Mr. Michael A. Boyer

Nominated by Jonathan Hollenbach, College of Engineering

Michael Boyer has been a Technology Education and Engineering Academy teacher at North Penn High School in Lansdale, PA for the past 25 years.  He designed and runs a nanotechnology and materials research program at North Penn called The Future is N.E.A.R. This program was inspired by his participation in the RET and RET-Nano programs at Drexel University.  He also runs several after school clubs; including, an Auto Club, the International Research Team, where his students collaborate with students from the United Kingdom, and the Engineering Projects In Community Service (EPICS) club.  He was named an MIT Excite Award winner, has received research grants from numerous organizations and companies, and was awarded the Technology Education Teacher Excellence award for the state of Pennsylvania from TEEAP and ITEEA. His passion is to be a door hinge for his students by opening up doors to as many opportunities as he can for them to learn about topics that they never knew about and to discover hidden talents they never knew they had. Mr. Boyer graduated from Millersville University and received a Masters Equivalency degree by the State of Pennsylvania. He has been married for 21 years to his beautiful wife, Anita, and have two children, Andrew, who is graduating high school this year and Claudia who is a sophomore in high school.

Michael Pustie

Nominated by Shaelynn Fisher, School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems

Michael Pustie is a Physics and Engineering teacher at West Deptford High School in West Deptford, NJ. Armed with a Master’s in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University, he began a career as a software engineer in telecommunications and medical imaging instrumentation. He was drawn back to the classroom where he began a second career teaching high school physics and chemistry in 1999 using his undergraduate degree in physics from Drexel University. Always seeking out better ways to reach more students, he studied with STEMteachersNYC becoming a Board Member in 2015. He also spearheaded the development of the West Deptford Engineering Program using the LocoRobo Innovations family of products, a startup born at Drexel University. In 2020, he received a Lemelson- MIT Excite Award. As the advisor of the West Deptford High School STEM Club, his students participate in Physics Olympics, SeaGlide, and Brain Bee Competitions. He is always searching for authentic and engaging STEM learning opportunities for his students.

Michael Garrison

Nominated by Amara Malik, LeBow College of Business

Michael Garrison has been teaching in the Pennridge School District in Perkasie, Pennsylvania for 15 years. He attended the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (along with a semester abroad at the Gerhard Mercator Universität in Duisburg, Germany) for his undergrad, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in German Education and completed both a Master of Science in Classroom Technology and a Master of Science in Educational Development and Strategies at Wilkes University.  Throughout his time at Pennridge, Mr. Garrison has taught all levels of German from Level One through Level Five Honors and has been the advisor to the International Cultures Club, co-advisor of the PASC State Conference and the Assistant Director of the Marching Band.  In addition to teaching, he also is the co-advisor of GAPP (German American Partnership Program) at Pennridge High School, in which his students host partner students from the Peter-Vischer-Schule in Nürnberg, Germany every other fall, and then brings his students to Nürnberg for three weeks the following summer.  Mr. Garrison resides in Emmaus, Pennsylvania with his lovely wife, Carmen, and their two sons, Aven and Torin.  He is proud to be an educator and of the relationships he’s built with his students throughout his time in the classroom, and he is incredibly honored to be a Harold W. Pote Award recipient.

Alissa Giancarlo-Hart

Nominated by Jason Sobieski, School of Education

Alissa Giancarlo-Hart received her undergraduate degree in Secondary Education and German from the University of Scranton.  Upon graduation, she moved to Germany to assist at a Gymnasium (a German High School)  in Woerth, Germany as part of the Fulbright Exchange Program.  She later completed her Masters in Education with a concentration in Instructional Technology from Arcadia University.  She has worked in the Upper Dublin School District since 1995, teaching German both at the middle school and the high school.  She currently teaches at Upper Dublin High School, where she advises the German club and also assists in the bi-annual exchange program to Germany.  She lives in North Wales, PA with her husband, 2 children (one who attends Drexel University) and her dog.