ARCS Forward    
Reshaping the Future of Ecology 

Thursday, October 2, at 4:00 PM ET/3:00 PM CT/2:00 PM MT/1:00 PM PT/10:00 AM HT

ARCS Forward events are personal and intimate conversations between members, current scholars, and other outstanding scientists in all STEM fields. These events are held virtually over Zoom.

What is the benefit of preserving entire ecosystems rather than targeting individual species’ eradication? Learn why doing so would help avoid devastating consequences to humanity by joining ARCS Scholar Alumnus Dr. Anurag Agrawal, 2025 ARCS Hall of Fame inductee, as he discusses his work and the impact of federal funding cuts on campus life. 

Anaruag Agrawal, PhD is the James Perkins Professor of Environmental Studies in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University.

He is renowned for discovering how plants and their predator insects evolve in a rapid “arms race,” with each surviving by rapidly adapting, at the molecular level, to the other’s threat. By uniting ecology, genetics, and chemical evolution, his work informs sustainable agriculture and has implications for infectious disease management. To avoid harmful consequences for humanity, his findings show the need to preserve entire ecosystems rather than targeting individual species’ eradication.

Agrawal was an ARCS Scholar in 1998-1999 while attending UC Davis, where he completed his PhD in 1999. He has over 300 peer-reviewed articles with over 38,000 citations and is a fellow of the National Academy of Science, the Ecological Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.