Melissa Moritz is a Senior Fellow for the Social Innovation Team at the Federation of American Scientists.
As a leading thinker in federal STEM education and workforce policy, Moritz serves as the Director of Policy for the STEM Next Opportunity Fund.
Moritz served as the inaugural Afterschool and Summer Learning Fellow at the US Department of Education’s (ED) Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) where she supported the Department’s Out-of-School Time work with a particular focus on supporting successful implementation of the American Rescue Plan that opened up more than $2.4B for afterschool and summer learning. Moritz supported the launch of the Engage Every Student Initiative and authored “Building and Using Evidence in Summer, Afterschool and Out-of-School Time Settings.”
Previously, Moritz served as the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI). In this capacity, she led a team dedicated to launching new initiatives and partnerships.
Prior to joining NMSI, she served in the Obama-Biden Administration as the Deputy Director of STEM at the U.S. Department of Education and supported STEM policy and programs that focused on STEM teaching and learning, from preschool to workforce.
She also previously served as the Vice President of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math and Education Initiatives at Teach For America (TFA). In that capacity, she oversaw TFA’s national STEM Initiative and managed the team that led TFA’s Early Childhood Education Initiative, Diverse Learners Initiative, Military Veterans Initiative and Native Alliance Initiative.
After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a B.S. in Biology, she joined TFA, where she taught middle school science in NYC. She resides in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two daughters.
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