We Are Stardust, ARCS Honolulu's 2025 Heart of Gold fundraiser luncheon was held at Outrigger Canoe Club on Monday Feb. 10. It featured the 2025 Honolulu ARCS Scientist of the Year presentation to computer scientist and retired University of Hawai‘i System President Dr. David Lassner, a talk by NASA exobiologist Dr. David Blake (who was introduced in Valentine fashion his wife, ARCS Honolulu member Dr. Carol Stratford), and a stellar silent auction to raise funds for ARCS Scholar Awards.
Scholar Update: Oceanographer Amy Baco-Taylor
“Because most species in the deep sea are slow growing and long-lived, deep-sea species are actually more vulnerable to human impacts than many shallow-water ecosystems.”
– 1999 Honolulu ARCS Scholar Dr. Amy Baco-Taylor, explaining the importance of her research on deep sea ecosystems in a Q&A on the Florida State University website where she is now a professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science. Read the profile
Scholar Update: Marine Biologist Shayle Matsuda
“The increasing frequency and severity of global coral bleaching events, the devastation to reef ecosystems and the communities who rely on them led to my dedication to coral reef conservation.”
As a University of Hawai‘i at Manoa doctoral candidate, 2019 Honolulu ARCS Scholar Shayle Matsuda pioneered new molecular techniques to study symbioses between coral, algae and bacteria. He continues that work as part of an international coral reef restoration project under a 2021 David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship—a premier postdoctoral program in conservation science that supports early-career scientists and seeks solutions to the most pressing conservation challenges.
To Quote a Scholar: Julia Douglas
"The generous support of the ARCS award facilitates both the completion of my PhD program and the establishment a long-term research component of my future career."
2024 Sarah Ann Martin ARCS Scholar Julia Douglas scales trees in Hawai‘i an Mexico to study endangered epiphytes growing in the canopies as part of her doctoral research in botany at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa.