Agenda

Collective Agency: Empowering Students and Educators as Catalysts for STEM Innovation

Thursday PM

5:00pm – Attendees picked up at Hotel

5:30 to 7:00pm – Reception at FIU Wall of Wind

  • Welcome Address, Mike Heithaus, Ph.D., Executive Dean, College of Arts, Science and Educations, Vice Provost for Environmental Resilience and the Biscayne Bay Campus
  • Visit to Applied Research Lab
  • Wall of Wind Overview and Tour, Erik Salna
  • Open Networking

7:00pm – Return to Hotel

Friday AM

School Tour Friday 7:00am-9:00am

7:00am Attendees picked up at hotel and taken to Miami Coral Park High School, where attendees will view the academic rigor, hands-on engineering facilities, and the premier dual enrollment partnership with FIU.

Welcome: Scott Weiner, Principal
Monica Colucci, School Board Member
Dr. Jose Dotres, Superintendent, Miami-Dade County Public Schools

9:30am – Depart for FIU

10:00am – Welcome and Introduction

10:15am – Keynote: Empowering STEM Education in Changing Times

Dean and Professor, School of Education and Human Development

Highlighting FIU’s commitment to advancing STEM and exploring how educators can adapt to rapid shifts in technology, policy, and workforce demands.

10:45am – Sustainable Transformation: From Individual Agency to Institutional Change

Executive Director, Center for Leadership; Ingersoll-Rand Professor, Department of Global Leadership and Management

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the skills and leadership capacities required of today’s educators and students. In this session, Dr. Nathan Hiller explores how cultivating collective agency prepares schools and universities to navigate AI-driven change. Participants will consider how leadership practices—rooted in collaboration, adaptability, and shared responsibility—equip institutions to harness AI as a catalyst for empowerment.

Friday PM

12:10pm – Student Panel During Lunch Future Innovators: Students Shaping Success Through

Moderator:

Panelist Name(s) and Title(s):

Session Description:

Students are not just participants in STEM education—they are change agents in their own right. This dynamic panel features students whose research, innovation, and leadership illustrate the power of cultivating agency early and equitably. From robotics to scientific discovery, these future innovators will share how their voices, choices, and actions are shaping meaningful change. Their stories underscore the summit’s call: when students are empowered, they don’t just learn STEM, they advance it.

1:00pm-2:30pm – Campus Tours

Participants will have the opportunity to self-select one of two different afternoon tours and the associated sessions. The options will include

Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work Laboratories

The Azzam Lab—Cancer Research – The Azzam Lab tackles advanced cancers through the usage of functional precision medicine in cancer treatment, as well as a multifaceted study of cancer stem cells, the cells responsible for cancer relapse and metastasis. Projects in the lab include the implementation of functional precision medicine to assess efficacious treatment options in advanced pediatric and adult cancers, examination of the impact of environmental toxins on cancer stem cell development, and functional analysis of the neuroinflammatory biomarker TSPO in glioblastoma.

Brain, Behavior, and the Environmental Laboratory – The overall research focus of the Brain, Behavior, and the Environment (BBE) laboratory is to understand the role of environmental pollutants on neurological and neurodegenerative diseases and mental health. Our work uses behavioral, cellular and molecular approaches, ranging from studies using primary culture of brain cells to the application of brain imaging technologies.

FIU College of Arts, Sciences & Education STEM Transformation Institute 

Active Learning Classrooms: FIU has 19 state-of-the-art classrooms designed and built to house active learning at a financially sustainable scale. All these classes require faculty to commit to active learning—to putting down the textbooks and tackling scientific challenges with hands-on approaches. These classrooms represent one way FIU and the STEM Transformation Institute are committed to expanding the reach of our active learning initiatives.

2:35pm – Afternoon Conconcurrent Sessions

  • Geoff Potvin, Director, STEM Transformation Institute
  • Leslie Nisbet-Gonzalez, Associate Director, FIUteach
  • Hagit Kornreich-Leshem, Director, Learning Assistant Program

This session will focus on collaborative efforts to support students’ development of agency in the path towards STEM and STEM education careers.  Participants will learn about the strategies and successes in the STEM Transformation Institute’s support of classroom transformation and the adoption of evidence-based practices, the Learning Assistant Program’s support of faculty and student development in improving undergraduate STEM courses, and FIUteach’s commitment and partnerships to support STEM students to become K-12 STEM teachers in South Florida.  A common theme among these initiatives is supporting students as change agents in their own education and within their communities.

Harnessing Systems and Structures to Advance Precision Health

Dr. Diana Azzam, Associate Professor, Environmental Health Sciences; Scientific Director, Center for Advancing Personalized Cancer Treatments (CAPCT)

Dr. Azzam will explore how innovative research ecosystems can be designed to accelerate discoveries from the laboratory to the clinic, empowering the next generation of health innovators. Drawing from her pioneering work in precision medicine and functional drug testing, Dr. Azzam will highlight how collaborative infrastructures, cross-disciplinary partnerships, and data-driven systems can break traditional silos and translate scientific insights into tangible patient impact. Attendees will gain an understanding of how to cultivate institutional environments that nurture creativity, equity, and translational innovation—turning researchers and clinicians alike into true agents of change.

3:45pm – Wrap Up & Snacks Time

Ask that participants to find someone in the room who has a different color sticker on their badge.

Each partner answers the following questions:

  • What did you see on your tour?
  • Summarize the session you attended
  • What was the most interesting thing you saw or learned?
  • What will you take back with you?

Saturday am

At the hotel

8:00am – Welcome and Introduction of the Sponsors

  • Two sponsor presentations

8:30am – Reflective Activity

Allow participants an opportunity to reflect on these questions:

  • What idea from the conference challenged your thinking?
  • Where did you see educational innovation powerfully in action?
  • Give participants 10 min to reflect on their own.
  • Then allow them to for a group of 3-4 to share their reflections

9:15am – Interactive Poll /  Pair-Share

  • What is the most actionable insight you plan to implement?
  • What barriers to change do you anticipate and how might you overcome them?
  • In their groups of 3-4 allow each participant to share their reflection and their barriers. Then allow for participants to share suggestions and feedback for the barrier shared (These should be with members they did not arrive with.)
  • Capture the insight using an interactive digital space.

10:00am – Break

10:15am – Team Planning Time

  • In school teams, share your actionable insight.
  • As a team, select one to focus on for planning.
  • What are the key actions that need to be put in place between now and Spring Break? Spring break and end of year?
  • What are you data are you using to measure effectiveness?

11:15am – Wrap-Up & Final Announcements

Featured Speakers & Guests

Dr. Aaron Kuntz, Ph.D.


KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Dean and Professor, School of Education and Human Development, Florida International University

Dr. Diana Azzam

Associate Professor, Environmental Health Sciences; Scientific Director, Center for Advancing Personalized Cancer Treatments (CAPCT)

Neda Boyce

Senior Vice President, Arizona Leads (Phoenix, AZ)

Jason Calhoun

Director - The Governor’s School @ Innovation Park (Manassas, VA)

Dr. Nathan Hiller

Executive Director, Center for Leadership; Ingersoll-Rand Professor, Department of Global Leadership and Management

Hagit Kornreich-Leshem

Director, Learning Assistant Program

Leslie Nisbet-Gonzalez

Associate Director, FIUteach

Geoff Potvin

Director, STEM Transformation Institute;

Seung Yu

Principal - Stuyvesant High School (New York, NY)

Student Presenters

Sophia Ashbrook

Ph.D. Candidate, FIU in DC

Alvaro Delgado

Undergraduate Researcher

Tyler Sanford

Ph.D. Student, Biological Sciences

Isabel Trespalacios

Undergraduate Researcher