KD DAVENPORT
BIOLOGY TEACHER
Central High School
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Despite the fact that KD Davenport went to a math and science magnet high school, she did not care for science or math, thinking them “boring” and “too hard.” Then, in her senior year, KD’s friends talked her into taking organic chemistry as an elective. She loved the class. “My teacher did a wonderful job of connecting the abstract world of geometry and bonding to our everyday lives. When I looked at a bottle of water, I knew how those molecules moved. This teacher showed me that science can shine a light on everyday life the same way poetry does, lending beauty to the most ordinary things.”

KD graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York and earned a BA in biology from Swarthmore College, where she was awarded the Leo M. Leva Prize in Biology. After graduation, she taught for two years at Princeton Latin Academy, a small private school in Princeton, New Jersey, before enrolling in a masters of science education program at the University of Pennsylvania. The school’s headmaster became her inspiration. “He taught me that kids need so much more than knowledge: they need a strong, caring, healthy adult presence in their lives that they can both look up to and struggle against.” KD began teaching at Central High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the fall of 2009.