Monica Grillo

Background

Monica is thrilled to be a part of the wonderful team at the W&M Noyce Scholars Program. Her studies and her teaching experience instilled her passion for education, which she brings to her role as Recruiter and Mentor. 

Monica received a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Loyola University Chicago. During her undergraduate studies, Monica volunteered with Best Buddies and this experience solidified Monica’s passion for pursuing social justice and equity in education. After, Monica received a Master of Arts in Education through the Math Specialist’s Curriculum and Instruction Program at William & Mary. This program emphasized mathematics education and coaching teachers with compassion. As a military child, Monica has lived in Ohio, California, Illinois, Guam, and now calls Virginia home. 

After her studies, Monica began her work as middle school mathematics classroom teacher. In her classroom, she focused on sound content knowledge, social justice and equity. One of her goals as a teacher is to build students’ confidence as learners of mathematics, and as lifelong problem solvers. Monica continued her work as a math specialist in an elementary school. In this role, Monica collaborated with other educators to design assessments, plan instruction, and analyze student data to improve student learning. While there, Monica was also an adjunct instructor with W&M, teaching a new cohort of math specialists. Monica works as W&M’s Noyce Scholars Program’s Recruiter and Mentor. She also coaches pre-service and in-service teachers for the University of Virginia where she conducts observations and facilitates meetings with each mentor teacher-student pair. She began her doctoral studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Disability Leadership and Special Education in the Fall of 2020.

Monica enjoys presenting at local, state, regional and national math conferences on research-based instruction, assessment data analysis, and reaching students who struggle with math. Through her experiences, Monica has seen the power of building relationships and collaboration within communities to support student's education.