ARCS Foundation awards $102,000 to Honolulu Scholars in 2022

Two UH engineering graduate students have received ARCS awards for their innovative work.

Ahmed Afifi, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering received the Bretzlaff Foundation ARCS Award.  His work quantifies “virtual water,” the volume consumed to produce commercial products, such as food crops. He envisions international trade in virtual water as a way to develop management strategies that could conserve water and mitigate political conflicts.

Rintaro Hayashi, Department of Mechanical Engineering, received the Frederick M. Kresser ARCS Award.  His work takes inspiration from tiny ubiquitous marine crustaceans called copepods, which use appendages to swim, pump and sense, to design equally tiny robots that can operate in a fluid environment.

The ARCS Foundation is a non-profit volunteer group that works to advance science by providing unrestricted funding to outstanding U.S. graduate students in STEM fields. The Honolulu chapter has provided more than $2.7 million to UH more than 650 graduate students since 1974.