Our Team
MƒA LA is guided by a leadership team and advisory board that bring deep expertise in mathematics education, research, philanthropy, and organizational leadership. Together, they are committed to building the infrastructure that allows great teachers to thrive and great teaching to impact communities.
Darryl Yong
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Mary Jane Stevenson
Senior Advisor
Leadership Team
Rocky Paneno
Program Officer for Teacher Leadership
Darryl is a co-founder of MƒA LA and holds the McGregor-Girand Chair in STEM Equity Innovation and Research at Harvey Mudd College, where he is a Professor of Mathematics. As the lead author on five NSF grants totaling $17 million for MƒA LA, Darryl is the architect of and helped fund the program's professional development model, which has strengthened content knowledge, pedagogy, and leadership skills for hundreds of math and computer science teachers across Southern California. Darryl has dedicated his career, including a year-long sabbatical teaching high school math alongside MƒA LA Fellows, to understanding and improving what it takes for teachers to thrive. He is also a member of the board of MƒA in New York. Darryl was the founding director of the Claremont Colleges Center for Teaching and Learning, which continues to support all faculty at the Claremont Colleges. He is the recipient of the 2020 Award for Impact on the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics from the American Mathematical Society and the 2024 Mary P. Dolciani Award from the Mathematical Association of America. He co-authored a series of books for educators and mathematicians, based on mathematics courses he co-taught at the IAS/Park City Mathematics Institute since 2007. As a first-generation college student and immigrant, Darryl is keenly aware of how a good education can provide opportunities and fulfillment.
Rocky leads a team of accomplished instructional coaches who support mathematics and computer science teachers across Los Angeles. His love for mathematics led him to the teaching profession, but his belief that all students deserve a high-quality mathematics education brought him to MƒA LA. Rocky’s dedication to education is rooted in his own story of extraordinary resilience. A promising student-athlete, his path was altered by a catastrophic six-story fall while studying abroad in Italy that left him paraplegic with both kidneys removed. When his dreams of a playing scholarship were dashed, the Swim with Mike Foundation provided the support he needed to attend USC, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and master’s degree in teaching. Rocky began teaching in 2009 as an MƒA LA Teacher Fellow at Miguel Contreras School of Business and Tourism in downtown Los Angeles. True to the MƒA LA model, he became a campus leader, mentoring the 9th grade teaching staff and driving interdisciplinary "linked learning" initiatives, aligning math, English, and history curricula with real-world applications. Rocky became an MƒA LA instructional coach in 2019. His coaching relies on active listening and empathy to provide highly tailored support to math and computer science teachers. In his new position, he proudly gives back to the program that shaped his pedagogy by championing the teaching profession and empowering the next generation of STEM educators.
Mary Jane is a Senior Advisor bringing more than a decade of executive leadership in education equity and non-profit strategy, guiding mission-driven organizations through scaling, board development, and systems change. She directed MƒA LA’s strategic planning initiative and is helping to steer the leadership team through a renewed period of growth and innovation. Mary Jane served as Market President at City Year, Inc. where she oversaw nine of the national education nonprofit’s largest sites and supported a workforce of staff and AmeriCorps members serving in 200 public schools across the country. She also served as Executive Director of City Year Los Angeles, which deployed 300 young adults doing a year of national service in 30 schools across Los Angeles Unified School District. During her tenure, she led a high-performing executive team to double school partnerships, expand public and private revenue streams, and advance the organization’s education equity agenda across the region. Previously, Mary Jane held senior leadership roles in the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns, and at Organizing for America, where she directed statewide operations in California. She also co-founded and led a political action committee supporting Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. Mary Jane began her career as a broadcast and print journalist, experience that shaped her approach to persuasive communications and getting quickly to the truth.
Pam Mason is a distinguished mathematics educator and leader who served as the Founding Director for Math for America Los Angeles from 2008-2026. During that time, she helped to design many aspects of our signature Fellowship programs and to build a warm community of teacher leadership who support one another. Mason dedicated over three decades to the classroom, working as a math teacher at Patrick Henry Middle School from 1972 to 2005. She served as a Math Coach for both the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) from 2002 to 2005 and the Urban Education Partnership from 2006 to 2007, providing ongoing professional development to foster high-quality teaching and personalized learning environments. Between 2005 and 2007, she was Teacher in Residence for the CSUN Mathematics Department under the Teachers for A New Era project, which was designed to increase the quality of K-12 teaching by improving teacher education programs. Additionally, from 2000 to 2009, Mason worked as a trainer for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). She received the LAUSD Teacher of the Year Award, the 2002 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, and the Edward Begle Memorial Award in 2025. In addition to her extensive teaching and leadership achievements, Mason has co-authored recognized educational materials, including Cliffs Quick Review Algebra I (2001) and Cliffs Math Review for Standardized Tests (1985).
Pam Mason
Founding Director (2008-2026)
Advisory Board
Aaron Sosnick
Advisory Board Member
Aaron Sosnick manages systematic, quantitative hedge fund Analytics, Research, Trading Advisors, A.R.T., which he founded in 2002. Aaron studied Math and Physics at MIT. He graduated from Wagner High School in the Philippines in 1984 where his parents were K-12 teachers of children of U.S. military personnel at the former Clark Air Force Base. Raised by two teachers, Aaron values education and focuses significant philanthropic energy toward K-12 education. He founded La Vida Feliz Foundation, which, in addition to educational giving, supports community based arts, healthy transportation, historic preservation and other urbanist initiatives in Los Angeles, New York and Reno. As a founding funder of MƒA LA, he brings a strategic perspective on sustainable organizational growth and private philanthropy's role in scaling public education initiatives.
Pete Muller
Advisory Board Member
Pete Muller is the founder and CEO of PDT Partners, a global investment manager devoted to quantitative research and trading. A mathematician by training, Pete has built a career and a life at the intersection of mathematics, finance, music, and philanthropy. An accomplished musician and songwriter, Pete has released seven albums of original music and curates a monthly music-based crossword contest for The Washington Post. A committed philanthropist, Pete supports education and creative opportunity across mathematics and the arts. He helped spearhead the partnership between Berklee College of Music and the City of New York that preserved and transformed the historic Power Station recording studios into Berklee NYC, a state-of-the-art center for music education, professional training, and artistic development. His philanthropy reflects a longstanding belief in the power of exceptional teachers and in creating environments where talented people can reach their full potential.
