Picatinny Arsenal Tech Manager Encourages STEM Education

Steve Adubato sits down with Shah Dabiri, STEM Technology Manager at ARDEC in Picatinny Arsenal, to discuss how they are getting young people excited about a field in science, technology, engineering and/or math.

4/20/17 #2026

Excerpt:

"We are now joined by Shah Dabiri who is Stem technology manager, US army armament research. Development and engineering center at Picatinny Arsenal. Good to see you Shah. Pleasure to meet you. You know, you're here to talk about STEM: science,technology, engineering, and... Mathematics And the other piece of this is something called ARDEC Stem. ARDEC stands for.. ARDEC stands for Armaments Research Development Engineering Center. What the heck is that all together? And that center brings together what kind of people? ARDEC is located at Picatinny Arsenal on Route 15 North, right off of Route 80. It's a little tiny entrance In New Jersey. You've got an audience in many states it's a little tiny exit to the home of the Armaments Center. We're the home of Canon artillery for entire department of defense. If it comes out of a gun, it's our problem. Whether it's coming towards you or we're shooting it towards somebody, it's our issue. But the whole thing... and our friend Josh Weston who is a big fan, and by the way he's a big fan of public broadcasting on our board as well but also a big fan of Picatinny Arsenal. Yes Sir and all of the work you're doing in STEM. But I was trying to figure out... I want to be clear in this. The ARDEC STEM program currently has over 400 New Jersey classrooms, thousands of students, teachers, parents, administrators intended to do what? Our mission objective is very simple. We want to educate students, teachers, parents, administrators regarding a career in STEM. The idea is that we in the Army, we in the department of defense, we in our nation, we need kids. Young individuals to pursue STEM education. Are not enough doing it now? Not enough. We are on a Deficit. We desperately need more. We live in New Jersey. It's the home of STEM. People don't realize that most of what we take for granted today, be it Thomas Edison to Nicola Tesla, to all the pharmaceuticals came from New Jersey and the fact that New Jersey is running low on STEM students is kind of strange. So the idea is to educate students regarding what it means to be a scientist, what it means to be an engineer and maybe they'll consider it as a career choice. As an opportunity to not only better themselves, but better our society How do you get them excited about it. Give us a for instance into how you actually do that. The number one tool I have at my disposal are my scientists and engineers. At Picatinny, I've got 3,000 of the worlds best scientists and engineers and we deploy these people, men and women of incredible intellect, into the classroom..."