Speakers
2023 Conference Speakers
Jennifer O'Malley
Director of the Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline
Jennifer O’Malley serves as the director of the Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline (CTEP) within the National Center for Urban Education (NCUE) at Illinois State University. A former middle and high school public school teacher in Chicago, she has worked at CTEP since its founding in 2005, collaborating with school and community partners to design the comprehensive programming that now encompasses the NCUE educator preparation model of community, school, and university integration. NCUE programming spans from preK-12 students and their families through pre-service teachers as well as supporting program graduates in their teaching careers in urban districts. Most recently, Ms. O’Malley has developed ISU’s new partnership with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and City Colleges of Chicago called Teach Chicago Tomorrow, which aims to support CPS graduates to become CPS teachers by diversifying the teaching profession. She also currently supports the design and implementation of the National Science Foundation-funded program SUPERCHARGE (STEM-based University Pathway Encouraging Relationships With Chicago High Schools in Automation, Robotics, and Green Energy), a unique collaboration with ISU faculty and students from the College of Education and College of Applied Science and Technology as well as CPS teachers and Chicago community organizations. She has presented on the NCUE model at educational conferences across the country. She is the co-author of the chapter “Whose Voice Matters?: Intentionality in Building Authentic Community-University Partnerships” in Community-engaged Teacher Preparation Programs . She has supported many NOYCE scholars over the years on their path to becoming STEM teachers and is thrilled to continue to be a part of the program.
Jennifer Grandfield
Jennifer Grandfield has been a Mathematics educator in the City of Chicago for over 13 years. She is a first-generation college graduate and Noyce Scholar from Illinois State University. Her origin story as an educator began in high school when she was president of the Onward House Tutoring organization, where she worked as a tutor for other Chicagoland students. Jennifer started her teaching career as a founding teacher of Little Black Pearl Art & Design Academy in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, and now she leads the Math Department at Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. In addition to teaching, Jennifer facilitates several after-school clubs in association with the Frida Kahlo Foundation. Her pedagogical focus is student-centered, project-based learning with a lens of cultural relevance. She and her students design a large-scale community event each year called Math Night, where high school students design and build Math literacy activities for elementary and middle school children. The event draws hundreds of community members annually and helps her students to gain confidence and leadership skills as well as Math competency.
Alexandria Paulsen
Alexandria attended Illinois state university for her undergrad, earning a degree in secondary education with a chemistry focus area. During her time at ISU, she studied abroad in the Netherlands to participate in a comparative education study. At the Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden (NHL), she built relationships with her classmates and learned about the educational experience in their home country. She and her classmates coauthored and edited a book about politeness and classroom management strategies, which was later used as the class textbook.
Alexandria has been teaching high school science in the city of Chicago for the past 10 years. She has experience teaching in public, alternative, and charter high school settings. More recently, Alexandria has been teaching Chemistry at Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy (IHSCA) in the little village neighborhood for the past 7 years. This past summer, she completed her English as a second language (ESL) endorsement. This will help her provide the support our growing population of emergent bilinguals (EBs) needs to be successful in school.
Alexandria actively supports her coworkers as the vice chair of the school’s teachers union. She has also co-facilitated 7 all-staff sessions around adult social-emotional learning (SEL) at IHSCA. It is through her involvement with student organizations (like NHS) and her relationships with coworkers that gives her insight into what keeps people in school and what pushes them out. She has seen many teachers come and go and has also left teaching positions herself, so she understands the support needed to make teaching not only successful but sustainable.
Lisa Gonsalves
Dr. Mindy Capaldi
Mindy Capaldi is from Valparaiso University where she is an Associate Professor of Mathematics & Statistics. Her research in Mathematics Education has ranged from studying textbooks and definitions to analyzing the use of note sheets for online exams. Other education-related scholarship has involved inquiry-based learning, flipped classes, and additional methods of increasing engagement in mathematics classes. Recently, Capaldi edited a book for the Classroom Resources Materials series of the AMS titled Teaching Mathematics Through Games. She is glad to be able to work with the Noyce Program and further its goal of encouraging future STEM teachers.