National Achievements

The award is the highest honor for volunteer work given annually to a member from each ARCS Foundation Chapter

Exceptional volunteer service and inspirational leadership skills are just a few of the valuable qualities ARCS Light Award recipients share, along with their determination and commitment to support STEM Scholars and promote...

Deep below the smooth and polished, ornate stone temples and prehistoric plazas, the elongated “species” slithered through a tiny crevice and navigated its way through an intricate network of tunnels, vents, and drains. It glided along every curve of the crawlspace, snaked its way through horizontal and vertical shafts, and wriggled...

Dr. Rhonda Franklin became an electrical engineer by accident—or as she says, “through the process of elimination.” When she was a senior in high school, her physics teacher encouraged her to attend a National Science Foundation summer camp, now called PROMES. The forum immediately sparked her interest in STEM studies...

Students “fluent” in STEM will drive the future development of sustainable production processes that advance the circular economy. ARCS Foundation member Elli Nesbitt has created a three-minute educational video for Advanced Biofuels USA’s “Just a Minute” series that describes new technologies that convert waste carbon in industrial emissions...

“How do you cope knowing what’s going on in the environment?” ARCS Scholar Alumna Chelsea Rochman has been asked this question many times during her decade-long career researching plastic pollution. The fact is, she knew from an early age that she wanted to pursue a career in ecology, having witnessed firsthand...

Connecting and Collaborating to Protect Large, Carbon-Storing Trees

David Mildrexler and Logan Berner became friends as ARCS Scholars when they were both working toward doctoral degrees in Oregon State University’s College of Forestry. Now, despite living a thousand miles apart, the two ARCS Alumni have collaborated on research related to...

Low-elevation atoll islands are literally ground zero for considering impacts of climate change. So coastal geologist Haunani Kane developed a model to explain 5,000 years of geological processes in the Marshall Islands and assess the risk from future sea level rise to the sprawling Pacific island chain. Kane integrated fossil data...

Plant conservation champion Becky Barak tells her story.

Plants have been part of my story for as long as I’ve been a researcher, and I’ve spent the past 12 years (at least!) trying to uncover theirs. I was an ARCS Scholar as a master’s student in Northwestern University’s department of...

A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, and patient race/ethnicity is still largely unaccounted for in the data of many states and cities across the nation.

ARCS Scholar Katie Labgold says Atlanta is no different. Labgold, an Emory University PhD student in epidemiology, is currently immersed in a study that proposes a...

Andrew was worried. It was 2 a.m., and a storm had just cut electricity to the home he shared with his parents and brother, Henry, in Export, Pennsylvania.

Both young men are affected by spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a progressive neuromuscular disease similar to Stephen Hawking’s. Electricity powers not only their...