CITRIS at UC Davis INSPIRES K-12 outreach

Students in a classroom for UC Davis's INSPIRE summer camp.

Labor experts are predicting a crisis-level lack of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) talent in the United States in the coming years.

To help combat this STEM labor shortage, CITRIS principal investigator Zhi Ding and CITRIS at UC Davis campus Director Saif Islam have developed a regional collaboration that exposes K-12 students and their teachers to data sciences through programs, workshops and courses that modernize the curriculum while being mindful of California’s Common Core requirements.

Over summer 2022, CITRIS at UC Davis hosted instructor workshops and funded a new engineering summer camp — called INSPIRE, for “Incubates and Nurtures Scientific Pioneers through Innovation, Research and Education” — for 25 local high schoolers.