Caitlin Seiler, Jessica Carcerano-Wheeler and Rebecca Woods display their awards for Tech Student of the Year; Educator of the Year; and Tech Professional of the Year at NH Tech Alliance’s 2025 TechWomen Connect and Awards, held at Fidelity Investments in Merrimack on May 28. (Courtesy of James Huddleston, EA Creative)
Tech leaders converged on Fidelity Investments’ Merrimack campus May 28 for the 10th anniversary of NH Tech Alliance’s TechWomen Connect and Awards, and in a first, one of the night’s three honorees was a middle school teacher.
Jessica Carcerano-Wheeler, a seventh-grade STEAM teacher—STEM with an arts component—received the Alliance’s Tech Educator of the Year award. Former Constant Contact CEO Gail Goodman keynoted the awards, emphasizing the future of artificial intelligence in her address.
A student at Cooperative Middle School in Stratham nominated Carcerano-Wheeler for her work in bringing drones and robotics education to her classroom, made possible by grants she had written.
Caitlin Seiler, a senior at Nashua’s Academy for Science and Design charter school, was named the Alliance’s Tech Student of the Year, and Rebecca Woods, founder of health care ventures Propel Health Advisors and Bluebird Leaders, was Tech Professional of the Year.
Transitioning from zoo and museum work, Carcerano-Wheeler told NH Business Review that it’s largely thanks to her students’ strong support that she’s evolved Cooperative’s STEAM curricula.
“In sixth grade, we did VEX robotics,” Carceno-Wheeler said. “Then in seventh grade, our unit was all on flight. We built hot air balloons and then launched them and we made gliders. … I (also) got grants for ROVs, which are underwater robots.”
Seiler, meanwhile, hopes to attend Worcester Polytechnic Institute for biomedical engineering, spurred by her family’s myriad chronic illnesses.
Her sister was diagnosed with hypogammaglobulinemia, which causes fewer antibodies in the blood. Her mother has Type 1 diabetes, and her father died in 2020 shortly after a car crash severely damaged his spinal cord.
“You can’t fix everything, but for me it’s, ‘What can I do to help?” Seiler told NH Business Review of her college ambitions.
She shared in a speech her experience participating in ARMI’s Biotrek competition—first proposing treatment for spinal cord injuries, and later, a more effective immune therapy treatment for those with her sister’s condition.
For Woods, receiving honors from the Tech Alliance “is not just a recognition of where I’ve been; it truly fuels my soul for what comes next,” she told TechWomen attendees, chronicling a career that’s seen her become a chief information officer at 30, raising two daughters and now heading two health advisory firms.
Speaking with NH Business Review, Woods said she’s looking forward to growing Bluebird Leaders, a 501(c)(3) organization she launched last fall to offer holistic mind, body and spirit support to women.
“We’re starting to pull in wellness events, and we’ll keep doing our annual conference this September, which will double in size from last year,” she said. “If this passion project can become my full-time job in the next five to 10 years, I’d be super stoked.”
