April 12, 2018
What are you currently doing, professionally and/or personally?
I am currently teaching IB Chemistry at Academia Cotopaxi American International School in Quito, Ecuador.
How did you get there? Where did you attend college? Are there some career moves or other key experiences or relationships that have inspired you?
I graduated from Smith College in 2015 with degrees in American studies and chemistry. After Smith, I moved back to Minnesota to pursue my initial license in 9-12 chemistry with the Twin Cities Teacher Collaborative (TC2). This experimental teacher training program provided me with the course work for my license and a yearlong residency experience instead of the traditional student teaching. In this program, I taught at St. Paul Central for one year. Then, I moved to Ecuador and began teaching at Academia Cotopaxi. I completed my MAT through Hamline University this fall, and my final project focused on the integration of the nature of science into the IB chemistry syllabus. I hope to present this research over the summer at the IB World Conference in San Diego.
How did your MPA experience prepare you for your life today? How did MPA help you dream big and do right?
Throughout my academic experiences, I have always been grateful for how well MPA prepared me to communicate my ideas. Whether it be in writing or through an oral presentation, I am always confident in my ability to communicate effectively. As a teacher, I use these skills every day. Especially as a young professional, it’s important to know people in my field whom I admire and can ask for advice. My teachers at MPA provided me with excellent examples of how to create rigor and treat students with compassion. I still reach out to my teachers at MPA to talk about teaching and ask for advice. MPA exposed me to cultural experiences that gave me the courage to move abroad. My time at MPA inspired me to see how big the world really is, and to imagine myself in it.
What’s next? Any aspirations—personal or professional—that you’d like to share?
I plan to teach abroad for a few more years, but I’m also interested in leaving the classroom to find work where I can use my passions for science education and science policy.
This story is part of a new series called The Year of 100 Stories, launched by the Mounds Park Academy Alumni Association in January 2018. All alumni are warmly invited to tell their story! Email alumni@moundsparkacademy.org for more information.
