STEM Next Names National STEM Education Leader Melissa Moritz as Next CEO
[[{“value”:”
STEM Next Opportunity Fund is proud to announce that Melissa Moritz, a nationally recognized STEM education leader and longtime STEM Next advisor, has been selected as the organization’s next CEO, effective November 1, 2026.
Melissa’s career has spanned the classroom, nonprofit leadership, federal service and philanthropy, and she brings more than two decades of experience building initiatives, partnerships and organizations that expand opportunities for young people to engage in STEM. She also enters the role with a longstanding connection to STEM Next, where she currently serves as Senior Advisor for the STEM Next Opportunity Fellows Network.
Her appointment marks the next step in STEM Next’s planned leadership transition announced in March, when founding Executive Director Ron Ottinger shared plans to retire after more than a decade leading the organization.
“Melissa brings the combination of vision, experience and deep commitment to afterschool STEM education that will position STEM Next strongly for its next chapter,” Ottinger said. “She understands this organization and the field we serve, while also bringing the breadth of experience and relationships to help us build on what this team and our partners have created. I’m excited to see where she and this extraordinary team take STEM Next in the years to come.”
Lifelong commitment to expanding STEM opportunities
With an engineer for a father and a math teacher for a mother, Melissa grew up with STEM woven throughout her daily life: working through math problems on family car trips and concocting experiments in the front yard.
That love of science led her to MIT, where she studied biology and initially imagined becoming a pediatrician. But as graduation approached, she began thinking about how many teachers, mentors and learning experiences had helped her reach that point—and how much a young person’s future can depend on having access to those same kinds of opportunities.
Upon graduating, Melissa joined Teach For America and began her career teaching seventh- and eighth-grade science in Washington Heights, New York, where she also led afterschool programming and taught summer school.
In her students, Moritz saw no shortage of talent or curiosity; what was often missing was opportunity. That experience defined a mission she would carry into every role that followed: expanding access to the opportunities that allow young people’s talent and curiosity to thrive.
Melissa went on to help launch and lead Teach For America’s national STEM initiative and later served in the Obama administration as Deputy Director of STEM Education at the U.S. Department of Education, where her work included Computer Science for All and other national efforts to expand STEM learning.
She has also held leadership roles at the National Math and Science Initiative and helped launch the Alliance for Learning Innovation.
Deep ties to STEM Next & the afterschool STEM field
Melissa’s relationship with STEM Next began through the STEM Next Opportunity Fellows Network, which provides federal and state agencies with STEM experts who add capacity and subject-matter expertise in STEM education and learning.
After first seeing the Fellows model in action while serving at the U.S. Department of Education, Moritz later joined STEM Next as a Fellow placed at the Institute of Education Sciences, where her work focused specifically on afterschool and summer learning.
In that role, she supported implementation of the American Rescue Plan set-aside that made more than $2.4 billion available for afterschool and summer learning, supported the launch of the U.S. Department of Education’s Engage Every Student Initiative to expand access to high-quality afterschool and summer programs, and authored an Institute of Education Sciences resource on building and using evidence in out-of-school-time settings.
Following her fellowship, Melissa went on to lead and expand the STEM Next Opportunity Fellows Network, raising more than $11 million to scale the program and growing it from two Fellows to a network of more than 16 Fellows and alumni.
That progression—from seeing STEM Next’s work as a partner, to serving as a Fellow, to building one of its national programs—gives her a unique understanding of both the organization she will now lead and the broader field in which it works.
“Throughout Melissa’s career, she has demonstrated an ability to bring people, ideas and resources together to achieve ambitious goals that expand opportunities for young people,” said Jackie Schirmer, Chair of the STEM Next Board of Directors. “That approach is fundamental to STEM Next’s work and makes her uniquely suited to lead our next chapter. We are proud to welcome her as STEM Next’s next CEO.”
Building from strength
Melissa steps into the role at a moment of significant momentum for STEM Next.
STEM Next was founded under Ron’s leadership to build on more than a decade of investment by the Noyce Foundation in high-quality STEM learning beyond the school day. Over the decade since, STEM Next has grown into a national organization that has reached more than 15 million young people and supported more than 450,000 afterschool and summer program educators.
That work has played an important role in the growth of afterschool STEM into a true national field, with afterschool networks in every state and a growing community of partners working together to expand the reach and quality of STEM learning in afterschool and summer programs.
Melissa will build from that foundation as STEM Next works toward its North Star goal of reaching and exciting 20 million young people with high-quality STEM by 2030. That includes continuing to strengthen the afterschool STEM field by helping programs connect STEM learning to future career pathways and bring new areas of science and technology into meaningful, hands-on experiences for young people.
“I’ve seen firsthand the way STEM experiences can shift what young people see for their futures, and I’ve also seen how those opportunities multiply when many organizations work toward the same goal,” Moritz said. “That’s what excites me about STEM Next: we have built the national infrastructure for high-quality STEM to reach millions of young people through afterschool and summer programs. At a time when technology is rapidly changing how young people will learn, work and live, these experiences have never been more important. I’m excited to build on that momentum and take this work even further.”
The post STEM Next Names National STEM Education Leader Melissa Moritz as Next CEO appeared first on STEM Next.
“}]]