PHOENIX CHAPTER NEWSLETTER
                April 2025

2024-2025 Officers

President: Sydney Fox. Vice Presidents: Fund Development - Anna Maria Matteucci; Membership - Kate Thompson. University Relations: ASU - Kimberly Olney; NAU - Laura Martin; UofA - Janet Castner. Recording Secretary: Kay Berry. Treasurer: Marilyn Hayes. Corresponding Secretary: Sophann Schleifer

Above: current Scholars from NAU, U of A, and ASU, respectively, in April 2024.
President's Message

Dear ARCS Members and Supporters,

Happy 50th anniversary to ARCS Foundation Phoenix Chapter! Our founding members had an incredible vision to advance the mission of ARCS Foundation – supporting the brightest minds in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Since 1975, our Phoenix Chapter has funded scholar awards totaling $9.2 million.  Congratulations to our members today who continue to help our Chapter fulfill this mission.

Kate Thompson, Director of Membership and her committee, Carol Browner, Ann Engle, and Nancy Rink hosted a luncheon at the home of Sandra and Anna Maria Matteucci to celebrate our members who have been part of our chapter for over twenty years.  The event was a huge success and they all look forward to coming again next year!

This year our Chapter will support 50 Scholar Awards at the Annual Awards Dinner Celebration on April 25th at the Camby Hotel. Paulette Dalke and Dawn Senger, Awards Dinner Chairs, have done a fabulous job planning for a great event.  Dr. Kathey Plenge, our very own member, physician, neurologist, trailblazer, mother, master docent, survivor and first woman president of the Maricopa County Medical Society, will be our guest speaker.  Please join us and consider bringing a friend on April 25th!

Warm regards,

Sydney
 

Upcoming events: 

Monday, April 7th,  Board meeting at the home of Vianne Kucera

Friday, April 25, Awards Dinner, The Camby

Monday, May 5th, Annual Meeting Luncheon, The Henry
Chapter News
The Matching Meeting
 

Have you ever wondered about how we determine which scholars receive awards? This year's process began in the fall when our University Relations chairs asked their respective universities to select candidates that meet our criteria. We want to support the “best and brightest U.S. citizens” in approved departments. The deans sent us candidates and the University relations teams then read all the nomination forms—all the candidates having been deemed award-worthy by their schools—and ranked them. The task then became “matching” candidates to our donors’ preferences.

Anna Maria Matteucci, VP Donor Relations, facilitates the matching process with the University Relations chairs using her historical reference of named donors, endowed awards, and ARCS scholars. This year we matched 50 PhD candidates for a total of $412,500. Please join us at the awards dinner on April 25th to meet these talented, committed young people and learn about their research.

Photo of the meeting in the Matteucci home, left to right: ASU chair Kimberly Olney, NAU chair Laura Martin, Anna Maria Matteucci, and Uof A chair Janet Castner.
 
ASU Site Visit

Yong-Hang Zhang, Professor of Electrical Engineering  and ASU Dean of the Graduate College Debby Wentz led our Chapter’s site visit on February 21. Twelve scholars discussed their research with poster presentations. (Several others were away at conferences and one was competing in an NCAA event.) Dr. Zhang nominates at least one candidate for an ARCS award every year.

The presentation was followed by a tour of Dreamscape Learn, a virtual reality facility run as a partnership between ASU and Dreamscape Immersive. The idea is “to merge the most advanced experiential pedagogy with the entertainment industry’s best immersive storytelling” to provide uniquely engaging and productive learning experiences. Our members delved into a learning model for biology students, both majors and others, and also participated in a virtual reality experience used to teach team building and critical thinking in the lab. We also enjoyed an experience from the entertainment world.
 
ARCS Sparks

Penny Papadopoulos has received an ARCS Sparks Award for organizing our chapter’s recent visit to observe brain surgery at Barrow Neurological Institute. The ARCS Sparks Award honors members who exhibit small, everyday acts of kindness or displays of leadership within the chapter or at the national level.
 
An Artist Among Us

An exhibition of Marilyn Hayes' artworks opened on February 27 at the Stark Gallery at Xavier College Preparatory. Several other Chapter members attended the opening reception. The exhibition included eight large mosaics on a garden theme. Each "tile" was a print created by Marilyn from her own photography. The exhibition closed on March 20
 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

March:

Vianne Kucera: 3/8

Laura Martin:  3/10

Marcia Jobe:  3/10

Sandy Kennedy:  3/16

Joan Jugloff:  3/23

April:

Judy Flowers: 4/2

Janet Castner:  4/3

Andrea Moseley:  4/5

Kathey Plenge:  4/7

Carolyn Evani:  4/17

May:

Karen Hobbs: May 23

Hansa Magee: May 29
ARCS National News

Now that ARCS is 65 years old, an online “town hall” was held on February 1 to discuss strategies for the next 65 years. Several Phoenix members participated. A consultant described issues in organizational evolution, and a number of different possible strategies for ARCS' growth were discussed in small groups. More to come as the results gets turned into recommendations for action.

Phoenix was also well represented at the National Board Meeting in San Diego, February 6-8: Amy Moseley, Anna Maria Matteucci, Jill Bray, and Judy LeMarr participated in events and conversations that were “fun and thought-provoking.”

Pictured: discussion at the Scripps Research Institute with two San Diego Chapter scholars and their dean. The group also visited the home of UCSD Professor Emerita Candace Kohl to see her collection of minerals from outer space and learn how they are used in research.  Members were able to hold rocks from the moon and Mars in their hands! 

Any ARCS member is welcome to attend National Board meetings.

Also at the meeting, the Board announced Anurag Agrawal, PhD, has been selected as the 2025 inductee into the ARCS Alumni Hall of Fame. Professor of Environmental Studies in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University, Agrawal is renowned for discovering how plants and their predator insects evolve in a rapid “arms race,” with each surviving by adapting, at the molecular level, to the other’s threat. His findings show the need to preserve entire ecosystems rather than targeting individual species’ eradication to avoid harmful consequences for humanity.
 
Member Spotlight

Kathey Plenge, MD

A recent article in Arizona Physician Magazine, a publication of the Maricopa Medical Society, traced the path Kathern Plenge took to becoming the first woman president of the Society. Kathey told the magazine that as an undergraduate at the University of Tennessee, she noticed that the other people in the classes she liked—boys—were pre-med, and she decided she could do it, too. At the time, women made up 1-2% of medical school students, but she forged ahead. At first, she combined part-time work in pediatrics with motherhood, and when her husband got a job in Phoenix, she moved here. Kathey wanted to specialize in medicine and was accepted in a three-year Neurology Residency Program at the Barrow Neurological Institute. She continued there in various capacities until retiring in 2001. In 2021, she underwent chemotherapy for breast cancer and is now in good health, looking forward to coming advances in medicine because “change is exciting.”

In her post-retirement life, Kathey has been active in our Chapter as well as undertaking other volunteer responsibilities, including serving as a docent at the Phoenix Art Museum. She says, “ARCS is a great way for me to continue to work in science and help our fabulous young scholars find their way. It’s so difficult to keep plugging away at research when your friends are out in the world.” She and her husband, Bob, have recently supported an MD-PhD scholar, just like their son—their daughter is a cardiologist—and they plan to continue championing our cause. (Photo courtesy Arizona Physician Magazine.)

NOTE: As mentioned above, Kathey will serve as our Awards Dinner speaker this year! Come hear more about her inspirational story!
Scholar Spotlight

Nicholas Link, current ARCS Scholar pursuing a PhD in biology, recently learned that he received another award  to continue his studies at NAU next year. He wrote to express his thanks:

". . . I was fortunate enough to travel to Utqiagvik, Alaska--the northernmost community in the US--as a Long Term Ecological Research Network Graduate Writing Fellow . . and my ARCS Scholar Award helped offset the cost of that trip. Going into my fourth academic year, I am excited to see the other opportunities that the [new] Award will continue to allow me to explore.

Thank you again for your generosity and support. I am truly honored to be a recipient of the ARCS Scholar Award, and I look forward to seeing everyone in Phoenix in April."

Nick's research focuses on nature-based solutions to increasing wildfire risk across Alaska and northern Canada. Wild-land firefighters regularly remove flammable trees around communities to create "fuel breaks." While completely necessary, this disrupts wildlife habitat space, flood control, and aesthetics. His project in Alaska is looking to ease those tradeoffs by reforesting fuel breaks with less flammable species. Creating a living fuel break is something that is yet untested at scale, so they seek to find the most effective and economic way to reforest with the target species. Photo: checking seedlings for restoration.
Where are they now?
Alumni update

Dave Crowder, a U/A 2005-2008 ARCS Scholar, is in the Entomology Department at Washington State University. His work focuses on issues relating to sustainable agriculture.

Stephanie Milam, a U/A Phoenix ARCS Chapter 2005-2007 alumna, is currently a research scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. 8800 Greenbelt Rd, Code 691, Greenbelt, MD 20771

Gary F. Moore  is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the School of Molecular Sciences at ASU.

Rachel Rubin, an ARCS NAU alumna, took a position in Restorative Ecology at Mount Holyoke. She is working to restore abandoned cranberry farming land in New England in order to re-wild lost habitat.

OUR MISSION

ARCS Foundation advances science and technology in the United States by providing financial awards to academically outstanding United States citizens studying to complete degrees in science, engineering and medical research.
 

OUR IMPACT

Since 1978, the Phoenix Chapter has committed more than $9.9 million to fund 1,317 Scholar Awards at Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and The University of Arizona.

ARCS Foundation Phoenix (Achievement Rewards for College Scientists)
3104 East Camelback Road, PMB 975
Phoenix, AZ 85016
phoenix@arcsfoundation.org

a 501(c)(3) Non-profit Corporation
Tax ID: 86-0319947

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