Parry part of “Nifty Fifty” for national science and engineering festival

Elizabeth A. Parry, coordinator of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) Partnership Development at the Engineering Place in North Carolina State University’s College of Engineering, will be featured as a “Nifty Fifty” speaker for the second USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington, DC.

The festival, to be held April 28-29, 2012, is the nation’s largest science and engineering celebration and will feature more than 1,500 hands-on activities and more than 75 performances. The “Nifty Fifty” are a group of 100 noted science and engineering professionals who will fan out across the Washington, DC, area during the 2011-2012 school year to speak about their work and careers at various middle and high schools.

Parry worked for IBM Corporation for 10 years and co-owned a science education business before joining NC State in 1999.

At NC State, she has managed multi-million dollar grants from the National Science Foundation GK-12 Program. She is also the project director for RAMP-UP (Recognizing Accelerated Math Potential in Underrepresented People) and a   certified “Engineering is Elementary” teacher trainer.

Parry was recently named chair of the American Society for Engineering Education’s K-12 and Pre-College Engineering Division.

She received her bachelor’s degree in engineering management from the University of Missouri-Rolla in 1983.