About DETECTS

Our Mission

To enrich young minds in a safe, fun, and supportive environment that fosters exploration of challenging educational experiences while having the opportunity to build on life skills and explore their intellectual and leadership abilities.

Our Vision

Create more engineers by promoting STEM and providing exposure to and excitement of potential career fields through outreach, education, and hands-on experiences.

Who We Are

DETECTS is run through the IDEAS Lab, which is a division of the Research Institute, at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Through this lab, we have created several successful FREE STEM programs designed to help teachers incorporate fun STEM challenges and activities into their classrooms.

DETECTS is a project that is designed for 6th-12th grade students. If this project isn’t quite what you’re looking for, check out the Partners tab to find out more about our other IDEAS Lab projects, and the links to thier websites.

While all of our programs are strategically designed for various age ranges, three aspects stay consistent between them: 

  • Our mission and vision is to excite and engage students in STEM 
  • Projects are FREE for teachers to use
  • Actual human project team devoted to helping you through the project and answering your questions

We have several full-time staff devoted to these projects. Please feel free to call or email us at any time. Contact information is listed at the bottom of each page on all of our project websites.

DETECTS is primarily funded by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). We are very grateful to our sponsors for their continued funding of these programs so that we can engage and excite more and more students about STEM.

Our Team

Hannah Edmonson

Hannah Edmonson

DETECTS Chief Engineer

Abigail Williamson

Abigail Williamson

DETECTS Engineer

[email protected]

205.902.5681

Kristin Brevik

Kristin Brevik

STEM Education Director

[email protected]

701.899.1073

Matthew W. Turner, Ph.D.

Matthew W. Turner, Ph.D.

IDEAS Lab Associate Manager

[email protected]

256.824.4629

Michael P.J. Benfield, Ph.D.

Michael P.J. Benfield, Ph.D.

IDEAS Lab Manager

[email protected]

256.824.2976

Students Reached

Student Contacts

Balloons Launched

Years Established

Our Reach