By Tori Smith
50 years. That’s how long Achievement Rewards for College Scientists, or ARCS, has been making a difference in the Phoenix scientific community. ARCS got its start in 1957 in Los Angeles with a group of women who were inspired and fascinated when a Soviet-launched satellite orbited the Earth. They questioned what they could do to enhance scientific leadership in the United States.
Its founder, Florence Malouf and co-founders Mrs. Franklin Slagel, Mrs. Dean Woolridge and Mrs. John Tyler met with then California Institute of Technology President Lee DuBridge. Through meetings and that partnership, ARCS became incorporated as a nonprofit organization on September 5, 1958. ARCS’ formation was announced at the CalTech campus in Pasadena.
Phoenix’s chapter was founded when Ann Miller, Florence Wellborn, Betty Williams, Virginia Ramo, and Rosemary Herd came to tea to tell others in Phoenix about the ARCS Foundation. ARCS’ Phoenix chapter was born with 18 founding members in 1975.
ARCS Foundation supports the advancement of science and technology in the United States by providing financial awards to students who are working toward degrees in science, engineering, math, technology, and medical research.
Since inception, the foundation has provided $142 million to more than 12,000 students for their research. Since 1975, the Phoenix Chapter has awarded $9.9 million to more than 1,300 PhD scholars at Arizona State University (ASU), Northern Arizona University, and the University of Arizona.
There are 15 local chapters across the United States: Atlanta, Colorado, Honolulu, Illinois, Los Angeles, Metro Washington, Minnesota, Northern California, Orange County, Oregon, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Seattle, Utah, and of course, Phoenix.
ARCS awards are unrestricted grants that scholars can use in any way that advances their progress. 85% of scholars said it helped them spend more time on research, 81% said it helped them complete their degree, and 94% said it helped them receive valuable moral support.
The women behind the work
The organization is still powered by women leaders today, including Nancy Spetzler, one of the organization’s past presidents. She began her tenure as president in 2013 and served for two years. Before joining ARCS as a member in 1989, Spetzler was employed as a neurology nurse, caring for patients who were in the neuroscience unit of the hospital.
One of the things Spetzler was frustrated with when her son was a researcher at ASU was when she noticed how much money was going toward athletics instead of the important research that was going on at universities. Because of her frustration, one of her proud moments was when she got ASU to put up posters at football games that spread awareness about the importance of the scientific work people at the university were doing.
Spetzler shared that some of the best adult friendships she's formed are the ones she has with the women of the ARCS Phoenix community.
Beth Wainwright, current national president of ARCS Foundation, echoed the importance and significance of the relationships that are established through her volunteerism with ARCS. She said the conversations with the awardees are so refreshing because the researchers are so appreciative of the scholar awards given by ARCS.
She said that scholars know what the award means, and many share that they wouldn’t be able to get through their research without ARCS.
“You just feel really good about what you’re doing,” she said.
Wainwright didn’t exactly have a scientific background like Spetzler did, but she said she came “kicking and screaming into ARCS.” She was the executive director of Leadership Pittsburgh for 15 years, and she found her eyes opened when professors from the University of Pittsburgh got her curious about science, instilling the fact that so much of everyone’s day-to-day-life is based in science and technology.
She said that scholar awards from ARCS aren’t just about the award itself. “What we are doing isn’t just giving scholar awards, but we are having a huge impact on our country and our world and the research scholars are doing.”
The impact a scholar makes
Eddie Andert, a 2023-2023 ARCS scholar who was supported by the Burton Family Foundation, is still working on his research. In simple terms, Andert’s research makes autonomous vehicles talk to each other, determine if there's an issue with one of the vehicles, and figure out what to do when something goes wrong.
Andert got curious about this topic after learning about an autonomous accident ten years ago caused by a coding “bug” that resulted in an incident with a pedestrian in Arizona. From there, Andert became interested and wanted to discover more about how the systems operate.
Through Andert’s PhD program at ASU, he’s been able to further research the perception systems on vehicles, or the system that’s able to use sensors to detect things like something in front of them, or an issue with a steering wheel motor. He started his research by looking for sensor errors, sharing the sensor data between each vehicle and comparing it with one another to determine if they had a problem.
This testing allows Andert to flag the vehicle if it needs repairs, but also, could have the potential to alert a manufacturer about any significant errors there might be with a vehicle.
Andert got introduced to ARCS through his professor, who sent him an email letting him know he should apply.
He said that ARCS enabled him to interact with the other scholars that were outside his scope of study and interact with the sponsors who asked a lot of out-of-the-box questions that helped develop his dissertation.
The ARCS award was significant to Andert because he had just found out that he would soon be a father. Volunteers at the chapter joked about the award saying “Well, if it helps you buy diapers!” For Andert, it really did. Andert’s son will be two years old this month, and he’ll be completing his doctoral degree before the end of the year. To learn more about his research read here.
To learn more about ARCS visit https://www.arcsfoundation.org/national-homepage. To learn more about ARCS’ Phoenix chapter visit https://phoenix.arcsfoundation.org.