Alicia Paredes, a ninth and tenth-grade biology teacher, has spent six years teaching at Lowell High School. Before teaching science, she was a substitute teacher in Chelmsford. When Ms. Paredes was in college, she explored becoming a teacher and ended up loving it. From the moment that Ms. Paredes took Biology in high school, she knew that it was her passion. Becoming a Biology teacher made sense to her because she enjoyed the class, hoping to create a similarly positive experience for her students. Thus far, she has earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction. Looking forward, she’s love to go and receive a Master of Science in Biology or potentially a doctoral degree.

Ms. Paredes grew up in a blended family with an older sister and two younger brothers in South Windsor, Connecticut. Currently, Ms. Paredes is carrying her first child, and he will be born this summer. If she could live anywhere in the world, she would love to live in a Spanish-speaking country to experience a different culture and better understand her heritage.

In her pastime, Ms. Paredes enjoys baking, especially cake decorating. She would love the opportunity to compete in an amateur baking show such as Bakers vs. Fakers or the Great British (American) Baking Show. Her favorite TV show is Sherlock Holmes because she loves everything Benedict Cumberbatch is in. Ms. Paredes’s favorite book is The Hunger Game Trilogy. Lastly, she loves listening to Never Alone by Tori Kelly and Kirk Franklin.

Ms. Paredes’s favorite thing about Lowell is the food. She loves being able to taste all of the various cultures that make up Lowell just by exploring the restaurants. She and her husband’s favorite places to eat are the Sizzling Kitchen, Ramen 1981, Tasty Dumplings, Viet Thai, and Chatime. More specifically, she loves the Lowell High School community because it is a microcosm of the city and all of its pockets of people. There is a place for everybody to find their tribe- the people they connect with, who they can know and be known by. She’s seen a desire and passion for honoring the differences among those groups among the students, yet still, unify as one student body by striving to better understand each other. Ms. Paredes says that it warms her heart when her students celebrate the accomplishments of their peers and other peer groups. “It is a reminder that we are each on our own individual paths, yet we are all one community of human beings who can harmoniously learn from each other.”