Meet Our Volunteers

Amanda Jain, MBA, PMP, SPC Career Development Instructor CEO of management consultant company, project management coach, IT consultant

Amanda Jain is the co-owner of an IT consulting business and currently working as a Management Consultant with the US Government. She has over 25 years of experience as an IT Program Manager and enjoys the leadership and mentoring aspects of her job. Prior to starting her business, Amanda worked in both government and commercial industries managing technology professionals, piloting strategic organizational change, and establishing cost efficient processes in challenging economic landscapes. Amanda received her Bachelor of Science degree in Decision and Information Systems from the University of Maryland, College Park, and her Masters in Business Administration from the University of Baltimore.

​Anne Marie Benton, PCAP ​Professional Development Coordinator REALTOR, First Choice Realty, Inc.

A volunteer with Computer CORE, Anne Marie is passionate about computer programming and about helping other women who code. Having gone through Intro to Coding with Python and CCWA’s PCAP certification prep class herself, she realizes how difficult it is for graduates to get the hands-on work experience they need to be able to get Python coding jobs. Anne Marie is now a Certified Associate in Python Programming (PCAP) and acts as a liaison for those students by reaching out to employers, especially in Virginia.

Anne Marie has also been responsible for maintaining and creating course content in the real estate world. She coordinated with multiple departments on technical standards and presented technical information in a class environment (sometimes with multilingual students), providing fantastic on-site customer support at various locations worldwide.

Avern Williams, CWDP, ACS-CF, CSM Instructional Designer Training Coordinator, Certified Workforce Development Professional, Certified Agile ScrumMaster, Certified Facilitator,

Avern currently works as a Training Coordinator and ScrumMaster with the city of Alexandria. She has over 10 years of experience as an IT Business Analyst; and a longstanding career in IT including roles in first- and second-level technical support, as well as web application development. She enjoys few things more than helping others; and her passion for lifelong learning has led her into formal instruction and instructional design. She volunteers as a Zoom Administrator, is in the process of designing courses, and serves on Computer CORE’s visioning committee.

Chuck Court has been working with computers since 1978, when he was an Electronic Warfare Officer in the US Air Force. Essentially, Chuck was an airborne computer operator on the F-4G Wild Weasel aircraft. He actually has operated a computer while he was upside-down and supersonic. While active duty, Lieutenant Colonel Court completed his PhD through the Walden University distance-learning program. After his military retirement, Dr. Court taught computer science and management science courses at Wright State University near Dayton, Ohio. He took early retirement from the State of Ohio teaching system to become the Requirements Center Director at the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) at Fort Belvoir. While at DAU, the Requirements Center developed multiple distance-learning modules under Dr. Court’s leadership. After teaching Computer CORE courses for two terms, Chuck became the Computer CORE Volunteer Coordinator. As the Volunteer Coordinator Dr. Court supports the CORE instructors and Zoom Administrators as they conduct their classes. Chuck also applies his Kirkpatrick Bronze certification to help refine CORE course objectives and document our graduates’ results. Chuck also holds an MBA from Golden Gate University and an MS in Physics from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

David graduated from Amherst College in June 1984 with a BA in French Language & Literature. He received his Masters of Education from George Mason University in June 2009. David began his career at the non-profit job placement agency in Washington, DC called Jubilee Jobs. He then moved to working in Radio, TV & Film, first for the for-profit Interface Video Systems, then in the public sector for eighteen years teaching Television & Multimedia Production to high school students at the Arlington Career Center, a part of the Arlington Public Schools.

David has been volunteering for Computer CORE since the spring of 2017, during which time he has taught keyboarding, office suites, and the mathematics workshop. David has taught at the Dar Al Hijrah mosque, the Korean Community Service Center, the James Lee Community Center, the BritePaths medical training program, as well as at the main Lee office building. From September 2018 until March 2019, David served as Computer CORE’s Office Manager.

Most recently, during this time of Covid-19, David has been teaching virtually, using such tools as Zoom video conferencing, Wacom electronic sketch pads, and Snagit screen capture software.

Debbie Anderson is a retired mathematics and science teacher. As a military spouse, she has lived in many different areas of the United States and the world. Debbie has enjoyed various volunteer work throughout her lifetime including assisting with Computer CORE’s math prep class. She has a BS in science education and a ME in education leadership. She and her husband have three grown daughters and eleven grandchildren.

Debasis Nandy, MS EE, MS Physics Lead Math Instructor Program Assistant at Recovery Program Solutions of Virginia; Retired engineer

Debasis is a retired telecom engineering professional who now volunteers to teach math skills to CORE students. Debassis spent nearly a year as a techical writing intern at CORE applying his extensive analytical, project management, and report writing skills. Previously, Debassis was a Senior Engineer in a variety of disciplines where he delivered targeted, efficient services to private, federal, and nonprofit clients through large-scale, full life-cycle project planning and execution. He particulary enjoyed focusing on customer support, problem solving, training, and continuous process improvement. In addition to his technical skills he also utilizes a well-honed writing ability,

Debasis earned his BS and MS in Physics at the Indian Institute Of Technology, and an MS Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Telecommunications, and Computers at the George Washington University.

Dr. D began working with computers in 1975 because “they were new and fascinating to me.” Back then he learned such ancient programming languages as ALGOL, COBOL, FORTRAN, and (of course) BASIC. While in college, his campus job was to operate the mainframe computer, which gave him unlimited nighttime access to the biggest computer around (the size of a classroom). He also wasted too much time fooling around with an Apple II desktop computer in a physics lab. In the early 1980’s he owned his first personal computer, a TI-99/4A, through which he expanded his programming repertoire to include PASCAL. During graduate school, he had a Research Assistantship writing software to analyze data from a close solar probe (a scientific spacecraft). And for his own thesis project (which involved quantum mechanics), he coded extensively in FORTRAN. His first job after graduate school involved writing software to analyze radar data, and ever since then he’s used computers to solve technical problems. About a decade ago, Dr. D worked in the field of communications and networking, and did research on digital network management and network routing technology. He uses computers in his current job for almost every aspect of his work, from communications to analysis, systems architecture, and modeling. Dr. D has a PhD in Physics, and has never had a “truly IT” job, preferring to be on the “user” side of things; “I’d rather have computers as a hobby than as my day job,” he told Computer CORE.

Kate Finstuen-Magro Coding Instructor Computer science graduate/Medical school student

Kate got started with coding and computer science at Carleton College in Minnesota, but that is not where her career path ended! During sophomore year she took her first computer science course and loved it so much that she went on to become a computer science major. Kate completed her program at Carleton doing a thesis project in bioinformatics with a team that built a software package using network analysis algorithms to identify disease-causing genes as candidates for future biomedical research. After that experience, Kate decided to continue her education in the biomedical field and is now in medical school at George Washington University School of Medicine.

Kate first discovered her love of teaching during college while working as a TA and private tutor for computer science classes as part of Carleton’s Academic Support Center, and was excited at the opportunity to continue to teach at Computer CORE when she moved to this area. She loves working with coding students and teaching computer science.

She believes that coding is not only a valuable skill in today’s job market—and can help answer today’s toughest medical questions!—but on an even more fundamental level, coding teaches problem solving and computer skills that are applicable to everyday life.

Lonnie Henley is a retired Army officer and retired civil servant. He spent forty years in defense intelligence in and out of uniform, focused primarily on Chinese and North Korean military forces. He’s a member of the West Point class of 1978 and completed graduate degrees at Oxford, Columbia, and the National Intelligence University. He’s been an avid computer hobbyist since building his first Heathkit PC in the early 1980s, and joined the refurbishing team at Computer CORE in July 2020. He and his wife Sara Hanks love the English countryside, French food, and Utah skiing.

It’s a great honor to serve as an Instructor and Volunteer at Computer CORE (CORE). I am grateful to the CORE team, my Dear Departed Mom in Heaven, mentors, and everyone who has helped and supported me throughout my professional and academic journey. Thus, my commitment to volunteer, give back, pay it forward, impact, and make a difference through education.

My Leadership and Teaching and Learning Philosophies:

People First
WE Factor: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work!
Lifelong Teaching and Learning – In the Classroom and Beyond

May B. Skaff is a Community Liaison with FCPS since 2008, located at Dunn Loring Center for Parent services. Her job is to connect parents with applicable school and community personnel and resources, facilitate effective communication and family-school-community collaboration to support student learning and healthy development both at home and at school; help parents learn the skills necessary to empower them as advocates for their children by successfully navigating FCPS and Fairfax County government offices.

Knowing that no single approach is the right one for every individual, May has been working through a combination of formal and informal contacts, performing a variety of family-school-community liaison and outreach activities, facilitating communication for families with school and community personnel, directing parents to appropriate resources for information and or resolution of concern, following up to ensure parental concerns have been addressed, and participating in community and civic activities to establish professional contacts and maintain credibility within the community. May is Lebanese, her educational background includes a degree in social work from Saint Joseph University in Beirut, and a master’s at the University Laval in Quebec, Canada. She also completed training in a “Family Resource Center” in Quebec, Canada known as Centre Local de Service Communautaire.

May is fluent in Arabic (native language), French (education) and English. She lives in Reston, VA with her husband and two children, one girl and one boy. May’s hobbies include entertaining friends and family, listening to Lebanese and classical music, and taking long walks in nature. May loves the culinary arts, most of her experience is in Mediterranean and French cuisine, but she is interested in Chinese and Japanese cuisines as well. May is very involved with her church and serving the community throughout Northern Virginia by various means.

Taiba Haidari Community navigator, classroom assistant College student, CORE graduate, former office intern

After graduating from CORE, and while attending community college, Taiba fulfilled one of her goals to help incoming students as a volunteer intern assisting with student registration, helpdesk calls, managing Zoom classrooms, and assisting with coding class practice sessions. In addition to learning technology, software, office administration, and customer service skills in preparation for her own career, Taiba is also able to serve an important role as as a community navigator by using her past student experience along with her new technology skills to ease new students’ transition to the virtual environment, and increase their comfort level in class.