Issue link: http://hvparent.uberflip.com/i/812715
8 Hudson Valley Parent n May 2017 I am a Hudson Valley Parent Susan Cianfrani: Empowering young minds through math and science Photos by Michael Bloom By BRIAN PJ CRONIN I t was the birth of her son that inspired Susan Cianfrani to recon- sider her 12-year engineering ca- reer with IBM at the Fishkill campus. "I realized that I was more excited about starting a family than I was about going back to work there," she says. So, she started to look close to home to see what she might do next. "Home" was then, and still is, the Oakwood Friends School campus in Poughkeepsie, a 220-year-old Susan Cianfrani shows her sons, 5-year-old Andy and 7-year-old Henry, how to use a robotic arm in the lab at Oakwood Friends. During the summer she runs a week-long day camp for middle school-aged girls developed to foster interest in math and science with the hope they will pursue careers in those fields.