ARCS Scholar Alums

"If Americans are to hold jobs in the global competition for employment, we will need an entire populace with basic math and science skills and a cadre of extraordinary individuals superbly trained in these fields and possessing the capability to 'see around corners.' This latter group is exactly what ARCS Foundation is helping produce."

Norman R. Augustine
Committee Chair, National Academies Commission
Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future

Dr. Douglas A. Nitz received a B.A. in psychology at the University of Cincinnati, where he performed experiments looking at the effects of cocaine and antidepressant medications on brain stimulation reward thresholds. Dr. Nitz received ARCS Foundation support for two years while in the graduate program in neuroscience at UCLA. Working with Jerome Siegel, he received his PhD in 1995 for work uncovering the role of the neurotransmitter GABA in inhibiting serotonergic and noradrenergic neurons during rapid-eye-movement sleep. He then learned multiple single-unit recording techniques in freely behaving animals as a post-doctoral student at the University of Arizona. Since November 1998, Dr. Nitz has worked at the The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, California. Here he combines research interests from his graduate and post-graduate experiences. Presently, research focuses on the effects of sleep deprivation on neocortical activity patterns as well as the role of the parietal and frontal cortices in spatial navigation. He also travels each year to Bowling Green, Ohio, to maintain with Vern Bingman an ongoing collaboration in which the neural basis of homing pigeon navigation is examined.

Kim Polese was a 1983 ARCS Scholar while at UC Berkeley. She is chairman, chief strategy officer and co-founder of Marimba, Inc., a leading provider of Internet infrastructure management solutions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley, and studied computer science at the University of Washington, Seattle. Prior to co-founding Marimba, Ms. Polese spent more than seven years at Sun Microsystems and was the original product manager for Java. She has been named one of Time magazine’s Top 25 Most Influential People in America, one of Red Herring’s Top 20 Entrepreneurs, and one of Computer Reseller News’ Top 25 Executives. Ms. Polese is a member of the board of directors of TechNet, a bipartisan coalition of digital-economy executives focused on strengthening America’s leadership in the new economy. She is also an advisory board member of W.I.T.I. (Women In Technology International), and GirlGeeks, the career and training community for aspiring young women in computing.

Dr. Ralph B. James received his ARCS Foundation scholar award as a PhD student at Caltech in 1979–1980. Since 1985, he has worked to develop solid-state sensors based on semiconductors, particularly cadmium zinc telluride (CZT), whose use has allowed for an improved means to image radioactive materials. Instruments are now in use or under development to study gamma ray bursts emanating from deep space, detect heart disease, conduct high-resolution bone scans, and provide for better localization of cancerous tumors and other abnormalities. In 1997, Discover Magazine selected Dr. James as Innovator of the Year in the field of imaging. In 1998, R & D Magazine recognized his work to develop CZT-based instruments to enhance the safety and accountability of nuclear materials worldwide as one of the year’s top 100 products benefiting humankind. In 1999, he was again selected for this award, based on his research to improve the performance of solid-state radiation detectors for nuclear medical applications such as breast cancer detection. He subsequently won the award two more times. Dr. James has authored or co-authored more than 400 scientific publications and has edited 15 books.