This Nifty Fifty Podcast features Dr. Frederic Bertley speaking to high school children about the availability of STEM jobs, how much science affects our lives, the promising future of transportation, drinking water, medicine, and genomic science, and some of the living scientists making an impact on our work.   Listen to the podcast and read the full blog here.
Why is InfoComm International, the leading trade association for the audiovisual technology industry, returning this year as the sponsor of the Festival's prominent Nifty Fifty school visit program? The primary reason, says InfoComm executive Betsy Jaffe, is Nifty Fifty's powerful potential to transform students' attitude and performance in STEM. Which is why, she reports, InfoComm's involvement will be even more exciting and student-focused in 2015! Read full blog here.
This is the inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival Podcast, featuring Jordan Green, Ph.D.speaking to students at South River High School in Edgewater, MD. Dr. Green talks about his work creating innovative technologies and therapeutics that can directly benefit human health.   Read full blog and listen to the podcast by clicking here.
Guest Blog by USA Science & Engineering Festival X-STEM Speaker Louie Schwartzberg Albert Einstein remarked, "Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." He knew something that many scientists and engineers overlook in their quest for truth: nature holds the answers we're seeking! We're simply here to learn nature's language and laws and how we can interact with it. Every law of the universe can be witnessed by observing nature. In the west, we like to believe we arrive at facts once they've been scientifically validated. Truthfully, the facts were written…
Why can't we inspire kids to become just as excited about science and engineering as most are about sports and entertainment celebrities? Get ready as MedImmune, the global biopharmaceutical leader which wowed audiences as a major sponsor of the Festival's X-STEM Symposium last year, returns for Festival 2015 this spring to help answer this key question! Read more
Photo Credit: Focus Features In our recent STEM in the News Blog, read how science is making waves at the 87th Academy Awards, our Youth Advisory Board is working to encourage more girls to pursue computer science, stereotypes need to be shifted and students in middle and high school can attend the ultimate STEM field trip. Click here to read the full blog.
In observance of African American History Month in February, the USA Science & Engineering Festival recognizes the accomplishments of African American pioneers and the important role they have played in paving the way for modern-day African American STEM leaders and innovators including Festival X-STEM and Nifty Fifty Speakers. Read full blog 
By Nifty Fifty Host Carol Bengle Gilbert Very often, even the host can't helped but be inspired by the Nifty Fifty talks. Monday, I listened to Dr. Ellen Stofan, NASA's chief scientist, address middle school students at the Nysmith School for the Gifted in Herndon, Virginia. The school decided to announce the science fair winners in conjunction with our event. (The kids in front of our sign in the photo are a few of the many winners.) This was a fun touch! Her talk brought out many interesting aspects of the work NASA does, but it was a student comment that really got me thinking. Dr. Stofan…
Image Via NASA In our recent STEM in the News blog, X-STEM Festival Speaker and Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci discusses the importance of childhood vaccinations and his frustration with the recent Disneyland measles outbreak,  Festival Nifty Fifty Speaker and Material Scientist Dr. Ainissa Ramirez breaks down the science of "Deflategate", NASA holds the first ever "State of NASA" event, find out what causes the smell of rain and learn about exciting STEM scholarships and fellowships. Click here to read more.  
By USA Science & Engineering Festival Nifty Fifty and X-STEM Speaker Dr. Jeff Goldstein Note: The launch of the CRS-5 is set for 6:20 am ET, January 6, on SpaceX-5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, adjacent to Kennedy Space Center, Florida. I thought it would be important to put up a blog post on the October 28, 2014, loss of Orb-3 and the SSEP Mission 6 Yankee Clipper payload of experiments, something that could capture the experience in that moment. I think it is an important story to share with the thousands of SSEP students across the nation and in Canada who are invested in this…
As Dean Kamen, inventor of such amazing technologies as the the Segway human transporter and one of the world's most advanced robotic arm prostheses, often says: "Our nation is enamored with sports and entertainment, but how can we groom kids to become as passionate about innovation?" At the Festival's fascinating all-day X-STEM Symposium, presented by MedImmune next spring, you'll not only meet Dean but also a compendium of other renowned STEM visionaries to explore the passion and excitement of innovation! Prepare to be amazed and inspired as X-STEM Extreme, set for Tuesday, April 28, 2015…
The ‘Nifty Fifty (times 4)’, a program of Science Spark, presented by InfoComm International, are a group of 200 noted science and engineering professionals who will fan out across the Washington, D.C. area in the 2014-2015 school year to speak about their work and careers at various middle and high schools. Meet Nifty Fifty Speaker Dr. Erica Ellingson Her research is key to shedding further light on how the cosmos began and its future development. "My work focuses mostly on topics concerning the evolution of galaxies and quasars, and observational cosmology-- the origin, contents and…
By USA Science & Engineering Festival Nifty Fifty Speaker Jeff Potter Jeff Potter's Patent-Violating* Chocolate Chip Cookies. Photo by Jeff Potter One of the biggest advantages that home-cooked foods have over store-bought goods is time. Commercial products have to be shelf-stable, so manufacturers have to come up with clever tricks to mimic home cooking. What if we dug into the literature and tried using those tricks for ourselves? A freshly baked cookie—“just like Mom used to make!”—ends up being crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle. Some enterprising researchers at UC…
The Hour of Code is back! The Hour of Code is a global movement reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries. Learn how you can participate here: http://hourofcode.com/us http://youtu.be/FC5FbmsH4fw
Tomorrow is #GivingTuesday, a global day dedicated to giving back.  On #GivingTuesday, please support the USA Science & Engineering Festival and our mission to  stimulate and sustain the interest of our nation's youth in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by producing and presenting the most compelling, exciting, and educational Festival in the world with a tax-deductible donation.  Your donations to the USA Science & Engineering Festival will:   Keep the Festival Expo Finale FREE and open to the public with thousands of hands-on exhibits, stage shows and much more!…
Continuing our efforts to celebrate STEM all year long, we have joined forces with Raw Science to create a Youth Category for their film festival.  The Raw Science Film Festival celebrates the exciting world of film and science. "We wanted to create a film festival that significantly supported filmmakers who share the wonderful world of science and technology through exceptional film and video content," explains Mitchell Block, Executive Director of Programming for Raw Science. "Our goal is to find, present, award and promote the youngest generation of student filmmakers all the way to the…
By participating as a Sponsor in the upcoming Festival, your organization will be aligned with the nation's leading science and engineering institutions that recognize the importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education and its impact on our country. In our most recent Festival in 2014, more than 1,000 organizations participated, including our Festival host Lockheed Martin, in addition to Northrop Grumman Foundation, Chevron, Caterpillar, WalMart, U.S. Air Force, MedImmune, NIH, NASA, NSF, State Department, DoD, USDA, EPA, CIA, Georgetown, University of…
The ‘Nifty Fifty (times 4)’, a program of Science Spark, presented by InfoComm International, are a group of 200 noted science and engineering professionals who will fan out across the Washington, D.C. area in the 2014-2015 school year to speak about their work and careers at various middle and high schools. Meet Nifty Fifty Speaker Dr. Jennifer Elisseef Each year in medicine the low availability of donor tissue and organs for transplantation grows even more acute, but scientists -- working in an emerging, high-tech frontier called tissue engineering -- are helping to address the crisis by…
The ‘Nifty Fifty (times 4)’, a program of Science Spark, presented by InfoComm International, are a group of 200 noted science and engineering professionals who will fan out across the Washington, D.C. area in the 2014-2015 school year to speak about their work and careers at various middle and high schools. Meet Nifty Fifty Speaker Dr. Jordan Green  As a researcher, Jordan Green, Ph.D. is on the front lines of creating innovative technologies and therapeutics that can directly benefit human health. Specifically, this involves employing techniques in cellular engineering and nanobiotechnology…
The ‘Nifty Fifty (times 4)’, a program of Science Spark, presented by InfoComm International, are a group of 200 noted science and engineering professionals who will fan out across the Washington, D.C. area in the 2014-2015 school year to speak about their work and careers at various middle and high schools. Meet Nifty Fifty Speaker Dr. Tim Chartier As a mathematician and researcher par excellence specializing in numerical linear algebra, Tim Chartier, Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Davidson College, is known for pushing the boundaries of…