ARCS member Jacqueline Rojas, who has a PhD in science education, says her early Peace Corps experience launched her ability to think creatively and to discover how to make science inclusive.

Retired from an extensive career in education, Rojas is a board member for Alumni Relations and Field Trips at ARCS Orange County chapter. Rojas is also active with the southern California nonprofit AISS (Achievement Institute for STEM Scholars), which creates unique educational opportunities for economically disadvantaged high school students. Finding ways to leverage and share the expertise of ARCS Scholar Alumni and making science available to high school students are passions in her life.

“The Peace Corps volunteer experience kind of bookended my career,“ Rojas explains. “I just barely graduated from college and had a credential in high school and elementary teaching, and went off to South America.” Retired after a long career in education, she is content to use her knowledge as a volunteer.

One of the Peace Corps principles is what Rojas calls “bringing it back home.”

“That's when you come back, and for the rest of your life, you try to do something with that experience that you had because it's not a very common experience,” she says.  “You all had this intercultural experience and learned a language. During those two years, you get experiences that no one would get in their first two years of employment. You have incredible responsibility and independence,” she continues. “As a result, you come back with an amazing resume,” she says.

Rojas believes in ongoing, substantive outreach to students who are underrepresented minorities or who come from low-income families. The best outreach “needs to start early in high school, or at least by their junior year, and be based on listening to the students’ interests.”

ARCS Scholars and Scholar Alumni are a resource for mentorship. “Think of the range of careers of STEM that they're in,” Rojas says. She says that making that expertise available to high school students, “bringing them into those labs, on university campuses, taking them into STEM businesses,” is valuable.

ARCS members are also a resource for expanding science awareness. “So many of us had a career in STEM. We've got other PhDs in our chapter who have been retired for years, and they have a wide experience.”  

Rojas engaged Sumner Norman, an ARCS Scholar Alum from the University of California Irvine, to spend time and answer science questions with a high school student engaged with AISS.

Rojas is currently planning a Chapter field trip with the help of Scholar Alum Alexandra “Sasha” Perebikovsky, who works at AMDI in Orange County. The company develops a medical device designed to detect pathogens and viruses. “Sasha already has the company president excited” about hosting an ARCS visit, Rojas says.

The Orange County Chapter selected Rojas as the 2023 ARCS Light honor because of her ability to connect ARCS Scholars, Scholar Alumni, members, and aspiring science students.