Joan Gillman: Driving Innovation and Inclusion in the Classroom

Joan Gillman is honored as the Trailblazing Woman Mentor of the Year 2025 for a lifetime of shaping curious, compassionate, and confident young scientists at The Browning School through inclusive teaching, environmental leadership, and unwavering commitment to student growth. Her mentorship spans more than four decades across New York and New Jersey classrooms, culminating in a role that blends rigorous science instruction with character development and community impact.

Why this recognition

Few educators combine mentorship, mastery, and mission as fully as Joan Gillman, who has guided generations of students with hands-on science, equity-centered practice, and service learning that connects knowledge to purpose. At Browning since 2018, she has taught second, fourth, fifth, and sixth-grade science while leading a K-12 environmental club, modeling how education can inspire action and agency in real communities. Also, Joan is a Legacy Member for Kappa Delta Pi, an honor society in education.

A career of purpose

Joan’s professional journey traces a steady ascent through diverse school environments, from early roles at St. Angela Merici in the Bronx and Joytown Kent Elementary to long service at Professional Children’s School, Anna C. Scott Elementary, Yeshivat Noam, and The Calhoun School before joining Browning. This breadth of experience sharpened her skill in building age-appropriate inquiry, cross-disciplinary literacy, and foundational STEM habits that students carry forward into adolescence and beyond.

Browning educator and mentor

At The Browning School, Joan teaches lower and middle school science and serves as an advisor, designing units that ignite curiosity while sharpening analytical thinking and real-world problem solving. Her work is closely aligned with Browning’s values of curiosity, honesty, dignity, and purpose, and she highlights how equitable practices and social impact are embedded across the curriculum, not appended to it.

The Green Team’s impact

As faculty leader of The Green Team, one of Browning’s K-12 clubs, Joan mentors students through environmental initiatives that include fundraising, park cleanups, and the school’s Biodiversity Day, connecting stewardship with civic engagement. The club’s weekly Green Action prompts and community projects translate environmental literacy into daily habits and leadership experiences that students remember long after the semester ends.

Teaching that sticks

Her fourth-grade Straw Rocket investigation embodies the way she fuses math, measurement, and science through iterative design and evidence-based reasoning. Students test variables like fin style, straw length, nose cone mass, and launch angle, analyze results, redesign, and relaunch, building a mindset that treats failure as feedback and data as the path to better ideas.

Equity through science

Joan’s sixth-grade unit on hurricane relief and environmental racism catalyzes deep inquiry into mission fidelity and bias within disaster response organizations. Students evaluate claims against outcomes and propose solutions, gaining the habit of connecting scientific literacy with ethical responsibility and civic awareness.

A model for boys

Working in an all-boys school, Joan emphasizes the power of visible female leadership in STEM, inviting students to see women as innovators, researchers, and mentors shaping scientific fields. She frames representation as both practical and aspirational, reinforcing that the quality of ideas and the rigor of inquiry are not bound by gender.

Technology as an enabler

Joan has navigated the evolution from chalkboards to SmartBoards with enthusiasm, leveraging visual media, color-coded notes, and age-appropriate platforms such as Seesaw, Google Classroom, and Canvas to meet learners where they are. Her approach integrates tools that improve access and focus while preserving the tactile, exploratory nature of great science learning.

Recognition and affiliations

Her dedication has been recognized by the International Association of Top Professionals with the “Top Educator of the Year  2025” distinction, reflecting impact, longevity, and service to the field. She invests in professional learning through National Geographic Educator certification and the Modern Classroom Project, and engages with associations such as NSTA, STANYS, STEMteachersNYC, SCONYC, and SEEDS to stay current and contribute to the profession.

Lifelong learner

Curiosity fuels Joan’s craft, evidenced by coursework at the American Museum of Natural History, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where she observed the James Webb Space Telescope during development. Her participation in the GLOBE Weather Field Test and ongoing conference presentations underscores a belief that teachers grow by testing new ideas and sharing what works.

A philosophy of inclusion

From early tutoring and community teaching to present-day advisory work, Joan has consistently emphasized belonging, access, and dignity in learning environments. She designs activities that celebrate cultural backgrounds and invite every learner into the center of the scientific conversation.

Mentoring future-ready skills

In Joan’s classroom, students practice design thinking, data analysis, communication, and collaboration, the competencies that underpin both scientific understanding and leadership in any field. Reflections and redesign cycles teach intellectual humility and persistence, preparing students to ask better questions and build better solutions.

Community engagement

Green Team projects extend learning into parks, corridors, and city blocks, giving students tangible results and a sense of shared ownership over environmental outcomes. By pairing small daily actions with larger community events, Joan shows how local choices scale into meaningful impact.

Voice in the profession

As a workshop presenter at organizations such as NSTA, SCONYC, NYSAIS and STEMteachersNYC. Joan shares practical frameworks such as Constellation Stories, Density Explorations, and equity-oriented strategies for STEAM classrooms. Her sessions center on clarity, reproducibility, and classroom-tested routines that other educators can adopt immediately.

Student-centered systems

Using different platforms by division, Joan manages workflow in ways that honor developmental stages while reducing friction for learners and families. This system’s orientation frees class time for experiments, discussion, and reflection, the heart of her craft.

Character and capability

At Browning, educational outcomes are measured not only by content mastery but by the formation of decent men who influence others for the better, a mission Joan advances through daily practice. She builds trust through routines, celebrates effort as much as accuracy, and guides boys to connect scientific insight with everyday choices.

The mentor’s toolkit

• Inquiry that begins with student questions and tangible phenomena to build ownership and curiosity.
• Structured experimentation that emphasizes variables, fair tests, data capture, and post-analysis redesign.
• Interdisciplinary links that unify math, literacy, ethics, and environmental systems for integrated understanding.
• Visible thinking routines and color-coded scaffolds to support focus and memory, especially for learners who benefit from visual cues.
• Community-facing projects that convert classroom knowledge into public value through stewardship and advocacy.

A message to women leaders

Joan encourages women to give full effort, claim space in traditionally male domains, and lead with both competence and care. She frames leadership as contribution and insists that success means bringing others along.

The measure of mentorship

Awards and headlines affirm impact, yet the truest measure of mentorship in Joan’s story is the memory her students carry of becoming capable, thoughtful people through science. That legacy is visible in the habits they practice, the choices they make, and the communities they help build.

About the honoree

• Current role: Science Teacher, The Browning School, teaching grades two, four and six, with prior experience teaching grades two through six at Browning and extensive earlier roles in New York and New Jersey schools. Seventh grade advisor at The Browning School
• Leadership: Faculty leader of The Green Team, Browning’s K-12 environmental club focused on action and advocacy.
• Professional learning: National Geographic Certified Educator, Modern Classroom Project educator, regular presenter and participant in science education conferences.
• Recognition: IAOTP Top Educator of the Year 2025, featured by NYU Steinhardt for career excellence and contribution.

The Trailblazing Woman Mentor of the Year 2025 recognizes Joan Gillman’s rare blend of pedagogical excellence, ethical leadership, and steadfast service to young people, a model that elevates classrooms, schools, and the profession itself. Her work affirms that when curiosity meets conscience, mentorship becomes a force for lasting change.