Juliet Parry

Juliet Parry, Teacher, Brighton High School

Juliet Parry is a teacher at Brighton High School in Brighton, MA. She teaches a variety of classes including “Foundations of Science” and Biology to English Language Learners (ELL) students. This means that many of her students have never studied English before. Parry joined the RET program because she wanted to have an introduction to current lab research and be able to add what she learned to her classroom teachings.

Summer 2019, Parry worked in Professor David Bishop’s lab, conducting research on micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). Her team’s focus was on creating a shutter device that would be attached to an Organic Vapor Jet (OVJ) Printer. This would transform OVJ printing from only printing in straight lines to potentially being used to print scaffolds and cardiac cells, amongst other things. Parry’s task was to learn and then use COMSOL to perform Finite Element Analysis of the shutter.

After the program, Parry hoped to be able to take 21 st Century science understandings and Computer Assisted Design (CAD) into her classroom. The students she works with have interruptive learning and many “face the hurdles of learning a new language, academic cognitive thinking skills, executive functioning skills, PTSD and at least a third work 20-40 hours a week to support themselves. Therefore, the challenges they bring to the classroom make it imperative that the learning be relevant and immediately applicable to their daily life,” says Parry.

She wants future participants to bring their curiosity to the table and ask a lot of questions. “The program is for the teacher to learn from their starting point. Find something you are interested in and consider how to share it with your particular student body,” says Parry.