The admirer has become the admired. At 40, Adams is the principal of Bronxville Elementary School, in Westchester County, NY. She was promoted to her new post recently after serving three years as the school’s assistant principal. In her former school in New York City, Adams pushed STEM education for girls, bringing in the founder of Girls Who Code, female software engineers and other women who succeeded in technology. “They see that there are countless possibilities for girls in STEM,” she says. “If we want girls—and boys—to realize their potential, their uniqueness, we have to show them real, live adults who have found passion and success in their professional lives.”

Adams, wife and mother to two girls, completed Touro’s Graduate School of Education in 2011. She credits Touro’s program and its professors for where she finds herself today. “Touro literally provided me with a pathway to get the degree I needed, to do what I’ve always wanted to do,” says Adams, who has been an instructional math coach and STEM specialist as well as a classroom teacher. “It was the perfect setup. I could work full time and still get my master’s degree. I was aspiring to become a certified early education teacher, and that would never have happened without the excellent education and support I received.”

She is paying it forward. Adams didn’t create the school’s motto—The Bronxville Promise: Innovate. Lead. Think Critically. Engage the World—but she has breathed life into those tenets. She has received the support of the teachers and staff to team up to help the students discover themselves and others utilizing Project Based Learning (PBL). Students in each grade decide on a class topic. They talk about it, research it, make recommendations, offer solutions. The fifth graders’ PBL unit, titled Be The Change, for example, takes on real-world problems like homelessness, equity and inclusion for all, or the staggering incarceration rate for men and women of color, and came up with solutions to lower those numbers. The first graders’ topic was recess. “Recess is where so many social issues happen from negotiations, conflict resolution, friendship, how to treat others, playing fair,” Adams says, adding that the first graders put their rules for resolving problems on posters displayed on the playground. “All our students present their topics, research and findings to the entire community of parents and our school family. It’s a wonderful, fun way to teach critical thinking and problem-solving to kids. And it doesn’t hurt that we adults can learn from them, too.”