EDC Experts Invited to Workforce Development and STEM Summits
EDC thought leaders Leslie Goodyear, Andres Henriquez, Jessica Juliuson, Joyce Malyn-Smith, and Erin Stafford will share their expertise at national and international workforce development and STEM convenings to be held throughout the summer of 2025. During the events, our experts will discuss effective policies, systems, and practices to improve informal science and engineering education, prepare the next generation manufacturing workforce, and build a U.S. workforce that possesses essential artificial intelligence (AI) fluency.
Convocation on the Status of Informal Science and Engineering Education: During this National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine event focused on informal science and engineering learning as a key on-ramp to STEM proficiency and careers, Leslie Goodyear will serve on a panel about effective approaches to assessing the impacts of informal learning. Throughout the two-day event, Goodyear and Erin Stafford will share insights related to trends, challenges, solutions, and promising directions for the field 15 years after the publication of the seminal report Learning Science in Informal Environments. Goodyear contributed her expertise in evaluating informal programs to that report. Currently, Goodyear and Stafford are conducting an evaluation of Peter Kiewit Foundation Engineering Academy, which is designed to provide new insights into supports that are critical to advancing students through an engineering degree and into careers in engineering, construction, and computing in Nebraska.
Manufacturing Momentum Goes to Motor City—A National Workforce Summit: At the invitation of the president/CEO of the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (CREC), Andres Henriquez and Jessica Juliuson will participate in Manufacturing Momentum, a policy summit that will examine workforce challenges and opportunities in the U.S. advanced manufacturing sector and develop practical actions to implement across industry, workforce, government, and education sectors. A key goal of the summit is to identify strategies to secure the talent needed to deploy next-generation technologies in manufacturing. Henriquez and Juliuson will contribute their experience in career and technical education, work-based learning, education/industry collaborations, and workforce development. The summit will be hosted by CREC, the U.S. Department of Defense Manufacturing Technology Program, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Detroit Branch, and W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
EduSummIT 2025 and HI-TEC Conference: Joyce Malyn-Smith, who recently co-authored a paper based on her collaborative work with Google, “What Do Professional Software Developers Need to Know to Succeed in an Age of Artificial Intelligence,” will present during two convenings focused on building an AI-enabled STEM workforce. At both events, Malyn-Smith will share her work to prepare future-ready young people, help community colleges train students to participate in an AI-fueled workplace, and support industry in identifying the skills needed for success in emerging STEM careers. In Ireland, Malyn-Smith will participate in a working group on AI for teaching and learning at EduSummIT 2025, “Designing Education Ecosystems for the Future: The Role of Digital Technologies.” At the HI-TEC Conference in Minneapolis, Malyn-Smith will lead a presentation titled “Pathways to Careers in Artificial Intelligence: Community College Focus.”
We invite you to reach out to Sarita Pillai, Vice President of STEM & Workforce Success (spillai@edc.org) to explore partnering with EDC to transform workforce development. Learn more about EDC’s work to equip youth with future-ready skills and upskill today’s workers and our STEM Education & Workforce Development initiatives.
