Every summer, AAUW San Francisco sends fifteen girls to Tech Trek, a week-long residential STEM camp on a college campus. Since 1998, more than 16,000 students have attended statewide. Then the week ends and they scatter.
Valle, who earned a PhD in molecular biology from the Université Denis Diderot-Paris and spent years as a research scientist at NIH and the FDA before moving to Bay Area biotech, saw what was missing. According to her AAUW California bio, she has coordinated SF-TTAG, the branch's Tech Trek Alumnae Group, since 2020. The program she built offers college-readiness workshops, STEM career panels, a monthly newsletter, and a scholarship of up to $16,000 over four years. A one-week camp became a program that lasted through high school and into college.
Her SNA board bio also mentions a STEM leadership program for high school students. She has served as AAUW-SF branch secretary since 2019. And since 2018, she has organized a monthly maintenance day on the Detroit Street steps, last Sundays, 10 a.m. to noon. Three volunteer commitments in three different domains. In each one, Valle took a system that already existed and added a regular, recurring gathering point where someone new could show up.
The pattern in Valle's public record:
STEM education — Coordinated SF-TTAG since 2020; built workshops, panels, newsletter, and scholarship structure for Tech Trek alumnae across high school and college (AAUW SF)
Neighborhood infrastructure — Launched Detroit Steps Project in 2018; monthly maintenance days, last Sundays 10 a.m.–noon, Detroit & Hearst. Next: July 26
Civic governance — AAUW-SF branch Secretary since 2019; SNA Member-at-Large since 2026 (SNA board intro)
What connects them: Each time, a system that runs fine on its own but stays closed to newcomers. Each time, Valle adds a scheduled, repeating entry point and maintains it long enough that showing up feels ordinary.