Board of Trustees

Dr. Quint, a resident of Bothell, is a healthcare leader with deep experience in corporate strategy, innovation, and product. She is a founding executive at Opala, a venture-backed healthcare interoperability startup, and she previously spent a decade leading strategic partnerships with Silicon Valley startups to accelerate business transformation and innovation at Premera Blue Cross. Dr. Quint provides a unique perspective with her PhD expertise in Organizational Psychology. She is passionate about inclusion at work and is an advocate for lifelong learning for all.

Alex Lee is a Client Advisor and Member with Auxano Advisors. He serves a wide variety of clients and has extensive expertise working with families that have real estate holdings. He brings tremendous industry acumen to the practice of solving complex financial questions and has been awarded the industry’s highest honor, the FIVE STAR Wealth Manager - Best in Client Satisfaction Award. Prior to joining Auxano in 2002, he served as a financial advisor to families at Waddell & Reed. At Waddell, Alex was awarded the Pacesetter distinction and Circle awards for outstanding achievement.

Alex earned a BA in Economics from the University of Washington, is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®), and a graduate of the College for Financial Planning. Alex is a former board member of the Deaf-Blind Service Center, the Husky Marching Band Alumni Association, and was the chair of the Cascadia College Foundation Board for 10 years before being appointed by Gov. Jay Inslee to serve as a Trustee at Cascadia.

Dr. Ponto, a resident of Kenmore, is a senior leadership and organizational effectiveness consultant with Unify Consulting. Her current work focuses on leadership development and change management. She also brings considerable experience in higher education including service as a faculty member at Seattle University and as a Dean at Pinchot University. Dr. Ponto has been instrumental in community activities including building the playground and offering environmental education at St. Edward State Park.

Shahryar Qadri is the Chief Technology Officer of OneImaging. Shahryar is an accomplished executive with over 20 years of experience building healthcare technology solutions for patients, providers, and payers. His areas of expertise include third-party administrators, employer and payer benefits solutions, healthcare interoperability and data strategy. Shahryar has a degree in Computer Science from Creighton University. Outside of work, Shahryar’s hobbies include reading, traveling and skiing.

Rania Hussein is a Teaching Professor, the Founder and Director of the Remote Hub Lab (RHLab), and an Associate Director of the UW Industrial Assessment Center (IAC). Her research focuses on embedded systems, digital twinning, remote engineering, medical image analysis, and engineering education.

She has over 15 years work experience in higher education as an educator and mentor to hundreds of students and alumni of electrical and computer engineering and computer science. Before joining UW, she was a research engineer at the Walt Disney Company where she worked on software development and the evaluation of disruptive and cutting edge technologies.

In addition to her technical expertise, Dr. Hussein has extensive experience in project management and community leadership. She has served as a founder, board member or executive director for non-profits to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. She contributed to the building and passing of SB-5166 Bill into Washington State law in 2019. This law requires post secondary institutions to provide alternate exam accommodations for students due to religious observance. This accommodation became part of the syllabi of higher educational institutions in the State of Washington.

Dr. Hussein is an award-winning educator who has been nationally recognized for her contribution to mentorship and research in engineering education. She is the recipient of the Innovative Program Award from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA) of 2021. She is also the recipient of IEEE region 6 outstanding engineering educator, mentor, and facilitator in the area of STEM award for the year 2022.