Yale Educator Award Presented To Milton High School Teacher

MILTON, GA — Honors chemistry and AP research teacher Marianne Campbell has been honored for inspiring and supporting one of her former Milton High School students, who is now a freshman at Yale University.

Students entering Yale’s class of 2025 were asked to nominate educators who have deeply impacted their lives for the annual Yale Educator Award. The award recognizes teachers from around the world who inspired their students to perform at high levels and to achieve excellence.

Marianne Campbell was that person to her student, Nicole Campbell (no relation), in her AP research class.

Marianne sings Nicole’s praises, relaying how hard she worked on a complicated research paper on speech patterns in people of disparate linguistic backgrounds resulting in different outcomes for pre-trial mental competence assessments. Marianne said that during the project, Nicole faced challenging obstacles typically experienced by advanced researchers. However, thanks to hard work and her teacher’s expertise and mentorship, Nicole prevailed. Marianne describes the class as one that “lends itself to student empowerment more than any other course I know. Students investigate a gap in adult human knowledge and design an experiment to fill it.” She felt privileged to have been part of Nicole’s research journey.

Marianne has the chops to be an ideal mentor to students in rigorous, college-level courses. She holds a PhD from Stanford University in microbiology and immunology and was a postdoctoral scholar at Emory University. Her career in academia included teaching undergraduates in scientific writing as an adjunct lecturer, teaching a registered nurse preparatory program and tutoring a friend learning to read English while she prepared for her GED exam.

After those experiences, Marianne felt led to teach at the high school level. For 13 years, she has taught in Fulton County Schools, 12 of which have been at Milton. At her school she has led and inspired students in extra-curricular activities, sponsoring Beta Club, Model UN and UNICEF organizations, as well as serving the district as a Science Learning Architect, writing the latest chemistry standards.