Jill Pestana is a battery scientist, physicist, patent holder, educator, and entrepreneur with 13 years of speaking experience. Her atypical journey as a scientist and entrepreneur gives her audience a unique perspective on leadership, technology, social issues, and innovation.

Jill’s creative and curious nature is evident whether she’s speaking, researching, playing music, dancing salsa, painting, backpacking, or recording for YouTube. Her channel ‘Across the Nanoverse’ has attracted a committed base of STEM followers.

Jill is on a mission to accelerate a sustainable future through intersectional innovation – innovation through both a technological and social lens to both end oppression and give human and environmental health the opportunity to flourish.

Speaking Topics

Increasing Sales through Science Communication
Traditional sales techniques for scientific and engineering equipment are fast becoming outdated as new forms of media evolve. Furthermore, as technology advances it becomes more interdisciplinary and complex. Scientists and engineers must quickly acquire new skills and knowledge to solve these interdisciplinary challenges. Jill shares how by selling through science communication and new media forms, you not only help customers build their knowledge, but also connect their problem to your solution. Her expertise in science communication, research and development, and scientific equipment operation give her insights into best practices for mutually beneficial business relationship-building for sales success.

Maximizing Team Potential through a Culture of Inclusion
With the need for creativity and innovation across industries, organizational leadership must learn how to maximize their team potential by expressing their team’s talent. Jill shares insights from her leadership experience and research-backed techniques so that managers can immediately take action to bring out the best in their teams while professionally handling conflict resolution.

You’re Not Overreacting: Recognizing and Navigating Inappropriate Behavior at Work and School
Throughout her career in physics and engineering, Jill faced obstacles like bias and harassment. After her career was nearly derailed due to workplace abuse, she committed herself to helping others learn the essential skills and knowledge to avoid and navigate difficult situations involving bias, harassment, and discrimination at work and school. In this talk Jill shares how to recognize illegal behavior and how to use The Resilience Mindset and Reporting Framework, two processes she developed for coping with and navigating workplace bullying or harassment.

From Underestimated to Leader: Creating Your Own Opportunities
When people underestimate you, you can be overlooked for opportunities. People’s assumptions and apathy should not limit you. You are destined for more. Jill spent her education and early-career creating her own opportunities in order to learn leadership and scientific skills and grow professionally and personally. From creating organizations and businesses to building relationships, she learned how to self-coach and grow into an industry leader outside of the traditional path. In this talk, Jill shares her insights for creating your own opportunities so that you can carve your own path towards your personal definition of success.

Online Classes

The STEM Thrive Guides: www.stemthriveguides.com

Free Guide to Internship Success

YouTube & Podcast

YouTube channel: Across the Nanoverse

Podcast: Resilient in STEM.

Book Jill Here:

Speaking Highlights

2021

2020

2019

2018

  • Chair of the Society of Women Engineers – Orange County 2018 Professional Development Conference, where she gave a welcome address and coordinated the day-long event with multiple speakers.

2016

  • “Nuclear Policy Working Group: A Model for Next Generation Nuclear Security Education”; Poster presentation at the University and Industry Technical Interchange (UITI) Conference, Raleigh, NC, June 2016.
  • Won the People’s Choice award for “How Batteries Age”; Poster Presentation, Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, CA, May 2016.

Education and Outreach Leadership

Jill has extensive experience in science education and outreach. In the one year that she founded and led Discover Science Initiative at UC Irvine, she coordinated over 8 STEM workshops and 1 event, which provided access to scientific knowledge taught by actual research scientists for over 6,000 participants of all ages.

Prior to founding Discover Science Initiative, Jill led and participated in a variety of STEM outreach projects through her involvement in organizations including Society of Physics Students, and completed a Teaching Physics Certification through California State University, Long Beach.

Jill giving the welcome address at the Society of Women Engineers – Orange County 2018 Professional Development Conference.
NASA intern and Cal State student Jill Pestana talks about how the late astronaut Sally Ride inspired her to pursue a career in science. LAUSD unveiled a state-of-the-art science facility in Glassell Park named for Sally Ride, in hopes of inspiring a new generation of students to pursue careers in math and science.
Presenting a poster “Nuclear Policy Working Group: A Model for Next Generation Nuclear Security” at the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium (NSSC) Conference in 2016 as Ambassador of the Nuclear Policy Working Group @ UC Irvine.
Won a “People’s Choice Award” for my poster “How do Batteries Age” on my graduate research at Carbon Slam 2016.

Additional Invited Talks

Jill Pestana, “Importance of Educational Centers in STEM Education”; Invited talk at Grand Opening of Dr. Sally Ride Center for Environmental Science, Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles, CA, October 2012.

Technical Presentations

Jill Pestana, Dr. Aron Varga, Dr. Yohannes Abate, “Near-field Nanoscopy of Cesium Dihydrogen Phosphate” (Honors Thesis); Oral Presentation, CSULB Physics Research Presentations: CSULB, December 2012.

Jill Pestana, Dr. Aron Varga, Dr. Yohannes Abate, “Near-field Nanoscopy of Cesium Dihydrogen Phosphate” (Honors Thesis); Poster Presentation, Physics Congress Conference (PhysCon): Orlando, FL, December 2012.

Jill Pestana, Dr. Aron Varga, Dr. Yohannes Abate, “Investigation of Cesium Hydrogen Sulfate”; Poster Presentation, Women in Physics Conference: Stanford University/SLAC, January 2012.

Jill Pestana, Dr. Jiyeong Gu, “Magnetic Proximity Effect of Niobium-Permalloy Thin Films”; Oral Presentation, Women in Physics Conference: University of Southern California, January 2011.

Jill Pestana, Dr. Jiyeong Gu, “Magnetic Proximity Effect of Niobium-Permalloy Thin Films”; Oral Presentation, APS Conference: Caltech, Oral Presentation, October 2010.

Jill Pestana, Dr. Jiyeong Gu, “Magnetic Proximity Effect of Niobium-Permalloy Thin Films”; Poster Presentation, CSULB College of Natural Science and Mathematics Poster Presentations, September 2010.