Carnegie Academy for Science Education

Scientific literacy is now recognized to be crucial for our nation's progress in the 21st century.

The Carnegie Institution, a pre-eminent basic research organization, has fostered the development of scientific knowledge since the early 20th century. For many years, this meant the training of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the Institution's laboratories, located in Washington, DC and around the country.

In 1989, Maxine Singer, then president of Carnegie, founded First Light, a Saturday science school for children. This was the start of the Carnegie Academy for Science Education (CASE) whose goal is to encourage interest in science among school children and teachers in Washington, DC. First Light remains a lively program for children.

Since 1994, CASE has offered professional development for DC teachers of science, mathematics and technology. Emphasis in all programs is on inquiry-based, hands-on approaches to learn and teach the processes and content of school science. For more click here

Scientific Area: 
Science Education
Support Carnegie

Explore Carnegie Science

Carnegie Academy for Science Education Receives Amgen Biotech Experience Funding—Impacts Virtual STEM Learning in Washington, D.C.
September 23, 2020

In 2017 the Carnegie Academy for Science Education (CASE) was selected to manage the Amgen Biotech Experience (ABE) site in Washington, D.C., called ABE-DC. The Amgen Foundation has now awarded CASE an additional three years of funding. ABE-DC established an extensive professional development program and a rigorous biotechnology curriculum, including research-grade laboratory equipment loaned to D.C. high school teachers to implement real-world biotechnology labs in their classrooms. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CASE’s ABE-DC programming has pivoted to a virtual curriculum.

This fall corresponds to the start of the second grant cycle of CASE’s Amgen Foundation

Read Full Story
DC STEM Network to Share $1-Million Award in STEM Coalition Challenge
May 21, 2018

Washington, D.C. –The DC STEM Network is one of eight groups to win the US2020’s 2018 STEM Coalition Challenge. The Challenge was a nationwide competition for communities toincrease hands-on STEM mentoring and maker-centered learning to underrepresented students. The winners were announced at the Bay Area Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA, last week. The DC STEM Network will receive a share of a $1 million award which will support further innovative, STEM-based learning for Washington, DC students.

The Network was selected from 92 applications from 35 states, representing more than 1,800 nonprofits, companies, school districts, and local government partners. The Network is

Read Full Story
Exciting Trip for DC Grand Prize Winners to International STEM Fair!
April 23, 2018

Washington, DC — On Saturday, March 17, middle and high school students in the nation’s capital showed off their science and math skills in a full-day celebration of STEM education and innovation at Ron Brown College Preparatory High School. More than 100 local students participated in the 2018 DC STEM Fair, where they presented their own science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) projects to a group of 80 volunteer judges, including representatives from local universities, STEM professional organizations, research institutions, and STEM employer groups.

Three DC high school students were selected as grand prize winners of the DC STEM Fair’s Senior

Read Full Story
DC STEM Network Finalist in Nationwide STEM Coalition Challenge
January 16, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. – US2020, a  nationwide network of more than 350 organizations to advance the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields, chose the DC STEM Network as one of 15 finalists for the STEM Coalition Challenge.  Ninety-two partner networks, working to advance STEM mentoring and learning to underrepresented students, competed. The finalists will compete for $1-million in resources to implement their innovative approaches to STEM teaching and learning.  

The DC STEM Network is a collaboration between the Carnegie Science’s education arm, Carnegie Academy for Science Education (CASE) and the DC Office of the State Superintendent of

Read Full Story

More Scientists

No content in this section.

Advanced Education Programs

Carnegie is renowned for its post-doctoral and graduate student fellowship programs, which operate on each of the Carnegie campuses. Our fellows participate fully in the institution’s vigorous intellectual life, and have complete access to the laboratory instruments and facilities at the institution. The fellowships are extremely competitive, and are prized for their independence and for the resources they afford the fellows. The fellowships vary in duration depending on the research area. Each fellow is key to ehnancing the Carnegie mission and expanding Carnegie's influence of unfettered, imaginative scientific research into the next generations.  For information about

Read Full Story
Math for America DC

Fifty years ago, Americans led the world in math and science, claiming some of the most important inventions and technological breakthroughs of the 20th century.  Today, American 15-year-olds rank 25th in math compared to their peers worldwide.  Math ƒor America DC strives to reclaim America’s reputation for scientific greatness by recruiting and supporting the very best secondary education math teachers.

Here in Washington DC, the majority of secondary school students are not math proficient.  Only about two thirds of secondary school math teachers are fully certified.Our goals follow:

Recruit candidates with strong math knowledge and teaching
Read Full Story
BioEYES

Together with Dr. Jamie Shuda, Steve Farber created a Science Outreach Program, Project BioEYES, that incorporates life science and laboratory education using zebrafish. The outreach program has two main components: educating teachers through hands-on training and tours of our zebrafish facility, and bringing the zebrafish to K-12th grade classrooms for hands-on experiments. The program teaches students about science literacy, genetics, the experimental process, and the cardiovascular system through the use of live zebrafish.

The mission of BioEYES is to foster an enthusiasm for science education, promote interest for future participation in a biology-related field, and allow all

Read Full Story

More Scientists

Johanna Teske

Johanna Teske became the first new staff member to join Carnegie’s newly named Earth and Planets Laboratory (EPL) in Washington, D.C., on September 1, 2020. She has been a NASA Hubble Fellow at the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, CA, since 2018. From 2014 to 2017 she was the Carnegie Origins Postdoctoral Fellow—a joint position between Carnegie’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (now part of EPL) and the Carnegie Observatories.

Teske is interested in the diversity in exoplanet compositions and the origins of that diversity. She uses observations to estimate exoplanet interior and atmospheric compositions, and the chemical environments of their formation

Meet this Scientist
Phillip Cleves

Phillip Cleves’ Ph.D. research was on determining the genetic changes that drive morphological evolution. He used the emerging model organism, the stickleback fish, to map genetic changes that control skeletal evolution. Using new genetic mapping and reverse genetic tools developed during his Ph.D., Cleves identified regulatory changes in a protein called bone morphogenetic protein 6 that were responsible for an evolved increase in tooth number in stickleback. This work illustrated how molecular changes can generate morphological novelty in vertebrates.

Cleves returned to his passion for coral research in his postdoctoral work in John Pringles’ lab at Stanford

Meet this Scientist
Brittany Belin

Brittany Belin joined the Department of Embryology staff in August 2020. Her Ph.D. research involved developing new tools for in vivo imaging of actin in cell nuclei. Actin is a major structural element in eukaryotic cells—cells with a nucleus and organelles —forming contractile polymers that drive muscle contraction, the migration of immune cells to  infection sites, and the movement of signals from one part of a cell to another. Using the tools developed in her Ph.D., Belin discovered a new role for actin in aiding the repair of DNA breaks in human cells caused by carcinogens, UV light, and other mutagens.

Belin changed course for her postdoctoral work, in

Meet this Scientist
Moises Exposito-Alonso

Evolutionary geneticist Moises Exposito-Alonso joined the Department of Plant Biology as a staff associate in September 2019. He investigates whether and how plants will evolve to keep pace with climate change by conducting large-scale ecological and genome sequencing experiments. He also develops computational methods to derive fundamental principles of evolution, such as how fast natural populations acquire new mutations and how past climates shaped continental-scale biodiversity patterns. His goal is to use these first principles and computational approaches to forecast evolutionary outcomes of populations under climate change to anticipate potential future

Meet this Scientist

More Scientists