Notice of 2025 NYU Tandon Polytechnic Alumni Association Annual Meeting & Election

Amy Batallones is a Senior Vice President in Blackstone’s Technology and Innovations group. Amy first joined Blackstone as a Cybersecurity Advisor across the firm’s global portfolio of investments and has since transitioned to her current role as Head of Global Cybersecurity Operations, overseeing cyber defense and response operations for the firm. Prior to Blackstone, she was Head of Cybersecurity Operations at Con Edison, the energy company servicing NYC and Westchester.  

Amy holds an M.S. in Management of Technology from NYU Tandon and a B.S. in Computer Science from Fordham University, where she was inducted as an Associate Member of the Sigma Xi Research Honor Society. She is a dedicated educator, having taught Network Security as an adjunct instructor at both NYU Tandon and Fordham and participated in the design and instruction of Tandon’s Chief Information Security Officer Program for senior cybersecurity professionals continuing their education.

Amy continues to remain active with NYU, serving multiple terms on the Board for both the Polytechnic Alumni Association (most recently as Secretary) and the NYU Alumni Association, and engaging with students through opportunities like capstone projects and networking.

Amy is also very engaged in supporting education for youth, underserved, and minority communities. She currently sits on the Board of Trustees for Beam Center, a non-profit that empowers underserved youth through collaborative, project-based learning that integrates art, design, and technology. She was the Founder and former Chair of Con Edison’s Educational Outreach Committee, which has been connecting Con Edison’s future leaders with K-12 schools to provide mentorship and exposure to STEM careers since 2013. She served on the Executive Committee for IEEE’s New York Section and supported IEEE’s initiatives and special interests in youth and STEM education. Amy also previously volunteered with LEGO Robotics as an instructor at public schools in Brooklyn.

As a member of the International Board of Directors, Amy is passionate about building a vibrant and inclusive alumni community that leverages engineering and technology to solve global challenges. She is dedicated to creating opportunities for prospective, current, and graduate students to thrive, while fostering a culture of compassion, innovation, and social responsibility. Through her leadership, Amy aims to strengthen the PAA’s mission of empowering the next generation of engineers, technologists, and changemakers.

Ravi Bhatia served as a member of the Polytechnic Alumni Association’s International Board of Directors for three years before ascending to the vice presidency.

His portfolio consists of over $5 Billion in completed projects in the U.S. and Canada, and his extensive infrastructure experience has spanned complex and high-visibility commercial construction, core and shell, civil, electrical, transportation, high-technology, critical systems, and design-build projects (including P3) for real estate developers, multinational corporations, technology providers, private investors, contractors, and large public institutions.  

Among Ravi’s many strengths are forging partnerships with investors, clients, consultants, suppliers, regulators, contractors, and employees to drive business success; and spearheading innovation and business strategy to deliver value within complex project environments.

Ravi gained significant supply chain experience in General Electric's prestigious Technical Marketing Program (Construction Equipment Sales) and has completed Alstom's Leadership Development Program. He later completed the Stanford University Graduate School of Business Professional Certificate program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Cornell University's Project Leadership Program, and Harvard University's Advanced Real Estate Finance program.

Ravi has taught graduate-level courses in project management, leadership, innovation, risk management, entrepreneurship, and negotiation at both NYU Tandon and Fordham University.

He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (with a Computer Science minor) from what was then known as Polytechnic University, as well as an M.S. in Telecommunications & Information Management from NYU Tandon and an MBA from Hofstra University. He is a Registered Professional Engineer (PE), Project Management Professional (PMP), and DBIA-certified Design-Build Professional.

Richard Day started his journey in entrepreneurship when he entered NYU Tandon’s School of Engineering. He chose the school when he learned of its growing efforts to foster its student entrepreneurship community, which he immersed himself in. This led to the eventual founding of Aquaneers, a cleantech company, soon after graduation.

Funded by the Department of Energy, the company worked on nanotechnology solutions for desalination and recycling carbon emissions into clean fossil-fuel alternatives. Richard also co-founded Anoba Studios, which is both a creative outlet and a vehicle to develop and fund initiatives to support the endeavors of underrepresented content creators.

Finishing his time with Aquaneers, Richard remained in the energy industry, working on various clean-energy initiatives at National Grid, focusing on small businesses, energy-burdened households, and disadvantaged communities. Whether through clean-energy programs, grassroots outreach, or, unexpectedly, through board game design, Richard is always looking to find ways to better connect with and advocate for people and their communities. He now leads a portfolio of initiatives looking to modernize the utility to increase its ability to deliver for its customers.

His experience has led to broader industry engagement, and he has been recruited to mentor energy startups for the Clean Tech Open Accelerator Program and serve on the planning and DEI committees for the Association of Energy Service Professionals (AESP), helping industry peers reimagine the customer journey through an equity-first lens.

Aside from his creative studio and role at National Grid, Richard is part of many community groups. He has served as an executive member on various non-profit committees focusing on important areas like education access for marginalized communities. In support of NYU Tandon, he served two terms on the PAA Board of Directors, working on initiatives that encourage incoming student diversity and entrepreneurship, before stepping into the role of secretary.

Pankaj Aggarwal is a senior data and technology leader with over 17 years of experience in capital markets, delivering enterprise solutions that fuse business acumen with advanced data architecture and modern cloud technologies. At Ernst & Young, Pankaj has been instrumental in shaping the firm’s Capital Markets technology, driving multi-year growth through transformative, high-impact programs.

His leadership spans several large-scale, strategic initiatives:

• Market Data Platform Modernization: Led the creation of a real-time analytics solution on Snowflake, addressing trading desk pain points and optimizing time series data usage across business units.
• Client Reference Data Platform: Architected a low-touch client onboarding and reference data solution, automating 25+ processes and modeling 750+ AML data points to meet compliance for 9,500+ KYC rules.
• Risk Modeling Platform: Designed a user-centric platform that dramatically reduced model deployment time from 9 months to 30 days, while meeting stringent regulatory and audit requirements.
• Securities Transaction Modernization: Conducted gap analysis of legacy systems across front, middle, and back office functions, identified modernization strategies, and led vendor selection to implement an integrated solution roadmap.
• Trade Venue Inventory & Surveillance: Addressed a critical regulatory MRA by overhauling trade surveillance capabilities, ensuring complete data coverage and robust controls across all global trading venues.

Earlier in his career at Capco and Tata Consultancy Services, Pankaj contributed to the implementation of front-to-back trading systems, regulatory reporting frameworks (OATS, MSRB), and a credit decision engine that reduced turnaround time from two days to under 20 seconds.

Pankaj holds a Master’s in Financial Engineering from NYU Poly and a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from India. He is a certified SnowPro Core professional, with expertise spanning Python, SQL, graph and relational databases, and data cloud platforms like Snowflake.

He remains an active member of the NYU alumni community and is committed to mentoring the next generation of engineering and fintech professionals.

Chirayu Gulati is Vice President at Barclays Corporate & Investment Bank. In that role, he drives risk management for electronic trading initiatives.

Chirayu graduated from NYU Tandon School of Engineering with a master's in Finance and Risk Engineering (FRE). For his active contributions as a student, he received two leadership awards.  

Chirayu has been consistently engaged with the NYU community, both as an advocate for academic excellence and as a proponent of initiatives that foster diversity, collaboration, and long-term institutional advancement and strengthen alumni involvement. These initiatives include the Young Alumni Leadership Circle steering committee, Tandon Alumni Panel, and NYU Violet One Day.  

With a professional background in the banking sector, Chirayu brings a keen understanding of fiscal stewardship and long-term planning; these, combined with his ability to navigate complex challenges and build consensus, make him well-suited to contribute meaningfully at the Board level.  

Chirayu is eager to leverage his institutional knowledge, leadership experience, and student-centered mindset on the International Board of Directors and would be honored to help shape PAA’s strategic direction and enhance its global impact.

Rafail Portnoy is a technology and business leader with more than three decades of demonstrated success transforming digital operations and driving enterprise performance and value. He has worked with several renowned organizations – encompassing public and private and for-profit and nonprofit groups – including the State of New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Safe Horizon, Inc., The Levin Institute at The SUNY Global Center, and IBM Fortune 500 clients.

Rafail joined the State of New York MTA in January 2020 as its Chief Technology Officer. As CTO, he oversees all information and operational technologies across the MTA’s six operating agencies, including NYCT, MNR, LIRR, B&T, and others. He leads 3,000 IT professionals to overhaul the MTA technology ecosystem end-to-end, including cloud and software systems, internal and customer applications, AI analytics, and operational technology (OT) cybersecurity for more than a trillion physical assets. He manages a $1.2 billion capital portfolio and an annual Operating and Capital budget of $ 700 million. In three years, Rafail has slashed maintenance costs by $100 million annually. His efforts have been instrumental in driving significant rider satisfaction improvement as the MTA returns to pre-COVID ridership levels.

Prior to the MTA, Rafail rebuilt and dramatically improved the global operations of the ADL, one of the world’s premier NGOs. He centralized and updated legacy systems from 27 separate global locations into one platform and operationalized online, call center, and AI solutions. His leadership enabled higher revenues and streamlined the identification of online profiles of extremists.

Earlier, at Safe Horizon, Inc., Rafail revamped the technology infrastructure for the largest victim services nonprofit in the USA with 50+ locations in New York City. His solutions have enabled support action to be accelerated in emergencies and have led to enhanced New York City funding parameters, increasing service delivery to the community.

Recruited as the founding Chief Information Officer for The Levin Institute at The SUNY Global Center, Rafail created and led the global IT organization of the newly formed elite think tank, focused on issues of globalization and cross-border management. He designed and deployed the world’s first, one-of-a-kind, global technology ecosystem, placing the SUNY system as the leading academic institution in academic/commercial collaborative education and research.

Rafail started his professional career at IBM Global Services, where he became the Principal of Global Technology Services. In this capacity, he provided IT leadership, strategic direction, and visionary policy and process guidance to key IBM and Fortune 500 executives. Among his clients were the Top-Five USA banks and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

At the 2023 Government Technology Conference, Rafail was the recipient of the “Best of New York City Award.” He received NYU Tandon’s “Outstanding Adjunct Faculty of the Year Award” in 2019 while teaching in NYU’s prestigious Cyber Fellows program. In 2017, he was selected as a speaker at the Salesforce industry event Dreamforce ’17 for his work at ADL. Following 9/11, he received a “Letter of Recognition” from NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani for his critical technical support during the emergency.

Rafail holds a Master of Science in Information Systems Engineering degree from Polytechnic University, now NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Management Information Systems from Pace University. He maintains national security clearance from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Rafail resides in Rockland County, New York, with his wife and two children.

Iryna Zenyuk is a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California Irvine (UCI). She is also the Director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at UCI, where her mission is to accelerate the development and deployment of renewable hydrogen energy technologies.

Iryna graduated from Polytechnic University (now NYU Tandon School of Engineering) with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (2008), summa cum laude. She continued her studies at Carnegie Mellon University, where she earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, in 2011 and 2013, respectively.

Iryna was a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), investigating energy conversion and storage. She joined Tufts University as an Assistant Professor from 2015-2018 and moved to UCI in 2018. She has published over 100 journal publications and delivered more than 100 invited presentations on topics of energy conversion and storage. She directs a research group whose aim is to develop technologies that will decarbonize historically difficult sectors such as chemical manufacturing, aviation, shipping, and long-haul transportation to reach a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.

She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2017), Interpore Society Fraunhofer Award for Young Researchers (2017), Research Corporation for Science Advancement Scialog Fellowship in Advanced Energy Storage (2017-2019), Electrochemical Society (ECS) Toyota Young Investigator Award (2018), UCI Samueli School of Engineering Early Career Faculty Excellence in Research Award (2019), ECS Energy Technology Division Srinivasan Young Investigator Award (2021), UCI Beal Applied Innovations Early Career Innovator of the Year honors (2021), and UCI Samueli School of Engineering Mid Career Faculty Excellence in Research Award (2022).

As a dedicated teacher and researcher, Iryna is excited to see the NYU Tandon School of Engineering’s recent growth and strategic plan targeting key global challenges, including sustainability and renewable energy. As a member of the International Board of Directors, Iryna hopes to guide students and provide insight into academic career pathways including graduate schools. Iryna is committed to sustainability and would like to work with NYU Tandon School of Engineering students and alumni to enable sustainable solutions to energy, manufacturing, and other sectors through innovative engineering.

Sana Zia Hassan is a senior AI leader with a proven track record in enterprise-scale digital transformation, specializing in the CPG, retail, and healthcare sectors. At Ernst & Young (EY), she leads AI strategy and implementation for Fortune 500 clients, translating emerging technologies into measurable business impact across customer experience, supply chain, and operations.

Recognized as a thought leader in practical AI adoption, Sana contributes to the development of global standards and frameworks through her roles with IEEE and OWASP. She serves as Chair of IEEE Young Professionals (NJ North); an Ambassador for Women in Data Science (WiDS), DSS, and IEEE WIE; and a key contributing member to initiatives such as IEEE SA’s AI in Public Health and OWASP’s AIMA & Multi-Agentic Systems Threat Modeling.

Sana received an M.S. degree from NYU Tandon, and a BTech in Electrical Engineering in India. Over the years, Sana has been recognized as one of the top Women in AI to follow on multiple platforms such as Data Science Salon and Linkedin. She also serves as an advisor to many early-stage startups and helps founders and CEOs in AI product innovation.

A sought-after speaker and advisor, Sana is passionate about shaping the evolving conversation around generative AI, intelligent service design, and agentic automation at scale. Beyond her corporate role, she actively engages in the AI and innovation ecosystem, sharing insights through panels, research contributions, and advisory boards. She is committed to bridging the gap between innovation and implementation by mentoring the next generation of leaders navigating this transformative era.