Who We Are

The Stanford Alumni Women's Impact Network is run by a volunteer leadership board of alumni across the globe. We meet monthly to plan events and develop strategies for outreach and engagement, and we are always looking for more people to be involved! Interested in joining the board or serving as a regional ambassador in your region? Check out our GET INVOLVED page - we'd love to hear from you!

2024-25 Leadership Board Members

April Day, BA 2002, Co-Chair
Antonia Fore, PhD (ABD) 1991
Jia Liu, PhD 2011
Lindsey Mignano, BA, 2007, Co-Chair
Usha Nagavarapu, Post Doctoral Scholar, 2002
Barbara Prescott, PhD (ABD) 1987
Sophie (Jing) Ren, MS, 2025
Vinutha Narayan, LDT

2024-25 Leadership Board Member Bios

Antonia Fore works as the Graduate Research and Internship Program (GRIP) Coordinator for the Stanford Club of Germany (SCoG – Board) and in collaboration with FSI/TEC at Stanford, - placing students in research & internship positions in Germany. Originally from Germany she received her M.A. from Washington University in St. Louis (German Literature, 1980) and her Staatsexamen from the FU Berlin (German & North-American Literature, 1985). From 1980 to 1985 she taught at BOSP – Berlin and the Department of German Studies, Stanford. While pursuing her PhD at Stanford she was the Resident Fellow at Haus Mitt (1985-89) and founded the Graduate Student Mother Support Group at Cowell Student Health Center. While raising four kids she taught middle and high school, held various volunteer positions in the local school district (PTO-President, Site Council, Special Ed., Mental Health etc.) as well as at Stanford (Hospitality Chair SB-Gymnastics, Co-Chair SUWC's GDs). In her free time she enjoys travel (7-Continents-Marathon-Club), bicycling, hiking, diving, and reading.

April Day completed two undergraduate majors, Japanese Studies and Native American Studies, at Stanford. She participated in the Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies consortium program, studying in Kyoto, Japan. While at Stanford, she also volunteered in different projects and an ongoing program coordinated by the Haas Center for Public Service. After Stanford, she attended law school at Columbia, where she volunteered to assist survivors of domestic violence. After law school, she helped launch a regional chapter of a progressive lawyers' organization. As an alumni, she has participated in the Stanford Alumni Mentoring (SAM) program. Her interests include reading and traveling.

Jia Liu, Ph.D. 2011, is currently a senior portfolio manager at PanAgora Asset Management based in Boston. She co-manages portfolios with an asset-under-management of over $10 billion for institutional clients. She has over ten years’ of working experiences in the finance industry, including being a portfolio manager at Blackrock in San Francisco and a quantitative trader at Citigroup in New York. At work, she is a big advocate of evaluating investments from the Environmental/Social/Governance (ESG) perspective and has presented related topics in the hedge fund management US and European summits. Born and raised in China, Jia got a Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University. Her prior volunteer work includes being a member of the women's leadership council of Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, a guest lecturer at Stanford University, and an editorial board member of Journal of Applied Finance and Banking. In her spare time, she likes exercising, yoga, photography, traveling, watching movies, and playing the piano. She is passionate about Stanford WIN’s mission and very excited to join its board!

Barbara L. Prescott, PhD (ABD), 1987, is an independent scholar, literary anthropologist, educational researcher, and sometime poet. She is currently studying the poetry of Dorothy L. Sayers written while Sayers was an Oxford University student, 1912-1915. Barb Prescott has published three books of poetry and various articles in academic journals, among those: Child Language, The Stanford Forum for Research on Language Issues, Proceedings of the International Congress of Linguists, Inklings Forever: Proceedings of the Colloquium on C.S. Lewis and Friends, and she has contributed numerous sonnets to published collections of poetry. Barb is active in social media and manages several Facebook pages, including SONNET, a journal of poetry, Dorothy L. Sayers in Oxford, and Anglo-Saxon Language. A native of Chicago, Barbara has graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Illinois, and is an alumna of Stanford University, 1987. She is married, with two children, and currently resides in Wheaton, Illinois with occasional jaunts back to Stanford and San Francisco simply for the pleasure of returning home every so often.

Lindsey S. Mignano, originally from Hawaii, graduated from Iolani School (H.S.D., 2003) before heading to California to attend Stanford University (B.A., Feminist Studies, 2007) and University of California, Hastings College of the Law (J.D., 2010). Professionally, Lindsey counsels national and international startups regarding business formation and expansion into US markets, financing, and contractual matters at her women- and minority-owned law firm, Smith Shapourian Mignano PC, in San Francisco, California. In addition to her work on Board of Directors for the Stanford Alumni Association's Women's Impact Network, she currently sits on the Barristers Board of Directors for the Bar Association of San Francisco, on the Board of Directors for Mini Cat Town, Inc., a neonatal kitten rescue, and serves as a Sustainer in the Junior League of San Francisco, Inc.

Usha Nagavarapu, Ph.D., studied as a post doctoral scholar at Stanford University (2002). She is a visionary alternative medicine (ayurvedic/holistic) practitioner and entrepreneurial pharmaceutical scientist with pharmaceutical strategy, research and drug development, pipeline management, and product development experience. Her passions include understanding the pathophysiology of various diseases, and helping find techniques to maintain and restore them holistically and noninvasively. She is an experienced preclinical and clinical researcher who has managed drug development programs from early discovery through clinical testing. She offers personalized health guidance to people and motivates them to eat smart, be energetic, vivacious, and happy. She does this by combining traditional eastern medicine with doctrines of western science. With an integrative and holistic approach to wellness, her aim is to motivate people to achieve a healthy state of balance where mind, body, and consciousness are all aligned.

Sophie(Jing) Ren is a Product Architect and pioneer in personalized product design, blending cognitive science with technology. A Forbes 30 Under 30 (2017) honoree and serial entrepreneur, Sophie was accepted into the prestigious EDS program(2025) at Stanford University, where she has actively contributed to advancing learning sciences. She serves as a Board Member of the Stanford Alumni Women's Impact Network, Vice President of Knowledge and Information at Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs United, and was a Leadership Member of Stanford AI Alignment. As Co-founder and COO of Drlambda, Sophie is transforming knowledge sharing by turning documents into dynamic digital workspaces, emphasizing structured content through AI and cognitive science. She also founded E-M-O.AI, which creates personalized wearable narratives like AI-designed jewelry and temporary tattoos, and DouXing, an advanced e-learning platform that uses AI, gamification, and cognitive science to tailor learning experiences for organizations such as KFC, Boss, and Yum Foods. Recognized on Forbes and Hurun's "30 Under 30" lists, Sophie's expertise includes cognitive science, AI in product design, and SaaS. Her research in learning sciences has led to groundbreaking tools and methodologies that accelerate adult learning, significantly impacting the Chinese education and training sector.

Vinutha Narayan graduated with an MS (LDT) in Business & Ed Tech from Stanford University and worked at Google for 12 years with leadership experience in GTM, Strategy, Planning and General Management. Prior to she led Marketing at Amazon, and was a Tech Entrepreneur. A proud Stanford alum, she also led initiatives for Stanford Women on Boards (SWB). She is passionate about tech and entrepreneurship, and advises TechStars and AnitaB.org, and writes for major publications (Forbes, Thrive Global). Her other interests include reading, travel and Yoga.