Middle school teacher Jennifer Vogel was named Mercer County Teacher of the Year for 2026-27
Jennifer Vogel did not know much about engineering when she was applying to colleges.
She was ready to enroll without declaring a major until her high school physics teacher, Eric Geddes, at Spotswood High School, asked, “Hey, have you ever thought of engineering?”
Vogel had enjoyed Geddes’ engineering challenges in his physics class. One example stood out: I’m going to lay out 10 cartons of eggs, and you have to design a shoe that distributes the forces enough that you can walk across it without breaking the eggs.
“It was always this different design, testing out challenges,” she recalled. “I didn’t know it at the time, but it was engineering.”
Geddes helped Vogel research the different types of engineering. After discussions with Geddes and her family, she settled on mechanical engineering.
A native of Milltown, Vogel attended Rowan University and graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering. At the time, Henry Rowan and his wife had pledged $100 million to the university for its engineering department. Today, the department is named the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering.
“I was a professional engineer for seven years before I went alternate route into teaching,” Vogel said.
She described her career as a professional engineer as “amazing.”
“I got to work on so many really interesting projects,” she said. “We redesigned the inside of a police car. We worked on Kevlar vests. We worked on a rocket engine for NASA.”
And although it was the most interesting career Vogel had held, something was missing.
“It wasn’t fulfilling,” she admitted.
At the same time, Vogel had always been involved in education, whether through tutoring, teaching CPR classes or giving swimming lessons.
“Finally, my husband was like you really have a passion for [education],” she recalled. He encouraged her to pursue it as a career.
In 2010, Vogel decided to take the alternate route into education.
“My father was an engineer, but he was electrical so the type of work he did was completely different,” she said. “My mom was an educator so it’s almost like I got combined the best of both of those worlds.”
Today, Vogel is a middle school teacher at Melvin H. Kreps Middle School in the East Windsor Regional School District (EWRSD) and has been with the district for 17 years.
She initially applied for a high school math teaching position. The district’s math supervisor at the time told her there was a middle school position opening and thought Vogel had the right personality for the job.
“It was a difficult year to get into education with a lot of budget cuts,” Vogel recalled. “I was like why not. I really enjoyed my middle school experience as a kid so why not make things fun for the kids now.”
Transitioning from industry to education involved a learning curve, but Vogel enjoyed every aspect of it.
“I love where I work,” she said. “I love my colleagues. We have really become like family.”
That family surprised Vogel when she was named Mercer County Teacher of the Year for the 2026-27 school year by the New Jersey Department of Education.
She was formally recognized alongside 20 other outstanding educators at an awards ceremony held August 11 at The College of New Jersey in Ewing.
“It was a complete surprise,” Vogel said. “All the administrators in the building, all the administrators from central office and the Mercer County Superintendent of Schools office all came into my classroom while I was teaching to let me know that I won.”
Vogel said the recognition reflects not only her work, but also that of her colleagues, family and students.
“I feel like as educators, we all do this because we love it and we all work so hard,” she said. “I feel like anyone of us could have been selected. We all go above and beyond for our kids.”
EWRSD Superintendent of Schools Mark Daniels commended Vogel on her recognition, saying she inspires her students to be “curious, creative problem-solvers, while making complex concepts engaging and appealing.”
Vogel has completed graduate studies in instructional mastery and earned a National Certificate for STEM teaching from the National Institute for STEM Education.
Combining engineering expertise with student-centered teaching methods, she transforms complex concepts into accessible, hands-on learning experiences for middle school students. Grounded in her belief that design thinking and engineering are universal tools for empowerment, Vogel also shares her expertise across the state, presenting for the Association of Mathematics Teachers of New Jersey and the New Jersey Science Convention.
In 2019, Vogel had an opportunity to work with colleagues to develop and introduce the district’s STEM program. They designed the program during the 2018-19 school year and began implementing it in 2019-20.
“It was a challenge because it ended up being [the year of the] COVID-19 [pandemic],” she said. “But our district had a vision that they really wanted STEM to be for everybody. We didn’t want it to be a class for only kids who were interested in subjects like science and math or technology. We didn’t want it to be an elective. We wanted to create a program where all students, all different types of learners with different interests could feel success and be challenged and learn in different interesting ways.”
That is what the STEM program has become in the East Windsor Regional School District. It creates an environment where students are challenged with a variety of projects, Vogel said, and there are multiple ways for them to meet the objectives.
“The whole point of the program was to have them try the project, work together, and problem solve through the project,” she said. “Design, redesign, test it, fail, laugh about it and try again.”
Students learn from their mistakes, Vogel said.
The district’s STEM program has evolved each year depending on the needs of the schools. It has expanded into science and social studies classes with additional challenges.
“We kind of brought [into those classrooms and showed how STEM] is applicable in all contents,” Vogel said.
The STEM program is now part of the district’s curriculum and is also offered as a stand-alone class at the middle school level.
“We’re very lucky our district is very supportive of the STEM curriculum,” Vogel said. “It’s one of the district’s goals and they’ve done a really nice job of making sure it’s accessible to all students. It starts in Kindergarten with the K to 2 elementary [teachers] and 3 to 5 elementary teachers.
“We take it in the middle school and by the time they get to high school, they have the option for all different more specific areas in STEM,” Vogel said.
The program started with three teachers and has expanded to four, allowing for a full program at the middle school.
In sixth grade, students learn about rainwater harvesting systems.
“They learn all about the reasons for water scarcity,” Vogel explained, “how it affects 25 percent of the world’s population, and United Nations Sustainable [Development] Goals. Then we launch into a project where students are able to build little models that capture rainwater and store them.
“The whole point of the program is to learn, challenge themselves and problem solve,” she added. “Once they have a successful working rainwater harvesting system, we then challenge them to move the rainwater further away from where we are collecting [water] to use it.”
In seventh grade, students work on creating sustainable communities.
“We learn all about types of sustainable energy and we end up having them build windmills,” Vogel explained. “Essentially we build electrical circuits, have little LED lights to make a whole little city with LEDs.”
Students can use 3D printers this year and are learning how to use Tinkercad, a web app for 3D design, to make parts of the windmill.
In eighth grade, students conduct more extensive research and complete a capstone project.
“They are picking a problem in the community,” Vogel said. “They have to come up with different solutions. They have to research; problem solve and brainstorm.”
At the end of the capstone project, students present their work in a mini showcase to stakeholders, who may include community members or school administrators.
“We are trying to get them ready for the real world,” Vogel said of the project.
For the capstone, students can work in pairs or individually.
“We want them to be passionate about the problem and the solution that they are picking,” Vogel said.
Last year, the district pioneered a smaller version of the capstone project. One of the projects focused on making local parks more accessible and safer for children of all abilities.
“They did research into what parks we have available in East Windsor and Hightstown,” Vogel said. “How many had accessible equipment and how much would it cost to bring in [accessible equipment]. What would that look like as far as permits.”
Vogel attributes her passion for engineering to her high school physics teacher.
“He was somebody who loved his content so much,” she recalled. “He was so passionate. He had high expectations for us. He challenged us.”
When Vogel decided to go into teaching, she reached out to Geddes to let him know what a difference he had made in her life, inspiring her to pursue engineering and, in part, become an educator.
“He was such an incredible influence in my life, and I wanted to let him know,” she said. “It was one of the reasons I was pursuing education.”
And when she was asked to help create the STEM program for the East Windsor Regional School District, she was once again excited to share the news with Geddes, who is now teaching in South Jersey.
Vogel was one of the top three finalists for New Jersey State Teacher of the Year, which was selected in October. Ultimately, Hannah Olmo of Morris County was named State Teacher of the Year.
“It was just an honor to be even selected as a finalist and go through that process,” Vogel said. “It has been really amazing. I’m excited to use this platform to promote how good STEM education is for all students and all the good things we do in East Windsor.”
As a County Teacher of the Year, Vogel serves as an ambassador for New Jersey’s public schools during the 2026-27 school year and networks with leading educators across the state.
