Camsie McAdams is the Senior Advisor on STEM Education, advising the US Department of Education on P – 20 STEM issues. Her work includes carrying out strategic planning for STEM at the Department, serving on multiple inter-agency STEM education groups and representing the Department’s STEM commitments in a variety of public-private forums. Appointed to this position in August 2012, McAdams represents the Department in the strategic planning process for the federal Committee on STEM Education (CoSTEM) and is leading the design of a major STEM innovation initiative for the second term under Secretary Duncan and President Obama. As a result of a major reorganization in STEM funding across the entire Administration, the Department will be leading efforts to transform P-12 STEM teaching and learning; McAdams and a team of leaders from across the Department have designed a suite of complementary STEM initiatives that will streamline, target and direct investments to reach more teachers and more students, more effectively.
Prior to her appointment at ED, McAdams served as the Director of STEM for DC Public Schools, where she led K-12 curriculum design, professional development and instructional improvement. McAdams created a vision for STEM in DCPS, engaged multiple external stakeholders in the DC area, and launched a full-scale STEM strategic plan. McAdams also designed and led the district’s Common Core State Standards for Mathematics roll-out and implementation in the spring/summer of 2012.
McAdams has a degree in general engineering and political science from the University of Denver, and a Masters of Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She taught middle/high school math and science in Oakland, CA and New York City for 10 years, and helped start and run a small public school in the South Bronx. McAdams received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching in 2009. She served as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the National Science Foundation from 2009-2011.
