While it wasn’t a bad job, Sanchez believed that he could be doing more with his math degree — not just for himself, but for the community as a whole.

“I used to tutor my classmates at Temple and younger kids in math — it came naturally to me,” said Sanchez. “Math is a good tool for problem solving in life. I wanted to give back and didn’t like sitting behind a desk crunching numbers and looking at spread sheets.”

This month, Sanchez becomes one of the first graduates of a program that’s connecting urban middle schools with math and science teachers with professional experience in the field.

The Educating Middle-Grades Teachers for Challenging Contexts, or E=mc2, program is a partnership of Temple’s Colleges of Education and Science and Technology and the Pennsylvania Department of Education that prepares midcareer science and math professionals as middle school teachers.

Each year, of Pennsylvania's newly certified 14,000 public school teachers , only 9 percent are certified to teach science and math. E=mc2 grads commit to serve three years in one of several urban school districts, Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Chester-Upland, hit hardest by the lack of science and math teachers.

It also gives students a chance to connect with people like Sanchez, who can teach them things like how Algebra can be used after middle school and why it’s important to know the elements of the Periodic Table, said Diane Jass Ketelhut, an assistant professor of Science Education.

“We wanted people with real-world experience,” she said. “A lot of kids don’t have any idea of what a scientist or a mathematician is. By bringing in people who are strong in these content areas, they will be able to make real-world connections.”

E=mc2 was funded through a $3 million federal Department of Education Transition to Teaching grant. Students in the program received a $5,000 tuition subsidy and classes are structured in a way to allow them to continue working while taking on this new challenge, Ketelhut said.

As part of the graduation, the Wachovia Foundation will announce a $70,000 gift that will provide financial support to 10 new E-mc2 scholars.

The new teachers will receive three years of mentoring and continued support to make their classroom experiences successful ones.

The E=mc2 program is currently recruiting teachers for the fall semester. For more information or to apply, visit the program's website.