Dean Natacha DePaola Attends First-Ever NASA MissionSTEM Summit

Natacha DePaola, Carol and Ed Kaplan Armour College Dean of Engineering, is representing Armour College of Engineering and Illinois Institute of Technology at the first-ever NASA MissionSTEM Summit, held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC from August 8-9, 2016. The summit has been convened to bring together the many voices of NASA’s grantee stakeholders in order to take NASA’s civil rights technical assistance efforts to a new level.

NASA awards approximately 1.5 billion dollars in Federal financial assistance to nearly 700 recipients each year, mostly in the form of research and development grants. MissionSTEM is designed to assist programs and activities receiving NASA funding to meet their obligations under equal opportunity laws.

The major topics of the Summit will include increasing diversity in the NASA/STEM workforce of the future, making STEM academic environments more inclusive, advancing diversity through civil rights compliance, and achieving greater access to NASA grants and contracts.

In this role, Dean DePaola will be able help shape MissionSTEM policies and programs to ensure STEM education and job opportunities are inclusive and diverse.