Junior Felix Bernadin

The Ron Clark Academy | Atlanta, GA | 2021

Junior Felix Bernadin Portrait Photo

I am honored to have the privilege of representing the best STEM mentors in the nation who continuously invest in the lives of both students and teachers. I am thankful for the opportunity of providing students with exposure and real-world STEM experiences. As a Haitian-American born in Little Haiti, this prestigious honor is more than just an award. It is an opportunity to share best STEM practices with educators worldwide and show my students that representation matters in the STEM field.

The official biography below was current at the time of the award. Awardees may choose to provide their latest biographical information on their profile page.

Over the past 12 years, Junior Bernadin has served as the director of IT and dean of students at the highly-acclaimed Ron Clark Academy (RCA). Along with his colleagues, he has helped train over 80,000 educators worldwide to learn better ways to engage students, increase academic excellence, and create a climate and culture for success. In 2009, Junior organized students participating in RCA's Senior Tech program, a student-led program where seniors citizens learn computer literacy skills. He also served as one of the mentors/coaches of RCA’s FIRST Lego Team; multiple STEM camps; Jr. Tech Engineer's Program; four-time National Champion Step Team; and five-time National Champion MATHCounts Video Challenge Team. In 2017, his students designed apps with others worldwide as part of a compassion-based engineering project called MAD About Mattering. In 2020 and 2021, Junior served as a teacher’s assistant for multiple cohorts of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab’s classroom research pilots, which tested new artificial intelligence (AI) tools and methods for teaching AI material to K-12 students. Over the years, Junior has served middle school and high school students through his involvement with Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., 100 Black Men of South Metro Atlanta, Dance Canvas, and Building Future Leaders. He has received the following honors: Global Forum for Education and Learning Top 100 Leaders in Education, Leadership Atlanta's Class of 2022, Walmart Community Playmaker, the Florida State University (FSU) 30 Under 30, Georgia Trend Magazine 40 Under 40, Forbes Technology Council, Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert, and TVOne's People Behind the People. Junior has a B.A. in international affairs from FSU and an M.S. in IT Management from Regis University.