(UPDATED, 8:52 a.m. Tuesday, withe details on the center’s new interim director.)
The head of the state’s STEM Action Center has left for a job with an international telecommunications firm.
Angela Hemingway has taken an education industry segment adviser’s post with T-Mobile. She posted about the job change on her Facebook page Sunday.
In a separate post, Hemingway said she had left the STEM Action Center earlier this month, but she did not elaborate on the move.
Hemingway did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday afternoon.
Gov. Brad Little’s office also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The STEM Action Center reports directly to the governor’s office.
Kaitlin Maguire will serve as interim executive director, the center said on its Facebook page Monday. Maguire has worked for the center for three years, focused on professional development and grant writing.
“A former scientist, Kaitlin is passionate about STEM education and workforce development,” the center said in its post. “She looks forward to continuing the great work of (the center) and serving the students, educators, and communities of Idaho.”
The 2015 Legislature created the action center, in hopes of building education programs in the “STEM” disciplines of science, technology, engineering and math. Hemingway has headed the center since its infancy, leaving state superintendent Sherri Ybarra’s management team in August 2015.
During Hemingway’s time as director, the center has spent several years building a computer science initiative, using a combination of industry contributions, grants and state dollars to promote classroom instruction in the computer science field.
In presentations to the Legislature, Hemingway frequently made a bottom-line pitch for STEM funding — saying the investment would help prepare students for lucrative careers. Earlier this year, Hemingway said the state had a backlog of more than 7,600 unfilled STEM jobs, which would pay $516 million in annual salaries and generate $27.2 million in tax revenues.
