STEMteachersNYC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting a community of STEM teachers across the NYC region. Our mission is to cultivate excellence in STEM teaching and to promote deep understanding and success for students through innovative, teacher-led professional development. Our weekend workshops are offered during the school year and multi-week workshop intensives occur in the summer, led by master teachers. We welcome and encourage teachers from across the globe, the US, and the local New York City area!
Join a Community of STEM Teachers
We’re excited to have you on board! Sign up below and we’ll send updates about STEMteachersNYC, including opportunities for professional development. You can also follow us on Facebook or Instagram (@stemteachersnyc). Joining is free of charge so there’s no risk involved in trying out this community – all memberships include a weekly newsletter with tips & tricks from other teachers around New York City and beyond all are welcome.
Our Values
» Experimentation
» Collaboration among active practitioners
» Free exchange of ideas
» Supportive, diverse community
» Integration of robust content and pedagogy
» Practical and classroom-ready workshops
» Teachers as active learners
» Attentiveness to student learning experience
» Responsiveness to local teacher interests
» Best practices based on research and classroom experience
» Welcoming to new teachers
» Equitable and inclusive STEM teaching
Our Story
STEMteachersNYC was founded in 2011 by 25 physics teachers to support each other in striving for excellence. They enjoyed gathering monthly for a workshop led by one of the group members. Word got around; numbers grew, and our focus quickly broadened to all of STEM and from K to 12, with our mission now, as in 2011: cultivating excellence in STEM teaching and success for students through teacher-led professional development. Robert Karplus’ creative, nurturing spirit has been our guide, along with his learning cycle and his trail-blazing ideas about how to use models as tools for teaching science.
STEMteachersNYC is currently almost entirely a volunteer organization, run by teachers, for teachers, about teaching. Under the leadership of Dr. Fernand Brunschwig, it has grown from an initial group of 25 to more than 1,500 teachers who are members of the organization’s on-line professional forum. Program offerings have grown from 8 weekend workshops and a single 3-week intensive summer workshop on mechanics in physics in 2011-12, multiple monthly weekend workshops and nearly a dozen simultaneous summer workshops. Workshop participants are teachers in public schools, charter schools, and private schools from throughout the NY, NJ and CT metropolitan area. The summer workshops also draw participants from across the country and abroad.
The impact of these workshops is significant. Since 2011, we have presented over 325+ workshops that have attracted over 4000+ teachers to intensive professional development experiences on their own time on the weekend or in the summer. During 2013-14, STEMteachersNYC adopted by-laws, established a board of trustees, and submitted the application for tax-exempt status. In the 2014-15 academic year, the IRS approved our application for tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) status, and we doubled the number of weekend workshops. Our long-term goal is to reach 25% of the region’s 21,000 STEM teachers and impact over 250,000 students.
Our Approach and Impact
STEMteachersNYC programs draw from a teaching methodology known as modeling, which is closely related to Next Generation Science Standards. Modeling is a student-centered approach to teaching that emphasizes the use of scientific models in an interactive learning community. Students are engaged with simple scenarios and learn to model the physical world. The approach engages students in experimentation, data collection and analysis through a set of structured “paradigm” experiments, asks them to represent their understanding using whiteboards, and then deploys the resulting model in analyzing related phenomena. When the models fail to explain what students are seeing, the cycle of experimentation, data collection, and model-making begins again.
Learn About Our Impact
Since 2011, we have conducted over 325+ excellent STEM teacher workshops, developed for and by teachers. There are now 1,500+ STEM teachers in our membership from around the country. Learn more about our impact by clicking below.
Partners and Support
Thank you to all of our partners and supporters. To learn more about how to donate and get involved, click here.
Staff and Board of Directors
2024 Board
| OFFICERS | ||
| Chair/ Juliette Guarino Berg | The Town School | Lower School Science Teacher |
| Vice-Chair/ Kerry Kline | Packer Collegiate | Science Dept Chair |
| Vice-Chair/ Martina Meijer | NYCDOE | Elementary Classroom Teacher |
| Treasurer/ Ann Thibodeau | Bridgewater Advisors | Partner & Senior Advisor |
| Secretary/ Elissa Levy | Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia | Physics Teacher |
| MEMBERS AT LARGE | ||
| Allan Powe | Regis High School | Science Teacher |
| Eric Walters | Marymount School of New York | Director of STEM Education |
| Howard Spergel | Midwood High School (NYC DOE) | Physics Teacher |
| Jason Sullivan | Montgomery Township Board of Education | 9-12 Science Supervisor |
| Kate Macaulay | Hunter College Elementary School | Elementary Science Specialist |
| Patricia Bauer | NA—Retired, Marymount School of NYC | NA, Ret. Chemistry Teacher |
| Paul Marks | Argosy International Inc. | CEO & Executive Chair |
| Ray Eason | JP Morgan | Executive Director, Global Securitized Products |
| Seth Guiñals-Kupperman | The Brooklyn Latin School | Physics Teacher |
CLASS OF 2022
Elissa Levy (The High School for Climate Justice)
Kate Macaulay (Hunter College Elementary School)
Howard Spergel (Midwood High School)
CLASS OF 2023
Darren Sumter (Linkedin, Global Account Manager)
Ann Thibodeau (Senior Advisor, Bridgewater Advisors)
Donghong Sun (Associate Professor, Tandon School of Engineering NYU)
sTAFF
Yadana Nath Desmond – Executive Director
Craig Buszka – Chief Financial Officer
Dr. Chris Kennedy Outreach Coordinator,
Juliette Guarino Berg Board Chair 4th Grade Science, Town School
Yi Li Youth Programs Mgr & Finance Manager
Noshin Naqvi Program Manager & HS Biology Teacher
Philip Jackman Marketing Manager
Daniel Levitt Career & Degree Partnerships Manager
Jennifer Herring Vice-President for Development
Committee
Finance Committee
Juliette Guarino Berg
Ray Eason, Chair
Kerry Kline
Ann Thibodeau
Eric Newcomer
Fernand Brunschwig
Program Committee
Kerry Kline
Juliette Guarino Berg
Patricia Bauer
Elissa Levy
Kate Macaulay
Martina Meijer
Michelle Gill
Marketing & Development Committee
Kyle Clayton
Deirdre Malacrea
Pamela Wong
STEMteachersNYC is a non-profit type B corporation and 501(c)3 non-profit organization (public charity), EIN: 46-4068881. STEMteachersNYC is a Continuing Teacher and Leader Education provider, registered with the New York State Education Department (CTLE ID# 3385). STEMteachersNYC is also registered as a vendor for the NYC Department of Education (Vendor #: STE-068881). Donations to STEMteachersNYC are tax deductible.
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