“My favorite topic of study is poison. I’m very well read in poisons.”

With a new year comes new teachers, and this year is no exception. Harding has welcomed Rachel Cox to the science wing. She is a veteran science teacher, and yes, a poison enthusiast.

Cox has lived in several different states including Idaho, Colorado and Arizona.

Though she was born in Colorado, she attended Brigham Young University in Idaho, where she majored in English Education and Chemistry.

Cox moved to Arizona to teach. She has lived along the U.S-Mexico border for the past five years.

“Border society is very different, and no one understands what it’s like except for the people on the border,” Cox said. “The border’s not a real place… The people who live on the Mexican-American border are Mexican and American. So, the border is just a nuisance to them because it makes it harder for them to see their families.”

In Arizona, Cox taught at Omega Alpha Academy and San Luis High School. She has taught life science, earth science, physics, biology and both chemistry and AP chemistry.

“I loved the mathematics of [physical sciences], I loved the abstractness of it,” Cox said. “It’s very theoretical when you’re talking about it, but in actuality, it’s very practical and very direct.”

Cox moved to Oklahoma in July and has lived here for three months. This year she is teaching pre-AP biology and AP chemistry.

“It became my goal to replace at least one of those teachers who didn’t care, hated their job and transferred that same negativity to the students,” Cox said. “To be concise, I became a teacher to get rid of one bad teacher and to, therefore be a better teacher.”

In her spare time, she enjoys playing with her dog and reading, presumably to brush up on poisons.