STEM Educator of the Year: This leader turned a lockdown into a launchpad for science education

The COVID pandemic in 2020 shuttered school classrooms and extracurricular activities, but kids’ brains were plenty active, leaving teachers and parents scrambling to find educational resources.

Fatima Kamal, an education program supervisor at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center, quickly stepped up to help fill the void.

“The response was trying to think about what we could do to continue serving our community,” Kamal recalled. That included launching PacSci’s digital learning programming, she said, “which at the time, didn’t have a name, didn’t have a department. We didn’t really have any structure … it was a lot of just testing and trying out ideas.”

For her STEM education leadership and impact, Kamal is one of two instructors being celebrated at this year’s GeekWire Awards as STEM Educator of the Year. The second honoree is Scott McComb, an instructor at Raisbeck High School, who was separately featured on GeekWire.

First Tech is sponsoring the award, and Kamal and McComb will be recognized at the GeekWire Awards event April 30 at Seattle’s Showbox SoDo.

The nonprofit PacSci, which welcomes about 400,000 in-person guests annually, rapidly created online content during COVID for desperate families and educators while also navigating big layoffs. It launched the Curiosity at Home site that includes videos on topics including the science behind baking chocolate chip cookies and an explosive demo with liquid nitrogen.

PacSci’s “digital learning really came out of that closure and that need to innovate,” Kamal said.

In addition to helping create PacSci’s online educational content, Kamal supervises the Digital Learning Studio, which offers interactive, remote workshops for more than 10,000 students each year, and she helped establish a permanent, professional AV studio for PacSci. The virtual classroom experiences include a dive into wetlands to examine baby dragonflies and aquatic earthworms, and instruction on building and testing a mini Mars lander.

“We didn’t want it to feel like you were watching recorded videos,” Kamal said, so the lessons include a lot of engagement with the instructors and hands-on exercises for the kids.

PacSci for many years has visited schools providing science shows, but that wasn’t always accessible for far-flung students. The virtual programming expands the reach to more kids at a lower cost.

Kamal also manages the Willard Smith Planetarium, with delivers a live, unscripted journey across the cosmos. She leads onsite collaborations with outside organizations, hosting Polar Science Days in partnership with the University of Washington, and the annual BrainFest with the Allen Institute.

At a time when the stature of research and trust in the field has declined, the programs at PacSci give kids a chance to see science and scientists as relatable and relevant, Kamal said.

“Getting to meet with scientists, whether it’s a special program here at PacSci, or getting to learn about those local connections on how science is helping our community — and having that in a hands-on, welcoming, engaging environment — helps add to those positive experiences,” she said.

Astound Business Solutions is the presenting sponsor of the 2025 GeekWire Awards. Thanks also to gold sponsors JLL, Baird, Wilson Sonsini, Baker Tilly, First Tech, ALLtech, and WTIA, and supporting sponsor Showbox Presents.