Board of Trustees Members

Ismet (Izzy) Mamnoon – Strategic Education Leader and Creative Facilitator

Ismet Mamnoon is a seasoned board leader and creative facilitator with a deep commitment to advancing education through innovation. She began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers in finance and consulting before shifting her focus to creative leadership in education, where she has worked across public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

As the founder of Beyonder, she designs and leads programs that equip educators, parents, and youth with creative thinking tools to unlock potential and navigate complexity. Her work has been featured in TIME magazine’s Science of Creativity issue and spans classrooms to global policy spaces.

Ismet has chaired education boards and led strategic planning for school expansion and innovation. She holds a master’s degree in creativity and change leadership from Buffalo State and is certified in FourSight, MBTI, Polarity Thinking, and Accelerated Learning. Her leadership blends financial oversight, educational insight, and a systems-thinking approach that fosters sustainable impact.

Dr. David Banks (Board Vice President) is a retired Professor of Anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Dr. Banks earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. His research interests include social anthropology, kinship, culture, historical methods, contemporary social change and studies of Southeast Asia and Malaya.

Dr. Mustafa Gokcek (Board Treasurer) joined the Board of the Buffalo Academy of Science in 2009. Dr. Gokcek is currently a Professor of History at Niagara University. He completed his Ph.D. in history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on trans-imperial intellectual interactions in the early 20th century. He regularly teaches courses on the history of the United States since 1945, Russia, the Middle East and Central Asia. Dr. Gokcek has been involved with charter schools in various capacities since 2004. He believes strongly in the contribution that charter schools make to our education system. For Dr. Gokcek, a strong focus on STEM education, preparing students for college and beyond, and strong cooperation of the student-teacher-parent triad is critical for the prosperous future of our society.

Dr. Onur Nacakgedigi (Board Trustee) is a dentist and public health expert with over a decade of experience in managing and evaluating prevention and healthcare promotion programs for vulnerable populations and refugees. His work has spanned both international settings like Northern Iraq and Turkey as well as in the United States.

Throughout his career, Dr. Nacakgedigi has provided community and individual-based prevention, evaluation, and treatment services to over 3,000 patients, addressing issues like dental caries, oral lesions, gingival diseases, and other oral disorders. He has analyzed legislation, fiscal impacts, conducted scientific research for public health departments, and developed prevention campaigns and health research projects focused on refugee populations.

Dr. Nacakgedigi currently serves as a Community Dentistry Fellow at the University of Rochester's Eastman Institute for Oral Health. Prior to that, he was the Assistant Director of the Ulysses Postdoctoral Refugee Research & Training Program and an Assistant Clinical Professor at UC Davis School of Medicine, where his work centered on refugee and immigrant health issues.

He founded Moon Health Teledentistry, which aims to eliminate barriers to oral healthcare access worldwide. Dr. Nacakgedigi has taught at universities in the U.S., Turkey and Iraq, covering topics like public health dentistry, refugee health, and dental education pedagogy. His expertise spans research design, data analysis, grant writing and research coordination.

Dr. Yashodhara Satchidanand (Dr. Satch; Trustee) is a retired Palliative care physician. She was born in Hyderabad India and obtained her medical degree from Gandhi Medical college, HyderabadIndia. She moved to Buffalo in 1972 and trained in Pathology at Roswell Park Cancer institute. She subsequently developed an interest in Hospice and Palliative medicine and joined Hospice Buffalo as a volunteer physician in 1985 and later became a greatly valued staff member. During this time, she vastly expanded the Hospice home care program.  In 1999 she started her own private practice in Palliative medicine delivering both home care and inpatient hospital care.

This was the first and only such practice in WNY. She initiated a palliative care consulting service at St. Joseph hospital, which was a resounding success. In 2009 she joined Roswell Park Cancer Institute to initiate a Palliative care program. Under her leadership this program achieved unrestricted certification by the Joint Commission on accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. After a few years in this practice, she joined an outpatient oncology clinic providing pain and symptom management till she retired in 2018, 

Being a physician, Dr. Satch has always been strongly interested in science education. As a resident of Kenmore, she volunteered at several Kenton elementary schools where she showed the students how human tissues were evaluated using microscopes and slides. She believes strongly in introducing students to careers in science early and exposing them to individuals who have a passion for science and education. She was an active member of the Planning team at Kenmore West high school where her children were students.