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Jan. 29: Art from the Ashes: In Stabiano, Exploring the Ancient Seaside Villas of the Roman Elite Feb. 7: Reception and Pre- Performance Discussion Feb. 16: Alumni Association Valentine’s Day Party Feb. 19: Terrapin Pride Day Feb. 24: Florida Crab Feast Mar. 12: Alumni Association Networking Reception |
Sponsored by the Southeast Region volunteers, invited guests will see a beautiful exhibit of art from the ruins of ancient Stabiae and hear comments from the vice president of the Restoring Ancient Stabiae Foundation USA. To RSVP and learn more, call 301.405.4643.
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 Helping Students Reach for the StarsARCS Foundation Supports Student Research
This year’s ARCS Foundation scholarship recipients include three graduate students: Brendan J. Casey, bioengineering; Rebecca C. Vieira, chemistry; and James D. Diorio, mechanical engineering, each of whom received $15,000 awards; and undergraduate Arthur M. Grace, materials science and engineering, who received a $5,000 award. “Receiving the ARCS Scholarship goes far beyond the financial freedom it allows,” says Diorio, a Lockheed Martin Corporation Scholar and second-year ARCS recipient. “It means being part of a new ‘family’ so to speak; a family that cares about your education and about education in the U.S. as a whole.” The focus of Diorio’s research is on wind-generated ocean waves. “Our main focus is to understand the interaction between the wind and wave generation and how this interaction affects processes in the upper ocean or how it may affect devices that attempt to monitor the state of the ocean,” he says. Casey agrees that the ARCS Foundation has become a “second family that unconditionally supported and encouraged my academic efforts.” A Mars Foundation Scholar, Casey is using his scholarship to focus on developing biomimetic hydrogels capable of protein recognition, an advancement that has implications for drug delivery, tissue engineering, vaccine development and design of biomicroelectromechanical devices. “A hydrogel with the ability to recognize a specific protein on a tumor cell could be used in the development of a drug delivery system to target such malignant cells,” he explains. Vieira, a Nita and Otto W. Hoernig III Scholar, studies photo-induced electron transfer in ionic media, a reaction related to photosynthesis, which may aid in the design and construction of more efficient solar cells. “The ARCS Scholarship has allowed me, for the first time in my four-and-a–half year graduate career, to stop teaching and focus solely on my research,” she says. “I was able to complete work on a publication that has been printed in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.” Determining the long-term safety of titanium shielding to be used at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site is just one potential benefit of work being done by Grace, an undergraduate enrolled in a five-year B.S./M.S. program. A two-time ARCS scholarship recipient, his research focuses on the microstructural changes of titanium under stress to predict how these changes will affect the stability of the metal over long periods of time. The ARCS Foundation has supported outstanding students at 46 of the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities. In 2007-08, the Metropolitan Washington chapter awarded 15 scholarships to students from Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, George Washington University, Georgetown University and the University of Virginia. Maryland was the only institution to receive support for an undergraduate scholar.  | ||||||
