 In 2017, Denbaum was named Director of the Stamford YMCA LEAD College and Career Readiness Summer Institute, an enrichment program for teenagers that includes classroom sessions at the Stamford campus of the University of Connecticut and briefings at corporate, cultural, and educational institutions, as well as trips to New York City and Washington, D.C.In keeping with his pedagogical focus on higher-order critical thinking, Denbaum expanded the LEAD After-School Program at Westhill High School by creating the first high school curriculum based on Thinking, Fast and Slow by the noted psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.In 2019, Denbaum received the Stamford Public Education Foundation Spotlight Award for Excellence in Teaching.