Originally Dr. Grimm’s career plan was to go into industry work, but after a teaching requirement in her PhD program, she chose an alternate route. She taught at the college level for one year but ultimately decided that wasn’t for her. “I liked college, but teaching at college is more difficult in the sciences,” Dr. Grimm reflects. “They want you to do research; they want you to publish; they want you to run the research lab. And I just wanted to teach.” She decided to apply for jobs at private high schools and landed at Emma Willard School in 2018, where she instantly fell in love with the mission, community, and students.

Dr. Grimm recalls the transition of her teaching style between the two levels, with college students doing more independent exploration and high school students requiring more instruction and time to digest the information. Every student is on their own learning journey as they all come to Emma with different educational experiences and backgrounds. Embracing Emma Willard’s intellectual flexibility pillar, she works through the challenge with each individual student. “Science might not be their passion—this is a graduation requirement—but I want them to love it. I don’t want them to struggle, so I do what I can to help and meet them where they are.” 

Students take Introduction to Chemistry during their sophomore year, which can be intimidating for those who aren’t passionate about science. Dr. Grimm does her best 

to relate to this feeling, as she was once in her students’ shoes. One method she utilizes is taking chemistry concepts and comparing them to real-world situations. When describing electrons, she explains that they like to spread out, just like siblings when they move into a new house. They don’t share a space if they don’t have to; they disperse and take their own rooms. While it may be a simple comparison, she finds those types of analogies most resonate with students.

Passionate students continue to upper-level courses, like Advanced Studies (AS) Chemistry, where Dr. Grimm gears students up for the college atmosphere with more applied questions and independent study. Donning her bedazzled safety goggles, she opens the AS titration lab with light-hearted jokes before giving instructions on the experiment titled “Determination of the Ksp of Calcium Hydroxide.” The objective is to determine the amount of calcium hydroxide dissolved in a given volume of solution. Students do this by performing an acid/base reaction between the calcium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid. When the students add the necessary amount of acid to the calcium hydroxide solution, an added color indicator changed from bright pink to clear, letting the students know their reaction was complete. 

Students are then partnered up via matching playing cards—a common tactic at Emma Willard to ensure students are integrating with the entire class—and sent off to the lab benches. Students are drawn to the balance of independent learning and hands-on work in Dr. Grimm’s teaching style. “She creates a conducive learning environment where we aren’t afraid to make mistakes,” Krisha Jeevarathnam ’24 shares. “When I solve a problem on the whiteboard in front of the class, she encourages us to try, even if we know we’ll make a mistake. ‘That’s how we all learn,’ she says.” 

There is a consistent thread of empowerment and confidence-building within her classes—in part due to her own education, where she didn’t have a female chemistry or physics teacher until college. That lack of representation propelled her further into the field, wanting to follow in the footsteps of her college advisor, who was the first woman she had met who had gone through a graduate program for physical sciences. Now with three young daughters of her own and a career at Emma, it’s ever important for Dr. Grimm to demonstrate female representation in the field. “I tell my students that you can do anything. I didn’t get straight A’s in high school and I didn’t get straight A’s in college, and I’m doing perfectly fine. And they think that’s amazing. I know things are a little bit different now with grades in colleges, but I try to bring it to their level. Anyone can do anything they want; you just have to set your mind to it.”

Empowering students to be unafraid of mistakes, having confidence in and out of the classroom, and preparing them for the college environment have solidified Dr. Grimm as a beloved Emma teacher.

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This piece was written for "The Classroom" in the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of Signature Magazine.