The foundation of the family and consumer sciences (FCS) can be traced back to the legendary Ellen Swallows Richards. Richards was the first female to graduate with a chemistry degree from Vassar College and the first female accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she would eventually become MIT's first female professor (Ford, 2008). Richards would later found the American Home Economics Association, now the American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences. Throughout her lifetime, she would lay the groundwork for the discipline known as "home economics" (now "family and consumer sciences"), and continue to advocate for the application of scientific and management principles in real-world settings both in the home and in the workplace. Many of these original scientific principles have reentered the national educational conversation through the current emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and the need for a STEM-literate population.