What fondness Felicia Cherry lacks for biology, she channels into chemistry.

Now Carolina’s product manager for Chemistry, Physics and Physical Science, Felicia was first encouraged to pursue science in college through the support of her high school physical science, chemistry, and physics teachers.

“Knowing that your teacher believes in you and believes that you can learn it, keeps with you, and stays with you to get the material,” she says. “When your teacher supports you and believes in you, it makes it a lot easier to learn.”

Following her graduation from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she first used her chemistry and Spanish double major to serve as a Spanish-to-English translator before joining Carolina in 1997 as a product developer for our chemistry department.

Now as a product manager, one of her favorite projects has been bringing Carolina STEM Challenge, a range of hands-on lab kits, to life.

“It allows students to demonstrate concept mastery without having to be the smartest in the room or have the highest grade,” she says. “The quiet students, the students who work with their hands, and the students who understand but can’t seem to get the questions right on a paper test have their moment to shine.”

Her favorite product, though, is our Carolina Chemonstrations®: Elephant Toothpaste demonstration, which she frequently performs at tradeshows and in classrooms.

“It never gets old,” she says. “This demo and all our Chemonstrations are designed to work every time, not just periodically.”

Hearing how students grow with Carolina’s products and resources is one of the most fulfilling parts of her work, along with making instruction easier for teachers.

“Students love lab days—I don’t care what the subject is,” Felicia says. “But the fact that the kits we make go into these teachers’ hands, and they go into classrooms, and these students get inspired by doing labs and seeing science work—otherwise you’re just teaching to them. That hands-on aspect is what’s fulfilling, knowing that our products are getting to the students and helping them ultimately learn science and hopefully become a scientist.”

Moving forward, she’s excited to help Carolina move even closer to the forefront of science education, letting teachers know that there’s more to us than biology.

“I immediately explain [to teachers] that anything in a science classroom, we have,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what it is. I’ll say that it’s the balance, the frog you dissected, the chemicals, the labs, the plants, the fish. We sell it all, and my area just happens to be chemistry.”