Research on Education and Learning (REAL)

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2. Directorate for STEM Education (EDU) Updates to reflect the new organizational structure of EDU are in progress. The information on this page may no longer be current.

## Directorate for STEM Education (EDU) * Division of Graduate Education (EDU/DGE) * Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (EDU/DRL) * Division of Undergraduate Education (EDU/DUE) * EDU Data Management and Sharing Plan Guidance The U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for STEM Education works to develop a well-informed citizenry and a capable workforce of scientists, technicians, engineers, mathematicians and educators.

EDU's programs support STEM education at all educational levels and in a variety of settings. The directorate: * Funds cutting-edge research and evaluation projects across all STEM disciplines and STEM projects — through scholarships, fellowships, centers, alliances, networks, curriculum development and institutional capacity building.

* Invests in research and other activities aimed at making education and career opportunities available to all Americans. _EDU was formerly the Directorate of Education and Human Resources.

_ * ### IPA program director job opportunities at the NSF Directorate for STEM Education * ### NSF and AACC announce 2026 Community College Innovation Challenge winners ### TechAccess: AI-Ready America ### National Science Foundation Fostering Interdisciplinary Networks to Develop Emergent and Responsive Solutions Foundry (NSF FINDERS FOUNDRY) Next Required Due Date: November 18, 2026 ### Advancing Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agent Ecosystems through the National Science Foundation Pathways to Enable Secure Open-Source Ecosystems (NSF PESOSE) Program Next Required Due Date: See letter for details ### Pathways to Enable Secure Open-Source Ecosystems (PESOSE) Next Required Due Date: September 1, 2026 View all EDU opportunities ### Division of Graduate Education (EDU/DGE) Supports graduate students and the development of innovative programs to prepare tomorrow's leaders in STEM fields.

### Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (EDU/DRL) Supports innovative research, development and evaluation of learning and teaching across all STEM disciplines in formal and informal learning settings.

### Division of Undergraduate Education (EDU/DUE) Strengthens STEM education at two- and four-year colleges and universities by improving curricula, instruction, assessment, laboratories, infrastructure and collaborations. ### Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Initiative This national initiative focuses on enhancing U.S. leadership by accelerating the participation of groups that have historically been excluded from or underserved in STEM.

### National Science Foundation Research Traineeship Program Supports interdisciplinary traineeships that advance ways for graduate students in research-based master's and doctoral degree programs to pursue a range of STEM careers.

* Publication date: July 6, 2021 * Last updated: September 18, 2025 Image credits & captions on this page Credit: National Science Foundation A research project by principal investigator Harkamal Walia at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln focuses on ensuring global food security by improving crop resilience.

Here, Walia checks the progress of a rice plant growing in the Lemna Tech High Throughput Phenotyping facility at the Greenhouse Innovation Center on the Nebraska Innovation Campus. Credit: University Communication/University of Nebraska-Lincoln From left to right: postdoctoral fellow Dr. Daniel Seipt; Mr. Andre Antoine, a graduate student in Prof. Thomas’s group; and Prof. Louise Willingale working in the HERCULES laboratory.

Professors Louise Willingale and Alec Thomas are plasma physicists at the University of Michigan. This married pair works with students, gives public talks, and juggles childcare responsibilities. Research looks different now that the COVID-19 pandemic has kept the kids home and limited in-person laboratory work.

So they carry on their research as best they can. Louise focuses on complex data analysis and simulation while Alec works on developing theory. Meetings have all moved virtual.

But their bigger project is a new state-of-the-art laser facility for the study of plasma. Plasma, an exotic-sounding fourth state of matter, is characterized by strong electric and magnetic fields. It’s the most common of the known kinds of matter in the universe – it’s what stars are made of – but it is trickier to create and study in the lab.

A high intensity laser lab, however, is the perfect place for investigating astrophysical phenomena and these researchers are teaming up to bring new, high-powered capabilities to their campus, and to the US. The university already has a laser facility, called HERCULES, which was built as a part of an NSF Physics Frontiers Center in early 2000s. It held the world record for the highest focused laser intensity all the way up until 2017.

With new NSF funding, HERCULES will be upgraded into the Zettawatt Equivalent Ultrashort Pulse Laser System, or ZEUS, complete with a new housing facility and an international user base. ZEUS will be able to produce 3 petawatts of power - that’s 3,000,000,000,000,000 watts! – in incredibly short, controlled pulses.

In one configuration, one ZEUS laser beam will act as a particle accelerator, producing near-speed of light particle bunches. A second laser beamline will allow for beam collisions and the opportunity to study how intense laser light interacts with high energy particles from multiple angles.

High powered laser beams like this can be used to study the fundamental physics of light and matter, and can also teach us about powerful astrophysical phenomena like blazars that are otherwise next to impossible to recreate in the lab and are only observable in far reaches of outer space. Constructing advanced equipment like this requires help from all sides – and not just the radiation-shielding walls of the new facility!

Despite the pandemic, a few delays, and lots of virtual planning conversations, building has been able to proceed, and ZEUS is on track for completion next year in 2022. Designing and building a laser like ZEUS takes a team of scientists and engineers including plasma researchers like Alec and Louise, but also people working in optics, electronics, modeling, laser technology, and project management.

And the benefits won’t just be for plasma physics researchers, either. High-powered lasers are a great tool for investigating materials properties, observing particle collisions and sub-nuclear particles, and creating X-rays that can even be used for fast and detailed imaging of biological samples. In fact, there’s precedent for laser technology like this paving the way for biomedical applications.

The 2018 Nobel Prize for Physics went in part to Professor Gerard Mourou, the founding director of the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science at the University of Michigan, for the development of chirped-pulse amplification. This method of producing short femtosecond and high-energy pulses is the same technology used to boost precision in LASIK eye surgery lasers!

The team now at the University of Michigan is excited about being able to create and measure some of the fascinating properties of light and matter at the extreme. The new user facility will be one of the premier laser facilities in the US, and world-wide, and will welcome new international collaborators.

With improved tools, including making use of AI technology, the scientific community will be able to probe questions about the universe that haven’t been asked before. Plus, as Louise notes, “The cool thing about experiments is they don’t always go as planned.

” Credit: Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Sciences * Our Directorates & Offices * Budget, Performance & Financial Reporting Let us know how we're doing, and how we can make NSF. gov better for you. This survey is for feedback on the **NSF website experience only**.

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