Angela Bice			Victor Chen	Rosalind Echols
Nimisha Ghosh Roy			Erica Helfer	Michelle Karp
Kathleen Markiewicz			Erin McCamish	Katie McCann
Katherine Rosok			Patricia Schaefer

Photos on this page by Yischon Liaw, 1000 Views Studios

Angela Bice 

In my home, education was always stressed as a way to better my prospects and reach my full potential, so the value of education is something I have always known. I first remember deciding to teach in the 3rd grade, a decision greatly influenced by my teacher Mrs. White. She was a vivacious woman who laughed like a braying donkey with a sinus problem. She was extremely motivating and always had a kind, encouraging word. Throughout the years this desire to teach was reinforced; however, college was not an immediate option for me.

I joined the Army as a way to earn money for college and had some incredible adventures. I learned I was able to do so much more than I ever thought I could, how important self confidence is, and how valuable it is to feel accepted and supported. During my time in the Army I got to travel to many exciting places: Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Okinawa, Hawaii, Haiti, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Through those experiences I developed a love for travel and knowledge about other cultures. It is amazing how different, and yet how alike, we all are. When I left the Army I decided to go to college to finally get my degree.

Initially I pursued an elementary education degree, which was interesting but not quite right. It was during that time that I took my first “fun” science class. It was a geology course and my instructor was extremely motivating. He provided many hands-on and real world examples that made abstract physical and chemical concepts palatable. He took advantage of Wyoming’s naturally exposed geologic wonders and led many exciting field trips, bringing the phenomena discussed in class to life. That course tempted the side of me that loves to learn by opening up the world of science and sending me in a new direction.

After I received my bachelor’s degree in geology I decided to pursue a PhD in environmental engineering with the thought that I would still teach, just at a higher level. I was accepted to Oregon State University and worked as a teaching assistant in various undergraduate classes. This helped me realize that, although I like lab and fieldwork, it is really the teaching alone that I love. While I realized my love for teaching, the undergraduate science courses that I TAed were extremely large and impersonal with little student-teacher interaction, which removed most of the fun. Besides, how many students hate science because they were never introduced to the subject in an engaging, exciting way? Recognizing these barriers to my love of teaching at the college level made me realize that a high school science classroom is the place I want to be.

Science education, in particular, appeals to me because I feel it broadens horizons as students become more aware of their surroundings, and the connections between themselves and the world around them. Learning about chemistry and linking it to real world issues, such as greenhouse gases, may inspire a student who will someday find a way to substantially reduce such gases, or perhaps it will just cause a few to think twice before walking out of a room without turning off the light switch. The effect is there and is additive over time. It is an effect that can be brought about by a teacher and something that I would like to accomplish. My current goal is to finish my master’s degree in engineering by the end of July 2008. In August, I will start a one year MAT program at Oregon State University in science education. I will do a middle school teaching experience this fall in an Earth science classroom, and then this spring I will do my student teaching in a high school chemistry and physics classroom. Hopefully, by this time next year I will have secured a teaching position and will be stressing about my first year of teaching.

Victor Chen 

I spent most of my life growing up in Appleton, Wisconsin, keeping the life of a science nerd all through junior high and high school. One of the experiences that got me really charged up about science was winning the state Science Olympiad competition when I was in the 9th grade and competing at nationals. I just kept remembering that I wanted to go into science because it was so cool. After high school, I went to the University of Wisconsin – Madison for my bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. Along the way, I picked up an additional major in chemistry because I loved the subject so much. Eventually, I started to do some research in my final years at UW-Madison, and thought that I was destined to earn a PhD and do research the rest of my life. Therefore, I went to the University of Michigan to earn my doctorate in biomedical engineering, where I spent five years researching how we could use biodegradable polymer scaffolds to grow artificial bone tissue.

About 3-4 years into my doctoral program, I realized that I was not going to be happy being a lab rat the rest of my life. I needed to work with people; more specifically, I had a strong desire to teach students. I think I always knew I wanted to teach, but I just never acted on my inclinations until graduate school. As a result, I decided to volunteer as a Science Olympiad coach for Plymouth/Canton/Salem High Schools, where I coached the chemistry, epidemiology, and other random events that I thought I could handle. I absolutely loved the experience and knew that I wanted to become a high school chemistry teacher. As I finished my PhD, I applied for and got accepted into the University of Michigan Master of Arts with Secondary Certification (MAC) program. I finished my program in June 2007 and am very excited to be teaching chemistry at Thurston High School in Redford, Michigan, starting in the fall of 2007.

Rosalind Echols 

Every time someone has asked me what I want to be, I have always added “or a teacher” to the end of my response. In fact, I sought out opportunities to continue teaching while in school at Princeton as a mechanical engineering student. I tutored underclassmen in their engineering and science courses, taught first aid for the Outdoor Action freshman orientation program, facilitated leadership workshops and trips, and worked with elementary schools to bring engineering into the classroom. Each of these experiences inspired and encouraged me to get more involved in education.

The opportunity to do something you love, as I love science, and share this passion with someone, is at the same time challenging and invigorating. Few people are able to spend as much time doing what they love as I am. The major epiphany of my college experience was that education is what inspires me. That so many students with obvious potential are left by the wayside in favor of students whose only competitive merit is a more fortunate background astounds me. Even more unacceptable are the conclusions about the relative academic capacity of these two groups, which describe nothing more than the inadequacy of the current system.

I am currently a member of Teach for America, motivated by my love of teaching, a conviction that science is an essential subject that many students are not taught, and my desire to work with other teachers and leaders to provide a quality education for all students. I teach a mixture of chemistry, physics, and physical science across all high school grade levels in Philadelphia at University City High School. After seeing my first class of seniors graduate, I can truly say teaching has been the most satisfying experience of my life.

Nimisha Ghosh Roy 

My passion for science developed in middle school; my first love was astronomy and I studied it extensively on my own. While Bellevue, Washington, my hometown, is a beautiful place, my attempts at stargazing were often foiled by the cloudy skies. Despite this, I read every book on astronomy I could find and took the one astronomy course offered by my high school (which was taught by a forest ranger who knew less astronomy than I did!)  In 2003 I entered the University of Washington (in Seattle) as an astronomy major, where I was introduced to the field of Earth and space science. Though my passion for astronomy has been recently rejuvenated by attending formal stargazing events in remote locations in Washington and Hawaii, my academic classes and the summers I spent engaged in research have created a new passion for the fields of Earth and space sciences as a whole.

The Earth is a beautiful place to behold. It sustains us as humans and holds such mystery. The ocean waters rise and fall and circulate the globe bringing nutrients to some and robbing others. Particles in the atmosphere traverse the skies. Photons from the far reaches of the universe are captured and transformed into images for human eyes. Rocks, hard, unchangeable and solid in the palm of your hand, metamorphose into unimaginable forms through the passage of time. When I think of Earth science, I think of the origin of life, of you and me. The stars in the universe created us, providing the very atoms that compose our bodies. I am so excited to teach Earth science; in my future classes we will learn to not only appreciate, but also communicate the beauty and mystery of our Earth. We will learn to “think like scientists, write like poets and create like artists.”    

At the University of Washington I had many service and leadership opportunities, one of which led me to spend five days in a rural school in Brewster, Washington, where I learned of my ability to connect with adolescents. Though I had many previous experiences with students of various ages, it was not until that spring in 2005 that I decided to become a teacher. I finally had a concrete vision of my future, where my passion for science and working with students combined into a career as a secondary science teacher. This experience in Brewster, and in other schools around the Seattle area, exposed me to disparities in science education across the state and compelled me to become a science teacher.  

During my childhood in Bellevue, I learned to speak Bengali from my parents. We would spend summers in India with my grandparents. In Bellevue, I took Indian classical dance lessons (Bharatnatym) with my younger sister. During the week we would attend typical American public schools; over the weekends we would perform classical and folk dances at Indian community celebrations in those same high schools. This immersion in Indian culture at home, combined with my American public school education has provided a strong foundation for fostering equality in my future classrooms.  

In the spring of 2007 I graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Arts in Earth and space science and a minor in physics. I will be attending Seattle Pacific University beginning in summer 2007 to pursue my certificate and master’s in teaching, with endorsements in Earth science and physics. I am excited and honored to be a Knowles Science Teaching Fellow and am looking forward to the next five years as I work with my colleagues to become professional teachers!

Erica Helfer

Growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina, I began my science education at an early age. I still have vivid memories of my dad wearing his “Mr. Science” lab coat and safety goggles performing liquid nitrogen demonstrations for my younger sister and me in our backyard. I was extremely lucky to have supportive parents as well as a number of excellent teachers who encouraged my interest in science over the years.

I can trace my fascination with chemistry back to my first day of tenth grade. It was when my teacher, Mr. Rushin, set fire to a hydrogen-filled balloon that I first saw the connection between these tiny molecules and the world’s complexities. I liked chemistry because it helped me explain my surroundings, and it was this desire to understand how things work that motivated me to continue my scientific pursuits through high school and into college.  

My chemistry coursework at Duke was both challenging and interesting; however, as I delved more deeply into the fields of psychology and education I found more fulfillment in working with people than sitting at a lab bench. As I spent more time in the classroom, both as a student and as a teacher, I realized that the processes of learning and teaching science interested me just as much as the subject matter. During my four years as an undergraduate I considered a variety of career paths, but somehow I always found my way back to the classroom. In retrospect, I understand that Mr. Rushin gave me something far more important than content knowledge. He had a passion for his subject that was contagious; he made science “cool.” Our schools are in desperate need of scientists who also feel called to teach. I will always be a scientist, but what I truly desire is to be a teacher who can inspire her students as I was inspired on my first day of tenth grade.    

I am very excited to be staying at Duke for one more year to pursue a Master of Arts in Teaching. The Duke MAT program will give me the opportunity to take graduate level coursework in science while student teaching part-time in the Durham Public School system. I know that to become an excellent teacher takes a great deal of training and practice, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Michelle Karp

I grew up in an Air Force family and lived in the Netherlands, southern California, and England before moving to Ohio when I was 12. I went to high school in Fairborn, Ohio, where an inspiring chemistry teacher helped me realize how much I loved science. I earned a BS in chemistry from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and am now pursuing a MEd in secondary education at Boston College.

In fall 2008 I will begin teaching high school chemistry in the Boston Public Schools. In my free time, I enjoy reading science fiction and fantasy and love to sing, having gone on tour with my college choir to Estonia, Finland, and Russia.

I currently have an assistantship with BC faculty developing an integrated science high school curriculum about urban ecology, helping urban students relate the science they've learned to their own environments and communities.

Kathleen Markiewicz

I grew up amidst the beautiful, sand dune-lined shores of western Michigan in the town of Grand Haven. As a child, I dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, and then later, I wanted to be a scientist. Spending my life in the sciences seemed natural – my mother was a physician. I loved discovering patterns and making sense of my observations, and my third grade teacher, Mrs. MacBeth, encouraged me to do just that. I always loved biology, but my love affair with the physical sciences was really fostered in eighth grade by Mr. Walters. We used chemistry and physics experiments during a “Consumer Reports” unit with each group testing multiple brands of everyday products. After that year, I knew I wanted to be a chemist.  

I carried that belief with me into high school, and I took as many college prep and advanced placement science classes as I could fit along with my German language and band elective courses. During high school, I became involved in the Science Olympiad team. My high school, Grand Haven High School, has a nationally recognized team, and I participated in events ranging from qualitative analysis to astronomy, practical data gathering, and polymer chemistry.  After graduation, I attended a small liberal arts college, Kalamazoo College. I quickly declared a chemistry major, and I became a laboratory assistant for introductory chemistry in the spring of my freshman year. Then, I took introductory physics II and met Professor Askew. Through his prodding, I soon added a physics minor – and ultimately a physics major. I also was a regular teaching assistant by the end of my sophomore year both in the physics and chemistry departments.  

I was certain that I wanted to be a research scientist after college. During my freshman year, I studied ion selective electrodes in an analytical chemistry laboratory. The following summer, I traveled to the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, to model solar coronal loops. While I lived abroad in Erlangen, Germany, I worked with graduate students in an organometallic chemistry lab.

Research fascinated me, so I headed in what seemed at the time like the next logical step after receiving my bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and physics: graduate school in a doctoral program. I moved to Boston and studied inorganic chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the fall of my first year, I worked as a teaching assistant leading recitations and holding office hours. Working with the students was extremely rewarding. After my second semester, my teaching commitment ended. I quickly discovered that endless days alone behind the bench in a physical inorganic chemistry lab were not as rewarding for me as educating others. Teaching had been what I looked forward to every day; I realized that it had kept me going that first year. Suddenly it hit me like a brick wall that what I had most enjoyed in college had been teaching others about physical sciences. 

I withdrew from MIT and I began to work as a substitute teacher in the Boston Public Schools. I also became the head coach for the Boston Latin School Science Olympiad Team, and I discovered that high school students were a lot of fun to teach. This year, I have been a Boston Teacher Resident, completing my residency in chemistry and teaching high school freshmen and juniors. I will complete my Master’s in Education this summer, and this fall, I will begin my career as a chemistry and physics teacher at Boston Latin School. I am very excited to be a Knowles Fellow, and I look forward to reflecting on and improving my practice so that I can become a highly qualified, professional teacher.

Erin McCamish 

I grew up in Three Oaks, Michigan, a small town with one stoplight, where I attended the elementary school visible from my front lawn. As a high school student I split my days between the local high school and a math and science program where my interest in physics began. Each year in high school my science class was my favorite; I just wanted to study all of them.

As a child I dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, but my eleventh grade physics class and a summer particle physics program at Notre Dame University changed all that. I still love all the sciences, but physics excites me more than any other area. When I decided to move to Ann Arbor and attend the University of Michigan I had already decided to major in physics. I had my future in research planned out by my sophomore year, and decided to take a part time job tutoring in the Physics Help Room to keep my introductory physics fresh. After many hours thinking about why I enjoyed tutoring so much I switched gears to focus on education. 

To decide if high school was the place for me I took part in the Teaching Opportunities in Physical Sciences (TOPS) program in Boston where I team taught energy and heat concepts to high school and middle school students. Watching those students’ ideas evolve and listening to the great questions they asked when working with a group of enthusiastic but inexperienced teachers showed me the impact teachers can have, and led me to pursue a career as a high school physics teacher. In my years at Michigan I also became very involved in physics outreach. As a member of the Society of Physics Students I had the chance to design, build, and present physics activities and demonstrations though our weekend-long outreach project with the local Hands-On Museum. During my senior year I also helped design, and ran discussion sections for, a new physics sequence designed for students interested in the life sciences.   

This year I will begin a joint master’s degree and teaching credential program at Syracuse University. I plan to continue my work in outreach as I work toward my first teaching position and will be a camp counselor this summer with a science camp for younger children. In my free time I like to cook (especially desserts!), ride my bike, read, and spend time with friends.

Katie McCann 

Katherine Rosok

I grew up outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, and went to college in Colorado. I spent most of my time outside of public school playing and camping in the forest and on the lakes. In Colorado I traded the lakes for the mountains and the desert, and through geology discovered I could do science while traveling to beautiful places.

On one of the last days before I graduated from high school, waiting for the last bell of the day to ring and writing about "what I want to be when I grow up," I thought I might want to be a high school teacher. But I could not write that down! I do not recall what I actually wrote, but I remember that thought, that classroom, that teacher.

For a long time I circumnavigated the challenge of becoming a high school teacher. In high school I was a summer camp counselor, and in college I led volunteer and outdoor trips. After college I worked at a group home for teen girls with exceptionalities. There I learned about school politics as a caregiver and about the vagaries of non-profit organizations as we lost our funding and closed the program. I worked in outdoor education in the mountains of Colorado, on a trail building project for college students for two summers. That program uses place-based teaching, so we taught site-specific biology, geology, environmental issues, and wilderness skills to the interns. Unfortunately you cannot live in wilderness areas year round, so I spent the winter in Shenyang, China, teaching English to elementary and middle school aged students. In China I loved the teaching but missed my family and my people. Once back in the states, I returned to Minnesota, where I understood the culture and the environment was familiar: I needed the humid air smelling of lakes in the summer, the green sunlight shining through the sugar maple canopy, and the bone-chilling cold of January.

When I returned to my hometown I realized I needed to either teach or work in industry, so I worked as a concrete geologist. Of course, I missed the people.

All of these pieces, I now see, are crucial foundations to what I need to know to teach: the perspective of caregivers of students with exceptionalities; environmental service; the challenges of learning English; the industrial and community applications of earth science; and the knowledge that you belong to a place and that you have an environmental responsibility to it.

Currently I am in my last semesters of a licensure program at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in Earth and Space Science (9-12). I work for the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics, teaching high school students how to teach geoscience in their communities, and turning cutting-edge research into classroom activities for K-16. My student teaching will be this fall in a ninth grade Earth science class that uses an inquiry-based curriculum.

Patricia Schaefer

I grew up in Medford, Wisconsin, a small town in the Northcentral part of the state. After graduating high school, I moved to Milwaukee to attend Marquette University and studied chemistry and mathematics, subjects that my high school teachers had inspired me to pursue further. I considered starting an education program to pursue a career in teaching but quickly dismissed the idea once I realized how much longer it would take to earn my undergraduate degree with all of my intended coursework. Instead, I joined a research project with a professor in chemistry who was interested in studying energy levels of systems containing antimatter particles. I spent two years working on the project during which I began to get a better understanding of what science was truly about.

I graduated from Marquette University in 2002 with an honors degree in chemistry and mathematics. The logical next step in my academic career for me was to attend graduate school. I enrolled in a PhD program at the University of Wisconsin - Madison the following fall semester. At UW-Madison I worked in a research group that was interested in theoretical studies on the thermodynamics and kinetics of biomolecular systems.

While working as a research assistant in the Chemistry Department at UW-Madison, I concurrently worked as a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses. In my second year in the PhD program, I realized my true passion was not just for the science I was doing but in sharing that science with students in a classroom. I was motivated by the dream that I would someday inspire my students to study science and math in the same way my high school teachers had inspired me.

I decided to leave graduate school to pursue a career in secondary education in my third year when I was working as a K-Through-Infinity (KTI) Fellow (a program funded by the NSF) at a public middle school in Madison, Wisconsin. That year, I looked forward to my days in the classroom with students where I could learn with them and get to tell them about my scientific research. At the end of my third year of graduate school, I received my master’s degree in chemistry and moved forward with my dream of becoming a teacher.

I have now completed the Teacher Certification Program at Concordia University in Madison. In the 2007-2008 school year, I will be teaching in my own classroom for the fist time. I will teach chemistry, physics, and physical science at Mineral Point High School in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Aside from teaching, I enjoy the outdoors and spending time camping, hiking, fishing, and biking whenever I can get away from my other responsibilities. I also enjoy playing volleyball, reading, watching movies, playing board games, and cooking.