Rachel O. Williams

Rachel Williams is the Chief Operating Officer (COO), co-founder and “Chief Mom” of an education company called Paige & Paxton that provides STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) curriculum and content specifically designed for children under the age of 8.

Rachel’s mission is to change the trajectory of an entire generation by making STEM easy to teach and easy to learn at the beginning of a child’s educational experience.

Rachel was the “alpha” tester of the Paige & Paxton approach over 20 years ago when she wanted to ensure that her daughters were proficient in math and science. She devised an innovative way to make some of the complex STEM concepts more interesting. While she did not have a STEM background, she was a journalist and marketing communications professional who had more than 20 years of experience in successfully communicating complex ideas to general audiences. She leveraged this skill set as a communicator, journalist, and educator by using two puzzle piece characters to make the concepts more fun and engaging.

Twenty years later, something amazing occurred. Both daughters were excelling in science and math-related fields and actively involved in STEM pipelining programs for youth, such as Black Girls Code. The daughters convinced their mom to bring the puzzle piece characters back to life in the form of an early elementary STEM curriculum.

Today, Paige & Paxton materials and curriculum is used by 12 schools systems across the country, including Chicago Public Schools, and the company has trained over 800 educators in early elementary STEM. Paige & Paxton has also been featured in The Washington Post, “Kindergarten students get an introduction to engineering,” on WGN-TV, WGN Radio, the Chicago Tribune, and was named “For the STEM kid or the parent who wants a STEM kid” by the Chicago Sun-Times.