination of bias. A former GATE parent, Steve served as chair of GATE's first finance committee, and continues to serve on that committee. Armed with a BS in Computer Science, Steve has been instrumental in GATE's continuing technology upgrades. Steve was enticed to return to GATE as a board member when his twin daughters matriculated into high school, and they are now students at UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz.
Steve Nielsen is a registered patent attorney writing patents in the fields of mechanical and electrical engineering, optics and medical devices. Steve manages Nielsen Patents, a boutique patent prosecution law firm in Marin. A graduate of UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, Steve has also chaired the Marin County Bar Association's Intellectual Property Section, and is the author of several continuing legal education videos on patent prosecution, ethics, and elimination of bias. A former GATE parent, Steve served as chair of GATE's first finance committee, and continues to serve on that committee. Armed with a BS in Computer Science, Steve has been instrumental in GATE's continuing technology upgrades. Steve was enticed to return to GATE as a board member when his twin daughters matriculated into high school, and they are now students at UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz.
Binita Bhattacharjee
Binita Bhattarcharjee is a process technology leader in the biotech industry and currently works at Amyris. She leads teams of scientists and process engineers to make the large scale production of critical biomolecules possible. She has successfully and safely returned a team onsite to the lab during the COVID 19 pandemic, and is familiar with the human scale challenges of re-opening safely with a minimum of stress. Dr. Bhattarcharjee understands that GATE kids are unique and engaging and filled with curiosity about the world, and has a daughter who attends GATE. Dr. Bhattarcharjee obtained her PhD in Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Binita Bhattarcharjee is a process technology leader in the biotech industry and currently works at Amyris. She leads teams of scientists and process engineers to make the large scale production of critical biomolecules possible. She has successfully and safely returned a team onsite to the lab during the COVID 19 pandemic, and is familiar with the human scale challenges of re-opening safely with a minimum of stress. Dr. Bhattarcharjee understands that GATE kids are unique and engaging and filled with curiosity about the world, and has a daughter who attends GATE. Dr. Bhattarcharjee obtained her PhD in Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Jack Strange
Jack Strange has made a career of providing exceptional learning opportunities to both the gifted as well as the economically disadvantaged within a framework of inquiry-based learning coupled with a highly integrated curriculum that stimulates students to seek to see the unseen… to be curious enough to ask questions that others don’t, and then get excited when you uncover the truth. After nearly two decades in high tech, Jack followed his bliss and changed careers to teaching. He is a professional educator now in his seventeeth year of teaching science, mathematics and economics to middle school and high school students. Jack is also the founder and director of the Sonoma Marin Debate Society; an acclaimed and unaffiliated interscholastic debating team. For nearly 20 years prior to teaching, Strange was both an innovator and entrepreneur in computer hardware and software technology that served the engineering, scientific and medical markets. He has held positions in product marketing up to, and including, the executive levels in start-up companies, as well as in well-known global technology firms such as Xerox, Canon and Autodesk. Jack earned a B.A. in economics with a minor in physics from Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT and has pursued courses of independent continuing studies in physics, economics and education at Stanford University, CalTech and UCLA.
Jack Strange has made a career of providing exceptional learning opportunities to both the gifted as well as the economically disadvantaged within a framework of inquiry-based learning coupled with a highly integrated curriculum that stimulates students to seek to see the unseen… to be curious enough to ask questions that others don’t, and then get excited when you uncover the truth. After nearly two decades in high tech, Jack followed his bliss and changed careers to teaching. He is a professional educator now in his seventeeth year of teaching science, mathematics and economics to middle school and high school students. Jack is also the founder and director of the Sonoma Marin Debate Society; an acclaimed and unaffiliated interscholastic debating team. For nearly 20 years prior to teaching, Strange was both an innovator and entrepreneur in computer hardware and software technology that served the engineering, scientific and medical markets. He has held positions in product marketing up to, and including, the executive levels in start-up companies, as well as in well-known global technology firms such as Xerox, Canon and Autodesk. Jack earned a B.A. in economics with a minor in physics from Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT and has pursued courses of independent continuing studies in physics, economics and education at Stanford University, CalTech and UCLA.
Victoria Talkington, JD
Victoria Talkington believes that GATE Academy’s inquiry-based educational model for gifted children sets a national standard. She currently also serves the school as its Executive Chair. Ms. Talkington graduated from Yale University with a degree in molecular biochemistry and biophysics, and obtained her juris doctor from Harvard University. She has clerked in Washington D.C. for the United States Tax Court, and began her legal career assisting emerging technology companies with financing, mergers and acquisitions, and stock option plans. She served as managing partner of a Marin County based law firm until her retirement from active legal practice. During that time, she also served on the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood of Marin, was selected by the Marin County Bar Association to serve in a statewide, year long court/community planning outreach initiative (Courts and Their Communities), and was twice named the Marin County Legal Aid Society’s volunteer of the year for her pro bono assistance of indigent families. While raising her two children, Victoria chaired the Site Council for a local public elementary school, led the Mill Valley Planning Commission as its chair, started a community organization rebuilding the steps and lanes system of Mill Valley, obtaining a $1M grant funding for that program, and served as treasurer for a Marin County Supervisor campaign, among other activities. She was named Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce’s Citizen of the Year for her civic work. Victoria's son is a 2013 graduate of GATE Academy, and currently attends UCLA. Her daughter is a summa cum laude graduate of University of California, Berkeley, and currently attends medical school at Texas Tech.
Victoria Talkington believes that GATE Academy’s inquiry-based educational model for gifted children sets a national standard. She currently also serves the school as its Executive Chair. Ms. Talkington graduated from Yale University with a degree in molecular biochemistry and biophysics, and obtained her juris doctor from Harvard University. She has clerked in Washington D.C. for the United States Tax Court, and began her legal career assisting emerging technology companies with financing, mergers and acquisitions, and stock option plans. She served as managing partner of a Marin County based law firm until her retirement from active legal practice. During that time, she also served on the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood of Marin, was selected by the Marin County Bar Association to serve in a statewide, year long court/community planning outreach initiative (Courts and Their Communities), and was twice named the Marin County Legal Aid Society’s volunteer of the year for her pro bono assistance of indigent families. While raising her two children, Victoria chaired the Site Council for a local public elementary school, led the Mill Valley Planning Commission as its chair, started a community organization rebuilding the steps and lanes system of Mill Valley, obtaining a $1M grant funding for that program, and served as treasurer for a Marin County Supervisor campaign, among other activities. She was named Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce’s Citizen of the Year for her civic work. Victoria's son is a 2013 graduate of GATE Academy, and currently attends UCLA. Her daughter is a summa cum laude graduate of University of California, Berkeley, and currently attends medical school at Texas Tech.
