Community Corner

Featured Teacher: Charles Vessalico, Mr. Robotics

This Malverne science teacher helps students create amazing bots and perform challenging research.

When the Malverne High School Robotics Team competed at nationals last year, Charles Vessalico was in their corner.

The science teacher and team coach has helped students bring bots like the one in the video above to life for the past three years, but his speciality is actually living creatures.

Vessalico earned his Bachelor's Degree in Biochemistry from Stony Brook University and then performed research at Sloan Kettering for a year. But he soon decided that his place was in a classroom and went back to school for education, obtaining a Masters Degree in Teaching Biology, also from Stony Brook. During this time he taught undergraduate biology labs and Biotechnology Teaching Labs for high school students.

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For the past five years, he has been teaching Science Research and AP Biology at Malverne High School, where he has started a 9th grade science research class. He has also mentored three S.M.A.R.T .teams (Students Modeling A Research Topics), National Science Competitions qualifiers and students performing research for Cold Spring Harbor Labs, Queens College, Sloan Kettering, Adelphi University, Molloy College, Hunter College and Stony Brook, where he also still teaches every summer.

For three years, he also obtained the funding for and ran a 9th Grade Science Summer Camp.

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With America students lagging behind those in more than 20 other industrialized countries, according to the latest rankings, teachers like Vessalico are raising the bar and challenging students to create, explore and innovate.

Do you know of a Malverne or West Hempstead teacher you'd like to highlight in this column? Email Tara.Conry@patch.com.


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