ARCS Foundation - National - USA Science & Engineering Festival

The 2010 USA Science & Engineering Festival slated for October 2010 in Washington, DC is a massive effort to ignite a passion for science and engineering in middle and high school students. The USA Science & Engineering Festival will send more than fifty top scientists into local schools this October 10-24, 2010.

Mary L. Snitch, ARCS Foundation National President, is among the representatives from Lockheed Martin Corporation to participate in this exciting program. The ARCS Foundation Metropolitan Washington Chapter will be prominently represented as an official sponsor of the festival and is very proud that several scholars from area universities will represent ARCS on the Mall during the Expo: Marcin Balicki and Stephanie Fraley from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland; Brenton Duffy, Yi Jin, Jessica Stolee and Bennett Walker from the George Washington University in Washington DC; Eric Patterson, Ilana Goldberg and Monique Koppel from Georgetown University in Washington DC will excite visitors with their educational and science hands-on demonstrations.

An important aspect envisioned for the Festival is that meeting leaders who have enthusiastically dedicated their careers to science and engineering, will help students embrace these disciplines and consider careers in them. The Nifty Fifty, as they are called, were carefully chosen from hundreds of applicants for their differing fields, talents, divergent backgrounds and ages, and ability to convey the importance of science to our nation’s future.

Mary Snitch’s presentation and remarks to a local high school will include:

• Her exciting career in science and engineering – as a social scientist;

• Surprising and important career opportunities in the aerospace industry;

• “Lighting the Fire” for NextGen scientists and engineering;

• Commitment to make a difference in “Advancing Science in America”

Mary has enjoyed a nearly 30-year career in the aerospace industry. Aside from her current position as Director, NASA Programs, Lockheed Martin, she serves on the Board of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) as VP, Member Services, and is an elected Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics. She is a member of the Metropolitan Washington Chapter of the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Foundation, and will complete her 2-year term as the National President of the Foundation in June 2011. The ARCS Foundation is a 501(c)(3) all-volunteer, all-women organization whose mission Is to provide significant scholar awards to outstanding US scholars who are pursuing degrees in STEM-related fields at 49 leading universities.

Supported by festival host Lockheed Martin and sponsor Life Technologies Foundation, the Nifty Fifty speakers include the broad spectrum of scientists and engineers, along with high tech entrepreneurs and financiers, policy makers, actors, journalists, educators, researchers, explorers, video game developers, spies, alien hunters, astronauts and brain surgeons. For example:

• How bionic body parts and the Guitar Hero video game can save lives. Robert Armiger of Johns Hopkins University will talk about helping rebuild the lives of veterans injured on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan with bionic body parts.

• The physics of NASCAR. Diandra Leslie Pelecki of the University of Texas at Dallas will answer questions such as, what’s it like to drive a couple of hundred miles per hour?

• Do bacteria really talk to each other? What do they say? Why is communication so vital? Bonnie Bassler of Princeton University will tackle the importance of communication at the most basic level.

• The Invention of the Big Bang Machine. How atoms are smashed, the workings of particle physics and the birth of the universe, taught by Herman B. White of Fermi National Accelerator Lab.

• How a migrant worker became a top brain surgeon. Alfredo Quinones Hinojosa of Johns Hopkins will discuss his journey and his work removing the most complicated and life-threatening tumors.

• The chemistry of Thanksgiving dinner. Connecting chemistry to her students’ own experiences has helped Diane Bunce of Catholic University engage and excite her students about the field of chemistry.

• The physics of superheroes. James Kaklios of the University of Minnesota talks about creating unique characters for movies such as “The “Watchmen” and others.

The Nifty Fifty Scientists were selected from entries submitted by more than 100 professional science & engineering societies, including The National Academy of Engineering, AAAS, the American Chemical Society, IEEE and American Woman in Science; 100 universities and colleges such as Harvard, MIT, Princeton, University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins and the U.S. Naval Academy; 50 federal agencies and laboratories including the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Energy, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; 75 informal science outreach organizations including the Smithsonian Museums, the United States Botanic Gardens and the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academies; and more than 25 corporations, many of which are Festival sponsors.

About the USA Science & Engineering Festival:

The first USA Science & Engineering Festival from 10/10-10/24, 2010 creates a new model for celebrating science in the nation’s capital. Two weeks of science events across VA, MD and D.C. include 50 of the area’s top scientists visiting local middle and high schools, brown bag lunches for high school students with Nobel Laureates, science open houses, events such as the science of wine and chocolate, a Kavli Science Video Contest, a Jingle Contest, a You CAN Do the Rubik’s Cube contest, and a Sustainable Dreamhouse contest.. A two-day Science Expo on the National Mall will feature more than 400 science and engineering organizations, and most of science’s best and brightest. www.usasciencefestival.org.