Mooreville native and University of Mississippi graduate student Jessica Fancher Peralta is the first Mississippian to receive a Knowles Science Teaching Foundation Fellowship worth $175,000. (University of Mississippi)
University of Mississippi
OXFORD – University of Mississippi graduate student Jessica Fancher Peralta doesn’t begin her first year of teaching until this fall, but she already has landed a sizable bonus.
The Mooreville native is the first Mississippian to receive a Knowles Science Teaching Foundation Fellowship worth $175,000.
A five-year fellowship for early-career STEM teachers across the country, the program will offer financial support to assist Peralta with a variety of grants for classroom materials, training, networking opportunities, travel to national conferences and more.
“The thing I like most about the fellowship is the community of educators all across the country,” said Peralta, who will begin teaching mathematics at Oxford High School in August. “It’s a network of current fellows and past fellows. I will be able to connect with teachers all around the country to share experiences and seek out ideas.”
Founded in 2002, KSTF teaching fellowships are designed to attract and retain high school STEM teachers who demonstrate a high level of content knowledge and effective teaching methods and show potential to become an influential teacher leader who will make a career of teaching.
According to KSTF data, more than half of all U.S. STEM teachers have less than five years of experience in teaching. The fellowship program, which has a 95 percent retention rate with its fellows, includes more than 250 fellows in 42 states across the nation.
“Jessica exhibits all of the things you want from a teacher leader,” said Allan Bellman, associate professor of mathematics education and the faculty member who encouraged Peralta to apply. “Teachers who receive Knowles Fellowships are exceptional educators. They have strong promise of staying in education and spreading a wide influence.”
Peralta earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics education from the UM School of Education in 2013 and is a graduate research fellow at the UM Center for Mathematics and Science Education. She plans to finish a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction part time over the next few years.
“There can be a negative association to studying math, and I want to help change that,” Peralta said. “Mathematics should be taught as problem-solving, critical-thinking and logical reasoning. I think that helping students develop those things is going to help them in anything that they do.”