MELISSA BARGER
Biology Teacher
Summit Prep Charter High School
Redwood City, California

Born in Houston, Texas, Melissa Barger graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in biology and a minor in chemistry in 2008. That same year she traveled to the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) with the Dartmouth Volunteer Teaching Program, where for a full academic year she taught tenth grade reading, writing and science at one of the four public high schools in the country. The experience was a turning point for her – “every student had lived on an island for his or her entire life but that was the first time that many, especially girls, really explored it. My students had never before experienced an inquiry-based approach to science class.” Melissa consequently decided to leave a career in science research in order to pursue teaching.

Melissa’s international experience also includes traveling to Ghana on a Tucker Foundation Fellowship. In Ghana she had the opportunity to explore teaching in a developing country environment and teach pre-schoolers. She inherited her love for teaching from her maternal grandmother who is a teacher. Melissa earned her teaching certificate from Stanford University in 2009.