Mathematics, Science, & Computer Science 

Shiho Burnham - Mathematics

Mrs. Burnham was born and raised in Japan. She attended school there through high School and jr. college before moving to the U.S.. She found her passion in Math and Education while attending USM here in Maine.

Mrs. Burnham taught Math at Edward Little High School before she had children, and then she took some time off so that her children could become bilingual. Most recently she has been a math teacher for both middle school and high school students at Poland Spring Academy.

She lives in Lakes Region with her husband, three kids, and one dog.

Jorge "JJ" Rodriguez - Mathematics

Jorge Rodriguez, or "JJ" to their students, just moved to Portland, Maine from San Diego, California this summer. JJ grew up in Florida and California before attending Drexel University in Philadelphia for their B.S. in Economics and B.A. in Mathematics. JJ then moved to San Diego, where they began as a math tutor and an academic coach at a small charter school before becoming a high school math teacher at a large public high school. During this time, they got a Masters in Education from National University with emphasis in Social-Emotional Learning before packing up and moving to Portland.

When not at school, JJ might be knitting, playing board games, baking, singing with a choir, or exploring Maine!

Andrew Fumarola - Science

Andrew is a native of South Boston, Massachusetts and has been living in Maine for 6 years. He comes to Baxter with experience working at farms and kitchens in southern Maine. He also spent 7 summers as a camp counselor in New Hampshire, where he directed the Ropes Course Program. In 2018 he studied in Freiburg, Germany, where he found a love of German literature and culture. After graduating from Colby College in 2019 with a BA in Environmental Policy, he decided to make Portland his home.

A lifelong musician, Andrew plays keyboards and bass in his band which has performed around Portland. He also enjoys cooking meals for his friends and mountain biking. He's very excited to be joining the Baxter community and hopes to have a great year here!

Kate Strait - Science 

Kate grew up in upstate NY and later moved to Maine to attend the University of New England. There, she earned a BA in Biology, with a concentration in Marine Science. Kate then attended the University of New Hampshire where she earned a MA in Zoology, with a focus in Aquaculture. Most of her professional career has been in the science industry - from R&D in a clinical chemistry lab to becoming a manager at Bangs Island Mussels. The world of education fell into Kate’s lap after an injury no longer allowed her to work in aquaculture. She took a long-term substitute position at Sanford Middle School and realized that she wanted to remain in the education field. Kate taught at Sanford Middle School for 5 years before moving to Baxter Academy in 2021. She is beyond excited to teach what she is most passionate about - SCIENCE! 

Kate has a deep connection with the ocean and considers herself an ambassador of the sea. When she is not in the classroom, you can find her in the ocean surfing, giving surf lessons, or with her camera taking photographs of the ocean. Her love of nature and the water has channeled itself into a life full of science, surfing and photography.

Rory Lowe - Science

Rory grew up in Massachusetts and left New England to attend Colorado College where he graduated in 2019 with a B.A. in physics. He taught undergraduates at Colorado College for a year after graduating before returning to the Northeast to teach physics labs at the University of Southern Maine. Rory was inspired to join Baxter for the engaged and dynamic community.

Rory lives in Portland with his cat, Grandpa. He spends a lot of time with his family on their farm in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. He loves music, food, strolling around the city, and mountain biking.

Eric Kawamoto - Design, Computer Science & Mathematics

Eric Kawamoto comes to Baxter after a 22-year career as an algorithm development (software) engineer at IDEXX Laboratories. He is new to teaching high school students, but has served as a teaching assistant for freshman calculus while an undergraduate Physics major at the California Institute of Technology, and as a teaching fellow for freshman physics while completing his dissertation in condensed-matter physics at Harvard University. He came to Portland in 1997 after three years as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he began acquiring the programming skills needed for developing algorithms (image processing and quantitation, curve fitting, optimization, clustering and classification, machine learning) for diagnostic instruments used in veterinary medicine. At IDEXX, Eric facilitated communication between biochemists and immunologists, and his fellow software, optical, and electrical engineers, by "speaking each other's language", while developing his junior colleagues into good communicators and strong individual contributors. He plans to take what he has learned from the corporate world, so much of which resembles the mission of teaching, into classrooms and project-based learning at Baxter, where he will teach Computer Science, Programming, and Engineering Design.

Besides long harboring a desire to pursue a second career as a secondary educator, Eric is an avid amateur orchestral and chamber musician, as well as a choral singer. In the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra, he currently plays violin (http://www.midcoastsymphony.org/musicians/eric-kawamoto/), while during summer workshops at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, he derives great joy from the hard work of participating in chamber ensembles as a violinist and violist. Up until last year, when he began to take courses toward a teaching certification at the University of New England, Eric had sung tenor with the a cappella choral group Renaissance Voices. He has also served on the boards of the Maine AIDS Alliance and the Maine Gay Men's Chorus, supporting LGBTQ causes and safe spaces. Eric hopes that his experience as a scientist in academia, engineer in industry, musician, and advocate for women and people of color in STEM will inform a rigorous, practical, and compassionate teaching style to develop the next generation of innovators and problem solvers.

Andrew Ritter - Science

Andrew grew up in the Finger Lakes region in western NY. Before starting his career in teaching in 2017, Andrew attended Hobart college earning a B.S. in Biology with a minor in Environmental Science and Chemistry. After teaching in the Boston area, Andrew has made Gorham his home and joined the Baxter community in 2021. 

Andrew has a passion for scientific research and enjoys guiding students in scientific inquiry. With his two loyal companions, Scout and Charlie, Andrew can often be found on the trails of Gorham. 

Peter Moxhay - Physics, Mathematics & Photography 

Peter Moxhay is a former theoretical physicist who has done research in high-energy particle physics, string theory, and quantum field theory. He received an undergraduate degree from Brown University before going on to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota.

When he became interested in education, Moxhay got deeply involved in international projects with math and science educators from Russia, Bulgaria, and Romania. He has also translated educational books in mathematics and educational psychology from Russian into English.

Moxhay has previously taught a range of grades and educational levels in the Portland Public Schools. At Baxter, he is excited to be able to teach math and physics at a level which is not usually available to high school students. 

Moxhay plays old time fiddle, enjoys reading and travel, and in recent years has become interested in 19th-century photographic processes (which he also occasionally teaches at Baxter, especially for Flex Friday projects).  He lives out on Peaks Island with his family.

David Rawson - Science & Drama 

Southern Maine has had to endure Mr. Rawson’s teaching for twenty-five years. He began his career at Wells High School, initially teaching Chemistry and Geometry. His subsequent teaching assignments spread to most of the curriculum in math and physical science, eventually expanding into technology as well. It was also there that he experienced his first forays into the wilds of school reform. Since 2001 he has been a member of the Poland Regional High School faculty, where he was a co-creator of an interdisciplinary individualized team, a faculty coach and mentor, and a long-serving member of the PRHS governance group. He has taught a wide range of courses, including Astronomy, Chemistry, and Physics; Statistics, Integrated Math, and Calculus; Digital Photography, Desktop Publishing, and AP Programming.

The concept of learning by discovery is central to his idea of successful learning. As Mr. Rawson puts it: “Figuring out how things work – in which direction will that rolling ball move? what function describes this pattern? – is vital to understanding the world around us. Without that understanding, we can hardly expect to be more than spectators, rather than participants.”

Mr. Rawson is a graduate of the University of Maine, where he earned double majors in Mathematics and Physics. There he met educators whose ideas he later turned loose in his own classrooms: math professors who taught the value of a Socratic dialogue and treating students as individuals; teacher guides who instilled the simple importance of commandeering a student’s pencil; physics professors who let students explore a room full of equipment with which to investigate the world, and showed how there is ample room and opportunity for humor in education. His work at the UMaine (now Maynard F Jordan) Planetarium also helped show him the path to a future helping students understand the universe around them.

The promise and the challenge afforded as one of the trailblazers making a path for the success of Baxter Academy, its students, its community, and its spirit, posed an opportunity too difficult to resist. The prospect of crafting effective individualized education around math and science is too thrilling to ignore. Helping the collective Baxter community figure out how to accomplish such a seemingly simple (yet inestimably complex) problem – now that is a noble quest!

Fun facts about Mr. Rawson: Neither the piano nor the clarinet (or even, during a disastrous spring, the drums) has yet succumbed to his efforts at mastery – or, to be fair, even competency. Seeking an outlet for music has instead lead to years as a choral singer (Messiah singalong, anyone?) and to all sides of the stage apron, where he has performed in and directed community theatre productions, high school theatre, and assisted local theaters with their technical lighting needs. An avid writer, he is also the author of Murder on Mount Desert.

Pamela Rawson - Mathematics & Computer Science

Ms. Rawson has been teaching for 25 years. During her career, Ms. Rawson has taught all levels of high school mathematics from basic skills to Advanced Placement. She spent the last twelve years at Poland Regional High School working with an integrated mathematics program and developing cross-curricular projects. While at Poland, Ms Rawson worked with teams of at-risk students, co-taught an integrated math/physics course with Mr. Rawson, served as a teacher leader and mentor, and field-tested the use of TI-Nspire technology for learning mathematics. She is intrigued by the use of technology to teach conceptual understanding and has used a variety of tools, beginning with graphing calculators in 1990.

As an independent consultant, Ms. Rawson has provided professional development to math teachers in Maine and throughout the country since 1993. Much of her recent work has focused on implementation of Core-Plus Mathematics and classroom use of TI-Nspire. She was recently granted T3 Regional Instructor status by Texas Instruments. Ms. Rawson is currently President of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics in Maine where she has worked to organize professional development supporting implementation of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics.

Ms Rawson is a graduate of the University of Lowell and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics, with concentrations in Computer Science and Statistics. She also studied Mathematics at the graduate level for two years at the University of Maine.

Ms Rawson is excited to be a member of the Baxter inaugural faculty and looks forward to being amazed by her colleagues and students. She is especially excited to be returning to teach in Portland, where her career began. In her first year of teaching at Portland High School, she teamed her geometry class with an art class to create an architecture unit, culminating with a walking tour of downtown Portland.

Fun facts about Ms Rawson: She plays many instruments, but none of them very well. She has a passion for musical theater and has been on stage and behind the scenes at many community theaters in southern Maine. She has spent the last decade tracing her family roots and has made some interesting discoveries.