About Us

STEM Opportunities in Prison Settings (STEM-OPS) is an NSF INCLUDES alliance with the goal of increasing access to STEM education and careers to people who are, or had been, incarcerated. The primary partners of STEM-OPS are Princeton University's Prison Teaching Initiative (PTI), From Prison Cells to PhD (P2P), the Initiative for Race Research and Justice at Peabody College at Vanderbilt University (RRJ), Operation Restoration, and Education Development Center (EDC). Through the development of a national network, STEM-OPS will increase pathways into STEM careers through the creation program modules, tools, STEM education experiences, and strategies for the prison education community and the public at large. STEM-OPS will also shed greater light on the experiences that perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline to reshape the dominant narratives that perpetuate a lack of access to STEM education and careers.