Melissa Kovar (CAS’19, Wheelock’19) Joins Knowles Teacher Initiative Cohort of Teaching Fellows
The Knowles Teacher Initiative has chose Melissa Kovar, who earned dual undergraduate degrees from Boston University College of Arts & Science and Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, as a member of their 2019 Cohort of Teaching Fellows. Ms. Kovar will begin teaching physics at Phillip and Sala Burton High School in San Francisco, CA, during the 2019-20 school year. She is one of 37 promising high school mathematics and science teachers selected for a Knowles Teacher Fellowship in 2019.
Per the Knowles Teacher Initiative website, the Knowles Teaching Fellowship is an “intensive and cohesive, five-year program that supports early-career, high school mathematics and science teachers in their efforts to develop teaching expertise and lead from the classroom.” Knowles Fellows have access to grants, professional development, and leadership activities, along with stipends, mentoring and coaching from experienced teachers and teacher educators. They join a nationwide network of “mathematics and science teachers who are collaborative, innovative leaders improving education for all students in the United States.”
While earning her bachelor degrees at Boston University, Ms. Kovar also worked in a biophysics lab at Boston University for two years, where she studied protein fibrils using a Quantum Cascade Laser. In Summer 2018, she was awarded a BU Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program award for her work with faculty mentor Dr. Shyamsunder Erramilli, entitled “Vibrational Circular Dichroism of Chiral Structures in Protein Fibrils Using Quantum Cascade Laser.” She completed her teaching practicum in a bilingual school in Quito, Ecuador, where she taught physics, and graduated in May of 2019.
