Profile: Ms. Suarez rocks science

Ms. Suarez plays to a sold out show at The Smell in Downtown Los Angeles, 2007. Photo courtesy of Ms. Suarez.

By Yaneth L. and David T.

Did you know that Suarez was in a band? Suarez was in a band back then, before she was a teacher. When Ms. Suarez was in high school she did many interesting things, including starting a band with her and a couple of her friends. She was in the band for about 7 years the instrument that she played the guitar. During that time Suarez toured around the world, some of the places she traveled to were United States, Europe, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, and Japan. When asked about her experience she said, “It was an incredible experience and I learned so much about making music, and just being a person in the world.” She also did some tour managing, DJ work, worked with record labels, and also started recording and producing music.

Ms. Suarez plays at the South by Southwest (SXSW) event in Austin, Texas, 2009. Photo courtesy of Ms. Suarez.

Ms. Suarez also talked about her college experiences. She started this by going to a community college and also worked full time. She got her major in biology in Pitzer college. Ms.Suarez got into a research lab in college where she study vaccines in plants and that also got her the opportunity to travel to Botswana and South Africa for the summer. “I was able to build a really cool program with my friend called LEGS (Leadership and Engagement in Gender and Sexuality), where we worked with LGBTQ youth in the Inland Empire and led workshops, summits and even held a Queer Prom.”

Ms. Suarez helping a student in class. Photo by Angel Beltran

Ms. Suarez stated that being a teacher was difficult for her to answer because she had multiple passions. Some of her passions include music, art, science, and social justice. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do at the time because she wanted to work in art in a museum but then she wanted to work with the youth. “I knew I wanted to work with youth in some capacity, and my friend had told me about the District Intern program with LAUSD, so I just went with that. I followed my heart, to say the least.” Suarez knew she wanted to be a science teacher because of her experience in the realms of science. Her college experience changed the way she saw science and the people who work in predominantly science/medical fields. Ms.Suarez has now been teaching for 4 years and has done 3 years in CATS. Her first year of teaching was 7th grade Science at Marham. Another reason she wanted to become a science teacher is to teach kids. “I am hopeful to get more students from the South Central community to pursue their STEAM dreams and become our next doctors, researchers, nurses, and tech leaders.”