Welcome, new Groton faculty!

Groton School welcomes the new faculty members who bring their talents and expertise in a wide range of subjects to the Circle starting this fall.

Anna Martinez joins us as the assistant director of Academic Skills, bringing significant experience with curriculum development across such subject areas as math and social emotional learning. She has taught for ten years, most recently at Boston’s Jewish Community Day School. She has also worked at Smith College as an academic advisor to graduate and undergraduate students who acted as mentors at local high schools. After graduating with a BA in education and child study from Smith, Ms. Martinez was awarded a Project Coach Fellowship and completed her MAT, also at Smith. Currently, she is pursuing an EdM in teacher leadership at Brandeis University.

Azmar Williams will teach Foundations of Global History and Modern Global History, and will also run an Upper School boys dorm. A PhD candidate in the History Department at Harvard University—where he earned his MA in U.S. History—Mr. Williams is currently preparing to defend his dissertation. His teaching and research interests have been in post-emancipation U.S. history, focusing on African American history and intellectual history. Mr. Williams holds a BA in history and African American studies from Yale University. A North Carolina native, he attended the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics—the nation’s first public boarding high school focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Benjamin Robb joins our Mathematics and Computer Science Department. A graduate of Yale, where he studied mathematics and developed a deep love of Field and Galois Theory, Mr. Robb spent several years as a teaching assistant at his alma mater and worked with the Math Department there to design a series of proof-writing curricula. Since graduating, he has been a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, a position that allowed him to teach in classrooms throughout Philadelphia. He has also taught abroad, in Bilbao, Spain. 

Kenneth “Kenny” Dennie is another incoming math teacher this year. He graduated from Pomona College in 2019 with a degree in mathematics and a minor in philosophy. His passion for boarding school teaching was kindled when he returned to the Webb Schools, where he had graduated in 2015, as a sabbatical replacement. He has spent the past two years working as a math teacher, coach, and dorm parent at a small boarding school in Ojai, CA. 

Blake Fitch joins us as a sabbatical replacement teaching photography and managing The de Menil Gallery. She received her BFA from Pratt Institute, with a major in photography and minor in art history. After graduating, Blake studied photography, and art and technology at the Art Institute of Chicago, before earning a MS in arts administration from Boston University. Ms. Fitch had a successful career as an editorial and fine art photographer. Her editorial portraits have been featured in publications such as Boston Magazine, London Sunday Telegraph, and the New Yorker. Her fine artwork has been exhibited internationally and is held in the collections of several museums, some of which include the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the George Eastman Museum. 

Also joining the faculty are three teaching fellows, who work under the supervision of experienced faculty members. 

Alexander Greene is Groton’s communications fellow this year, working in the Office of Communications and Marketing and assisting with the yearbook and other student publications. Earlier this year, he graduated from the University of Georgia, where he majored in political science. Mr. Greene was a part of the university’s student-run political review, where he served as an editor. He also worked for the UGA Development and Alumni Relations office as a student fundraiser. 

Nina Krasnoff is the math teaching fellow this year, teaching two sections of AP Calculus AB. She graduated from Amherst College in 2023, where she double majored in math and philosophy. At Amherst, Ms. Krasnoff was the captain of the women’s crew team and volunteered for ACVotes, the campus’s voter registration initiative. Additionally, she served as a teaching assistant and grader for multiple courses in both the math and philosophy departments. Ms. Krasnoff has spent the past two summers teaching at Northfield Mount Hermon’s Summer Session. 

Brian Xiao ’19 is the physics teaching fellow this year. He will teach three sections of Advanced Physics: Mechanics and one section of Physics. He graduated from MIT in 2023, where he majored in physics. During college, Mr. Xiao served as a teaching assistant and peer mentor within the Physics Department. He also played saxophone in the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble and conducted research on various topics within physics and chemistry. Originally from outside of Philadelphia, Mr. Xiao graduated from Groton with the Form of 2019.