Michael Vargas

Michael Vargas

Fellowship Placement: U.S. Department of Defense
Hometown: Phoenix, AZ

Michael Vargas is a scholar-practitioner, and lifelong learner whose career spans over two decades of science education, legislative reform, and federal STEM program development. His work focuses on the design and implementation of large-scale STEM education ecosystems that integrate classroom practice, policy innovation, and cross-sector strategic partnerships. He has held leadership roles at the school, state, and federal levels, and is widely recognized for his efforts to advance high quality workforce-aligned STEM learning opportunities.

Vargas began his career as a high school physics educator and has taught across diverse contexts, including at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) American High School in Mons, Belgium for over a decade. There, Vargas led the Spartans to European Championships in both Basketball and Football, while teaching in the SHAPE international complex a wide variety of STEM courses including international classes to Norwegian, Greek, and Canadian NMR units.

Vargas earned a B.S.Ed. in Secondary Education from Northern Arizona University, with emphases in Social Studies and Physical Sciences. He holds a master’s degree and graduate certificates from Trident University and San Diego University. He is a Ph.D. candidate in STEM education and policy at Texas Tech University, where his research explores educator identity, networked learning environments, and systems-level changes within STEM education.

As an educator, Vargas received the Arizona High School Science Teacher of the Year award in 2014 from the Arizona Science Teachers Association, followed by his selection in 2016 as an Arizona Teacher of the Year Ambassador for Excellence by the Arizona Educational Foundation. In 2019, he was nationally recognized by the Air and Space Forces Association as the Rolls-Royce National Aerospace Teacher of the Year for his contributions to aerospace education and public outreach.

In addition to his classroom and school-based roles, Vargas has been deeply engaged in professional learning, educator leadership, and STEM advocacy. He is a founding executive board member of STEMteachersPHX, a regional professional learning network for STEM educators, and has maintained long-standing affiliations with the Arizona Science Teachers Association (ASTA), the American Modeling Teachers Association (AMTA), the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), and the Arizona Educational Foundation (AEF). He previously served on the board of the NAU K–12 Center and collaborated with AEF on its “Teach STEM “initiative, which has been working to increase the number of Arizona’s STEM educators since 2017.

Vargas’s policy contributions include his leadership as a founding member of the Cactus Caucus; a coalition of Arizona physics teachers whose bipartisan advocacy resulted in the passage of Arizona Senate Bills 1038 and 1051. These efforts led to the creation of the “Get Set for STEM” teacher scholarship program under the Arizona Department of Education, which allocated more than $1.2 million in funding to support STEM and CTE educators in high-need certification areas. As a result, Arizona saw a nearly 20% increase in certified physics teachers—a significant gain in an area of chronic teacher shortage.

At the federal level, Vargas was selected as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow and served in dual roles first at the Department of Defense Manufacturing Technology Program (DoD MANTECH) within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, and later in the Department of the Air Force’s K–12 STEM National Office. During his tenure, he contributed to national strategies related to STEM education, defense workforce development, and critical technology engagement. He also served on the Federal Coordination in STEM (FC-STEM) Interagency Working Group on Strategic Partnerships, where he supported cross-agency initiatives aimed at expanding the nation’s STEM talent pipeline.

During his tenure as a fellow in the Air Force STEM office, Vargas helped create and establish the Space Forces first educational outreach program “STEM to Space”. This all volunteer program would later go on to become one of the first traditions in the new service, with participation from all 50 states and thousands of students and hundreds of Guardians taking part across the globe annually.

From 2022 to 2025, Vargas served as Co-Principal Investigator and Convergence Lead for the Arizona STEM Acceleration Project (ASAP) at Arizona State University, a $10 million statewide initiative designed to expand high-quality STEM professional development, improve teacher efficacy, and support networked STEM leadership across Arizona’s K–12 ecosystem. This effort led to an outreach of 900 STEM teacher fellows, 27 partner organizations, and 170K students affected by its reach. Under his leadership, ASAP was recognized as one of the state’s most ambitious education investments and has become a model for large-scale STEM system transformation recognized by groups such as the National Academies for Science Engineering and Medicine for its innovation and results.

Vargas now holds the role of Strategic Partnerships Lead for the Air and Space STEM Outreach Office at the Griffiss Institute, representing the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the Department of the Air Force in national K–12 engagement efforts. His portfolio includes partnership development, outreach strategy, and alignment of educational programming with the Department’s critical technology and workforce readiness priorities.

When Vargas is not working, his volunteer efforts include serving on the Northern Arizona University Chris Freeman Memorial Scholarship committee and serving as an appointee of Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs as one of the state’s inaugural Arizona Space Commissioners, where he advises on strategic planning for the state’s space economy and its associated workforce development needs.

Vargas’s scholarly and institutional contributions have earned him induction into the Northern Arizona University College of Education Hall of Fame and the Arizona State University President’s Medal for Social Embeddedness. He is currently a Scholar-in-Residence at ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination, where he supports transdisciplinary initiatives in science education, workforce development, and public engagement. His motto is: STEM for ALL