Liisa

Liisa Mai Petersen (“Liisa”), MS (Biology), Academic Director and Science Teacher

Liisa comes to her role as Cajal Academy’s science teacher and first Academic Director with 36 years experience teaching middle and high school science and leading educational teams, and she's still just as enthusiastic about teaching as she was when she was right out of college. Certified in Connecticut to teach General Science, Chemistry, and Biology (grades 7-12), she holds degrees in Chemistry Education, Biology, Science Education, and STEAM Education. Liisa spent the first decade of her career teaching middle and high school science across Connecticut and New Hampshire, and has for the past 23 years taught 7th and 8th grade science at a Blue Ribbon public school in Darien, CT, where she also worked as a team leader, teacher mentor, Quiz Bowl coach, and yearbook advisor.

Liisa's educational approach is a natural fit for the inquiry-driven approach at the heart of Cajal’s project-based learning methodology. Her whole approach to teaching boils down to one idea: kids learn best when they're asking their own questions, not just memorizing facts. Her classroom is rarely quiet or uniform — students might be exploring sound waves, building heating and cooling devices, or testing the laws of motion, all at once, all on their own paths. She loves the moments when students take charge of their own learning and end up surprising themselves.

Beyond curriculum, Liisa is passionate about meeting students where they are, and excited to learn Cajal Academy’s methodologies for using neuroscience to moving them forward. She has taught everyone from gifted students to kids with significant cognitive and communication challenges, and she treats differentiation as something you do, not something you talk about — listening closely and adapting so every student gets both support and a real challenge. Above all, Liisa builds her classroom on relationships. She's not interested in being the authority in the room — she's more of a guide and fellow traveler. Her students hear plenty of stories along the way: growing up as an Estonian immigrant, learning English in kindergarten, baking sourdough, keeping bees, flying on a zero-gravity flight, getting lost in the Canadian wilderness. These aren't just fun tangents — they build trust and remind kids that learning is a lifelong, occasionally messy adventure.

Colleagues call her creative, collaborative, and deeply student-centered. Students remember her as the teacher who made science feel alive. After three decades in the classroom, she's still guided by the same things that got her into teaching in the first place: curiosity, creativity, and the belief that great learning starts with great relationships. As Cajal Academy’s Academic Director and Science Teacher, Liisa channels these traits and the experience she has gained as a veteran teacher into overseeing the development and implementation of our multi-disciplinary project-based learning; mentoring teachers and helping to train more educators in Cajal’s groundbreaking educational approach.

Raised in Connecticut, Liisa earned her Bachelors of Science in Education and Chemistry at University of Connecticut and her Masters of Science in Biology at University of St. Joseph before achieving a 6th Year Degree in Science Education from Southern CT State University and a 6th Year Decree in STEAM Education at Sacred Heart University. She was repeatedly on the Dean’s List at University of Connecticut, earned a 3.91 GPA in her Masters program at Saint Joseph College, a 4.0 GPA from Southern CT State University and a Gold Medal of Excellence (CAS in STEAM) from Sacred Heart University. Liisa has also been recognized as a CT TEAM Mentor and Reviewer and a PIMMS science fellow (Wesleyan University), in addition to a CES Administrative Aspirant.

Liisa is bilingual in English and Estonian and enjoys gardening and baking. She is a former beekeeper and lives in Norwalk with her husband and their dogs.