The Center for Excellence in Education was founded in 1983 by the late Admiral H.G. Rickover and Joann P. DiGennaro, President of the Center. The Center's mission is to nurture high school and university scholars to careers of excellence and leadership in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and to encourage collaboration between and among scientific and technological leaders in the global community. CEE sponsors two programs for top achieving U.S. high school students: The Research Science Institute (RSI), offered in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a six week summer enrichment program that emphasizes advanced theory and research in the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The USA Biolympiad (USABO) is a nationwide competition to develop critical thinking skills in biological reasoning of future leaders in the biological sciences.The competition culminates with the U.S. team’s participation in the International Biology Olympiad. In addition, CEE's Teacher Enrichment Program helps to assure a future talented and diverse U.S. workforce in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). TEP provides opportunities for high school teachers to connect with leading experts from industry and academia to explore cutting-edge research and make meaningful professional links with direct benefits for their students. All TEP resources and professional development events are cost-free to participants. To date, over 4,000 teachers from over 1400 schools have participated. After each event, teachers are provided resources to take back to their classrooms. The program has reached nearly 600,000 underserved rural and urban students to consider STEM careers. CEE’s STEM Lyceums are a series of monthly virtual meetings that engage high school students in discussion and exploration of STEM concepts and unique STEM career pathways, provided at no cost to schools or students.