If you were to tell Rishi Srinivasan, MCAS ’23, that his experience teaching STEM through BC Bigs would evolve into a STEM-centered organization serving over 500 students, he wouldn’t have believed you.
“I would have laughed,” Srinivasan said. “Even this time last year, when we actually got our 501(c)(3) status as a nonprofit, I didn’t expect it to scale to this level.”
Originally from Andover, Mass., Srinivasan was first drawn to neuroscience after attending a summer camp at Harvard during high school. He entered Boston College with the goal of becoming a doctor and helping those around him.
“I did this fun STEM summer camp at Harvard and got to use all these crazy medical devices and neuro tools that medical students and doctors use to practice surgery,” Srinivasan said. “And immediately I was like, ‘This is the coolest thing ever.’”
When he arrived on campus as a freshman, Srinivasan got involved in BC Bigs, a service organization that mentors youth ages 8 to 16 in Boston. While talking to the kids he was working with in Dorchester about their future career goals, he noticed something odd: None of them expressed interest in pursuing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
“Whenever you hang out with kids, you love asking, ‘Hey, what do you want to be when you grow up?’” Srinivasan said. “It was really astonishing to see that none of the kids said anything science-related.”
Srinivasan and his co-founder, Joseph Marsallo, MCAS ’23, set out to change this narrative and get kids excited about science.
“My co-founders and I asked ourselves, ‘What got us interested in science?’” Srinivasan said. “Because I’m pursuing medicine. My co-founder is pursuing dental school. We have a bunch of science people, and then we work with a group of kids from the same area that are clearly not science people.”
In 2022, STEM For All Academy officially took shape, with Srinivasan taking on the position of chairman and executive director.
Currently, the organization consists of 60 volunteers from Boston College, Boston University, Harvard University, and Northeastern University who travel to elementary and middle schools around Boston.
Each week, the volunteers present slideshows on a different STEM topic and then lead an interactive activity related to the presentation.
The main premise? Teach kids different STEM topics. The goal? Show them that STEM can be fun.
Tatum Evans, MCAS ’25, is the curriculum design lead for STEM For All. Evans said she tries to make the presentation slides fun and easy for kids to understand.
“It’s me, and it’s a couple other people on the board—and then other volunteers who do the research—who find the information and put together a slide deck, and then I get that slide deck, and I essentially make it look nice,” Evans said.
Evans is the organization’s first curriculum design lead. She landed the role after talking with Srinivasan about her love for all things artistic.
“I do a lot of work in the theatre department here, and arts is also something that I’m really passionate about, so I talked about designing the curriculum and stuff like that,” Evans said.
Evans emphasized that she designs the presentations to intentionally avoid looking like the standard class materials that kids are used to seeing at school.
“It’s not meant to be a class,” Evans said. “It’s meant to be something exciting. So, we really focus on a niche aspect of whatever science topic we’re teaching, and then we do a fun activity with it in order to really spark the interest and then make it exciting for kids.”
In addition to the volunteers and board members, the organization has also welcomed a group of 40 STEM and non-profit professionals who work behind the scenes to help grow STEM For All.
“A lot of them are BC grads that I was friends with in college,” Srinivasan said. “A lot of them have been so interested in the mission and just joined. And none of us take a dime from whatever money we make through it.”
With the rapid growth STEM For All has experienced over the past three years, Srinivasan said a learning curve that has come with the organization’s expansion.
“It’s been a lot of learning being in this role because initially, it just felt like we’re role playing with titles and acting, but it’s really turned into a real business,” Srinivasan said.
Srinivasan and the STEM For All board quickly realized they needed additional help and mentoring. That’s where Mike Heaney, director of corporate engagement at the Woods College of Advancing Studies, stepped in.
Seth Facey, MCAS ’23 and vice president of grants and partnerships for STEM For All, was a longtime friend of Heaney’s son, Brian. After getting involved with STEM for All, Facey spoke with Heaney about the organization and its mission.
“A few months after that conversation, Seth calls me one day and said, ‘Hey, we really think there’s a need for an advisor, somebody with longtime professional experience,’” Heaney said. “‘Is that something you’d be interested in?’ And I said, ‘Oh my God, of course!’”
Heaney took on a role as advisor to the executive director and board, and now guides the team in determining the essential, realistic steps for growing the organization.
“One of my thoughts for Rishi going into the next chapter—the next level of what STEM For All Academy can do—is they need some revenue sources,” Heaney said. “They need to start thinking about where the money is going to come from to pay the bills?”
Still, Heaney believes the team is up to the challenge of growing and managing a large organization.
He emphasized that each board member and volunteer is dedicated not only to the organization, but also to helping others—something he attributes to their experience at a service-oriented school like BC.
“I think STEM For All was almost meant to be launched at a place like BC because when you meet everybody, that’s a part of it,” Heaney said. “The advisors, the board, the instructors—they’re all living the exact same purpose.”
Srinivasan agrees.
“BC is such a service heavy school,” Srinivasan said. “You can’t really go to BC and not think about the neighboring communities.”
To celebrate the success of the organization and raise its public profile, STEM For All took a significant step by hosting its inaugural gala on Feb. 22.
“It was a huge risk we took as a business because these fundraising galas can also completely flop,” Srinivasan said. “They’re a big financial investment, also a time investment, but our team of volunteers—we’re a passionate group of people—still got it done.”
Volunteers, team members, and community leaders, including Patrick Tutwiler, the Massachusetts secretary of education, gathered to hear a keynote address from David Sinclair, a renowned geneticist and professor at Harvard Medical School.
“The keynote speaker is my personal hero,” Srinivasan said. “I wouldn’t be pursuing medicine if it weren’t for him.”
Additionally, the organization gave out its first award, the “STEM For All Youth STEM Leader” Award, to Sean Atitsogbe, better known as “Sean the Science Kid” to his more than one million followers on Instagram.
Srinivasan said Atitsogbe’s intelligence and confidence left a strong impression on the group during the selection process.
“He’s 10 years old—smarter than me, smarter than most people I met,” Srinivasan said. “We were considering giving our first award to someone who’s in elementary or middle school, and when we were evaluating the list of people that are brought to us, Sean just stood out above the rest.”
Along with the speeches and recognitions at the gala came an announcement that Srinivasan and his team had been working on for months: STEM For All Academy would be launching an online program.
“The in-person stuff is great,” Srinivasan said. “We still want to maintain our partnerships with our current schools that we have, but we don’t have the bandwidth to be able to do it every week like we are right now.”
Due to the increased demand, the online program will give students across the country the opportunity for one-on-one mentoring with a college student.
“The plan is to expand it to a more national level through this online program because then college students and volunteers and mentors from all over the country can connect with kids from all over the country,” Evans said.
According to Evans, the online program will focus on developing more presentations that cover a broader range of STEM topics.
“By the end of August, we plan to have 36 more lessons created,” Evans said. “We have 18 right now. We’re going to have 36 more. The hope is by having more lessons, the online program can be more catered to the kids.”
To raise awareness about their online lessons and the organization, STEM For All is hosting a STEM Day at Fenway Park on May 8.
Kids from all over Boston will be able to learn in a large group setting and participate in interactive experiments with the STEM For All team.
“We bring some of our kids as well, but a bunch of kids from all across Massachusetts will come to Red Sox STEM Day,” Srinivasan said. “I think it’ll be a couple thousand, so, it’ll be a lot more than the 25 kids that we get to work in a classroom with usually.”
Srinivasan emphasized that he couldn’t have brought the organization to its current level without the support and dedication of his co-founders, board members, and volunteers.
“The team is just awesome,” Srinivasan said. “I have a corporate job, and I love my teammates there, but STEM for All doesn’t even feel like work at all.”
Heaney agrees.
“It’s so inspiring that they’re working, they’re going to school, they’ve got all these other things in their life, but they’re so passionate about STEM For All,” Heaney said. “It’s so meaningful to them.”
Heaney also emphasized that the team’s growth wouldn’t have been possible without Srinivasan’s leadership style.
“Part of the curriculum I teach is, ‘Who does the world need me to be?’ Heaney said. “And I think Rishi is answering that question literally every single day. He’s exactly in the role the world needs him to be in.”
Srinivasan said STEM For All aims to highlight the importance and power of science, even for students who may not pursue a career in STEM.
“I’m not saying that every kid has to be a STEM person, but at least give them a shot to find these cool fields,” Srinivasan said. “Science is super important. It’s all around us. It’s what’s going to allow us to progress as an entire species, truly, so having them get the opportunity to be at the forefront is so important.”
Heaney believes what truly makes STEM For All stand out is its ability to encourage kids to think big.
“I think they’re teaching kids to dream,” Heaney said. “That whatever they think they can do, they can do. But, maybe more importantly, what STEM is doing is they’re exposing kids to things that they’ve never dreamt about before.”
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