Engage students and bring excitement to the classroom

Invention Education re-engages and empowers students by building their confidence in STEM and encouraging them to tackle real-world problems that matter to their communities. Through this process, they develop both technical solutions and a passion for innovation.

At these professional development sessions, you’ll meet inspiring high school inventors, experience the invention process firsthand, and explore how intellectual property (IP) can help students protect their ideas. You'll also hear from expert speakers and educators while gaining practical tools to bring Invention Education to your school or district.

This year we are offering three opportunities to attend PD. There will be one session for Administrators, STEM coordinators, and Teacher Leads, in Cambridge, MA, and two options for Educators: Stanislaus State Stockton Campus, Stockton, CA and Cambridge, MA. See below for more details. 

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Administrator Session: MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts

June 11 & 12, 2025
Perfect for Administrators, STEM Coordinators, and Teacher Leads
On the MIT Campus, administrators and STEM coordinators will attend EurekaFest, where high school InvenTeam students from around the nation present and showcase their inventions. You will hear from leaders in the field that discuss how invention education engages students in a meaningful way, building ownership and reducing absenteeism. You will leave with a clear understanding how the power of invention education will benefit your students, educators, and schools. See the schedule below.
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invention sprint

Educator Session Option 1: Stanslaus State Stockton Campus, Stockton, California

July 16 & 17, 2025
California is calling!
As an educator, you will experience invention education first hand through hands-on activities tailored to particular grade bands. From participating in the Invention Sprint to hearing from educators who have successfully implemented invention education into their classrooms, you will leave energized, excited, and with the tools needed to implement invention education in your classrooms. See the schedule below.
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Attendees at work

Educator Session Option 2: MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts

July 22 & 23, 2025
Join us on campus at MIT!
As an educator, you will experience invention education first hand through hands-on activities tailored to particular grade bands. From participating in the Invention Sprint to hearing from educators who have successfully implemented invention education into their classrooms, you will leave energized, excited, and with the tools needed to implement invention education in your classrooms. See the schedule below.

Session Schedules and Speakers

Administrator Session (June 11 & 12, 2025)

Day 1:

  • Breakfast on the MIT campus
  • Orientation
  • EurekaFest presentations
    See the future of your invention education program as high school InvenTeams present their year-long invention projects. 
  • Lunch
  • EurekaFest Opening Session
  • Keynote Speaker: Mercedes Balcells-Camps, PhD
    Dr. Balcells-Camps is a Principal Research Scientist, MIT, Institute of Medical Engineering & Science. She is a motivated mentor and the projects she leads become the ideal venue to educate the next generation of engineers, biologists, material scientists, physicians, computer scientists and chemists who learn to work collaborative as the only way to solve today’s greatest challenges in health. Read more about Dr. Balcells-Camp here
     
     
  • Guided tour of EurekaFest Showcase
    You'll have the opportunity to speak to students about their inventions, ask questions, and give vaulable feedback. You'll see first hand how invention education can change the trajectory of students' lives as they become creative problem solvers. 
  • Wrap-up and Discussion

Day 2:

  • Breakfast
  • Invention Process Sprint: Ready • Set • Go! You’ll be on the path to invention in this fun (and often hilarious) eye-opening workshop that takes participants through the invention process. 
  • Networking Lunch
  • First Afternoon Sessions
    • Invention Education: The What and the Why 
      Presenters: Michael Stone, Vice President of Innovative Learning at Public Education Foundation Chattanooga and Co-founder of FabFolio; Stephanie Couch, Executive Director, Lemelson-MIT
      This overview explores the true power and promise of Invention Education as seen through the eyes—and results—of educators and students.
    • Introducing Inventing Smart Solutions Curriculum 
      Educators are introduced to a proprietary two-semester invention process curriculum that encourages students to discover and carry out team-based invention projects that solve problems that the students choose. 
    • Stepping into Coding and Inventing through Toy Design
      Toy Design allows for the cultivation of new ways of thinking and helps to develop technical skills for students with limited access to hands-on STEM en­richment opportunities. Through prescribed activities, you’ll see how students can add to their own "toolkits" of minds-on knowledge and hands-on skills while having fun!
    • Intellectual Property 101: from Idea to Invention, and Beyond
      Led by Dr. Leigh Estabrooks, this session is an overview of copyrights, trademarks, and patents and the role they can play as one goes from an idea to an invention, a process considered "the wellspring of innovation." Also covered will be the importance of implementing a district-wide IP policy to protect the good ideas of students and educators. 

    • Intellectual Property 102: The Next Step to Protect One's Good Ideas
      This session will be specific to utility patents. It will cover basic procedural aspects of what it takes to apply for a patent, including learning about technology classes and subclasses, why prior art searches matter, how a provisional patent is different, and the importance of claims. In addition, Dr. Estabrooks will share ways to find pro bono local assistance for non-provisional patent applications.

  • Second Afternoon Sessions
    • Bringing Invention Education to your Community
      Hear from educators how they took an initial program and deployed it throughout different disciplines in their school or district
    • Inventing Smart Solutions, continued.
    • Invention Education is Transdisciplinary: E -Textiles
      Experience invention education through the creative process of designing wearable technology. Students will explore basic circuitry applications and make wearable wrist bands.
  • Discussion and closing remarks
Educators Sessions (July 16 & 17 in CA; July 22 & 23 in MA)

Day 1:

  • Breakfast
  • Invention Process Sprint
    Ready • Set • Go! You’ll be on the path to invention in this fun (and often hilarious) eye-opening workshop that takes participants through the invention process. 

  • Networking Lunch
  • Invention Education: The What and the Why 
    This overview explores the true power and promise of Invention Education as seen through the eyes—and results—of educators and students.

  • How to Bring Invention Education to the Classroom
    Hear from educators how they took an initial program and deployed it throughout different disciplines in their school or district.

Day 2:

  • Breakfast
  • Breakout sessions
    • Stepping into Coding and Inventing through Toy Design
      Toy Design allows for the cultivation of new ways of thinking and helps to develop technical skills for students with limited access to hands-on STEM en­richment opportunities. Through prescribed activities, you’ll see how students can add to their own "toolkits" of minds-on knowledge and hands-on skills while having fun!
    • Introducing Inventing Smart Solutions Curriculum
      High school educators are introduced to a proprietary two-semester invention process curriculum that encourages students to discover and carry out team-based invention projects that solve problems that the students choose. 
  • Networking Lunch
  • Breakout sessions
    • Invention Education is Transdiscipinary: Introducing Chill Out
      Middle school educators are introduced to creative applications of heating and cooling and build a lunch box
    • Inventing Smart Solutions, continued
  • Discussion and closing remarks

 

Speakers and Workshop Leaders

Join experienced educators in a series of sessions and workshops that will bring invention education to life. 

Michael Cima
Michael Cima, PhD
Faculty Director, Lemelson-MIT

Michael J. Cima is a David H. Koch Professor of Engineering and a professor of materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1982 (phi beta kappa) and a doctorate in chemical engineering in 1986, both from the University of California at Berkeley before joining the faculty at MIT as an assistant professor that same year. He was promoted to full professor in 1995. Michael has an appointment at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research; is a Fellow of the American Ceramics Society; was elected to the National Academy of Engineering; holds the David H. Koch Chair of Engineering at MIT; is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors; a co-director of MIT's Innovation Initiative; and the associate dean of innovation for the School of Engineering at MIT. Read more about Prof. Cima's accomplishments and lab work.

Stephanie Couch
Stephanie Couch, PhD
Executive Director, Lemelson-MIT

Stephanie Couch is the Executive Director of the Lemelson-MIT Program. In this role, she leads a team which help educators and students across the U.S. learn ways inventors find and solve important problems.

She has dedicated her career to K-12 and higher education policy issues and is an active participant in a national invention education research group. Her research as an ethnographer in education focuses on issues that are key to advancing equity within the field of invention education and STEM learning opportunities. She studies ways invention education impacts students (especially those from underrepresented backgrounds), schools, and local communities. She also works to understand the developmental trajectory of inventors as opposed to their inventions.

Locally, Stephanie spearheaded and was President of the Foundry Consortium in Cambridge, MA. The Foundry Consortium directed the development of The Cambridge Foundry, a new 50,000 square foot community center for STEM and the arts, which opened in 2022. Prior to joining the Lemelson-MIT Program, Couch was the Interim Associate Vice President of Research and Professional Development at California State University, East Bay, served as Bayer Executive Director of the Institute for STEM Education, and was the Director for Gateways East Bay STEM Network. These opportunities came about as a result of her work in teaching and learning with technologies while employed by the Corporation for Education Networking Initiatives in California (CENIC).

Cristina Saenz Headshot
Cristina Sáenz, PhD
Invention Education Manager, Lemelson-MIT

Cristina Sáenz is the Invention Education Manager at Lemelson-MIT (LMIT).  Cristina leads the Partners in Invention Education team as they work with educators and administrators to build thriving and sustainable invention education pathways in diverse communities throughout the United States. Prior to joining the team at LMIT, Cristina was an elementary school teacher in both Boston, MA and Orlando, FL. During her time as a teacher, she became passionate about engaging students who don’t see themselves as “STEM people” in inventing and STEM fields. After years in the classroom, Cristina entered the University of Central Florida’s College of Community Innovation and Education to pursue her PhD in Education with an emphasis on Inclusive STEM.  Her research has been published in peer reviewed, scholarly journals and presented at national conferences.

Edwin Marrero
Edwin Marrero
Invention Education Administrator, Lemelson-MIT

Prior to joining Lemelson-MIT, Edwin taught middle school mathematics in New York City public schools. He implemented unique curricula to incorporate engineering principles into core math content, providing young women, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other disinvested communities with an opportunity to apply their mathematical learnings to topics and research fields more relevant to their daily lives.

Edwin also led a racial equity committee for his school community to support staff in implementing equitable teaching practices in their classrooms. Edwin’s passion to develop solutions to remedy historic inequities is derived from his love for STEM fields. He aspires to create a better world through STEM programming and Invention Education.

Liza Goldstein
Liza Goldstein
Invention Education Administrator, Lemelson-MIT

Liza Goldstein is an Invention Education Administrator at the Lemelson-MIT Program, where she leads the K-12 curricula development of hands-on invention activities and oversees local outreach efforts in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A big believer in showing kids that they can solve problems impacting their lives or communities, Liza is passionate about invention education. 

Liza’s background in curricula development, teaching, and STEM education, have been an asset to growing Lemelson-MIT’s collection of resources and connecting with local organizations. Prior to joining Lemelson-MIT, Liza received a Masters of education and led outreach efforts for three years at GBH, Boston’s PBS station. At GBH, she worked on productions like “Design Squad” and kickstarted the “Time to Invent Club,” an invention after-school program for elementary-age students funded by the Lemelson Foundation. Liza began working at Lemelson-MIT in 2013 where she was tasked with writing the JV InvenTeam curricula and training high school grantees to implement the new initiative. Liza continues to lead invention education endeavors that tap into her strong writing, communications, creative thinking, and outreach skills. Outside of work, Liza is currently writing a children’s invention book for girls, serves on the PTO board at her children’s school, and trains for half marathons. 

Rosalind Bump
Rosalind Bump
Invention Education Administrator, Lemelson-MIT

A scientist by training and a justice-oriented educator at heart, Rosalind Bump brings experience from her research and teaching to Lemelson-MIT. As a K-12 Invention Education Administrator, she is eager to empower young inventors across the country and support educators who are curious about transforming their classrooms with Invention Education.

Rosalind’s scientific training has spanned various disciplines and continents, from terrestrial ecology in Queensland, Australia, to organogenesis in Heidelberg, Germany, to genome architecture at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, to bone-nerve molecular development in Seattle, WA. Her dual exploration of research and teaching as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley was particularly formative, as she grappled with how to communicate the structure of DNA and the physics of parachutes in local Oakland and Berkeley schools. Being immersed in East Bay communities sparked Rosalind’s commitment to making high-quality science education accessible to communities who have been historically marginalized and systematically denied resources, and whose insights, creativity, and capabilities we need to meet the challenges of today. 

As an educator, Rosalind constantly seeks to cultivate wonder and foster belonging in the science classroom—elevating the contributions of students of color, emphasizing support for neurodiverse students, and centering Indigenous knowledge in ecology curriculum. As a teacher at the Nueva School in San Mateo, CA, she witnessed design thinking as a powerful tool for increasing student engagement and empathy, and as a paradigm through which her 10th grade biology students independently developed and iterated upon experiments with weird and wonderful slime mold.

Brenda Payne
Brenda Payne
Invention Education Administrator, Lemelson-MIT

Brenda Payne has been an innovator in the field of Invention Education for K-12 students for 30 years, providing training for educators, program leaders, and administrators throughout the state of California. 

Brenda began her career as an educator in Northern California where she introduced invention education to students, utilizing an engineering curriculum she helped develop for her district. Continuing on as a principal at several schools in Northern and Central California and a superintendent in a small district in Santa Cruz County, she began the California Invention Convention (CAIC), a program that serves thousands of students as an annual celebration of K-12 inventors and entrepreneurs across the state.

Brenda has provided the professional development for the CAIC curriculum teachers use in their classrooms and after school programs.  Since joining the Lemelson/MIT staff, she has worked with other education experts to develop training modules for  teachers throughout the country so they too can provide their students with the necessary creative and problem-solving skills to successfully engage in inventing solutions to self-identified problems in their own lives, that of their friends and families, and their communities.   

Leigh estabrooks
Leigh Estabrooks, EdD
Invention Education Officer Emerita, Lemelson-MIT Program

 Leigh Estabrooks has been a part of the LMIT family since 2006.  Leigh managed the InvenTeams initiative and two years later became the Invention Education Officer, overseeing all K-12 invention education initiatives. She has been instrumental in the development of new initiatives, including Junior Varsity InvenTeams™ and the 2010 launch of the Inventing Merit Badge with the Boy Scouts of America. Leigh was active in the development of LMIT's proprietary curriculum, Inventing Smart Solutions.  Leigh previously held positions in product development at Fortune 500 companies and was a licensed secondary school educator. She received a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the University of Tennessee, a master’s degree in business management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a doctoral degree in education from Northeastern University. Though Leigh retired from MIT in December 2024, she remains an active contributor to LMIT programs with a focus on education about the importance of intellectual Property. 

Mercedes Ballcells- Camps
Mercedes Balcells-Camps, PhD
Principal Research Scientist, MIT, Institute of Medical Engineering & Science
Keynote Speaker/Administrator Session 

Dr. Balcells-Camps joined the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center in 1999 as a postdoctoral fellow carried out pioneer work in tissue engineering of vessel-like structures. In 2006 Dr. Balcells became a MIT research scientist and profesora titular in Bioengineering at her alma mater, Institut Químic de Sarria (Ramon Llull University). Through her dual appointment at MIT and Institut Químic de Sarrià, Dr. Balcells has promoted innovative, highly productive research and educative exchanges between both institutions and countries. Dr. Balcells is a passionate scientist who embraces working with physicians and clinicians as well as industry partners to accelerate the path of new technologies and therapies from bench to bed-site. She is also a motivated mentor and the projects she leads become the ideal venue to educate the next generation of engineers, biologists, material scientists, physicians, computer scientists and chemists who learn to work collaborative as the only way to solve today’s greatest challenges in health. Dr. Balcells is an entrepreneur and co-founded the Spanish start-up Regenear that utilizes chondrocytes from a small biopsy to regenerate cartilage for facial tissue regeneration. She also chairs the new MIT IDEA2 Global program, which provides mentoring and connections to biomedical innovators around the world to develop and realize their project ideas.

Testimonials

Hear what individuals who have joined PiE on the pathway to invention have to say...

“You're going to get support that you've never had in your life! The curriculum is tested and runs smoothly.”
Heather Brooks, Teacher, Calistoga High School (CA)
Lilian Labowsky
“I adopted LMIT's invention program as the pathway to instill our school's learning strategies in critical thinking, creativity, resiliency, and empathy desperately needed capabilities for students.”
Lillian Labowski, Teacher, Ridgewood High School (NJ)
“The LMIT framework teaches students how to look at a problem, analyze it, and then articulate a solution. That is powerful and valuable.”
Eric Caesar, Business Professor, Rio Hondo College (CA)

Who Should Attend?

  • Administrators
  • Superintendents 
  • Educators at all levels 
  • Community College Administrators and Faculty 
  • After-school Professionals 
  • Library Professionals
  • Museum Professionals

We encourage participation by teams consisting of both administrators and educators committed to creating pathways to invention for students. 

Invention is transdisciplinary, so educators from all disciplines are invited to attend. 

Attendees participating in activities

What Will You Gain?

Administrators and educators with varying levels of experience (new to invention education, experienced, and community college level) will develop the capacity to help students learn to think and act as inventors. There will be large group sessions for all, and smaller sessions broken out by IvE theme or grade span.   
 
Participants will gain: 

  • Approaches to engaging students from diverse backgrounds in STEM learning 
  • Ways to develop students' capacities to think and act as inventors 
  • Hands-on activities that will help students become creative problem solvers 
  • Best practices for strengthening STEM, entrepreneurship, and enrichment programming 
Participants will receive a certificate for attending that includes 15 participation hours. 

The Lemelson-MIT Program is an approved professional development provider by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Attendees in classroom

The Power of Invention Education

The secret is revealed!
Hear from teachers and students how invention education unlocks a passion for learning.