Evolutionary Ecologist Anurag Agrawal, PhD has been selected as the 2025 inductee into the prestigious ARCS Alumni Hall of Fame.
LAGRANGE, Ga., April 14, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- At the February National Board Meeting, ARCS® Foundation Inc. announced Anurag Agrawal, PhD has been selected as the 2025 inductee into the prestigious ARCS Alumni Hall of Fame.
Hall of Fame Inductees are ARCS Scholar Alumni who have made outstanding contributions to the advancement of science and US competitiveness in STEM-based innovation. Selection is by a panel comprised of ARCS Foundation National board members and advisors and is based on alumni contributions in the areas of scientific innovation, discovery, economic impact, development of future scientists, and enhancement of US scientific superiority.
Agrawal is the James Perkins Professor of Environmental Studies in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. He is renowned for discovering how plants and their predator insects evolve in a rapid "arms race," with each surviving by rapidly adapting, at the molecular level, to the other's threat. By uniting ecology, genetics, and chemical evolution, his work informs sustainable agriculture and has implications for infectious disease management. To avoid harmful consequences for humanity, his findings show the need to preserve entire ecosystems rather than targeting individual species' eradication.
"One of the fundamental things we're trying to study is to what extent organisms are preprogrammed, through their genetic makeup, to look or behave a particular way," Agrawal says. "Genes are inherited from parents and may determine many of those aspects, but the environment will also impact how it behaves and appears. We're asking how much of the success of the plant is based on inheritance versus the environment that it grows in."
His approach includes looking at the antagonistic interactions between insect herbivores, the changes in the plants they eat as the plants evolve defenses, and the impact of these changes on and by the environments in which they are found. By researching co-dependent changes in the behavior, biology, and chemistries of insects, and that of the plants they feed on within the ecologies, he has shown the unintended consequences of human interventions that ignore this three-way dependency.
"The solution requires expanding the view of evolution toward a more comprehensive inclusion of the biochemical changes within the predator species as well as how that interacts with a changing climate," Agrawal says. "The goal should be to conserve functioning ecosystems so all the species can thrive there."
Agrawal was an ARCS Scholar in 1998-1999 while attending UC Davis, where he completed his PhD in 1999. He has over 300 peer-reviewed articles with over 38,000 citations and is a fellow of the National Academy of Science, the Ecological Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Upon receiving the ARCS recognition, Agrawal says "ARCS was at the very beginning for me as a graduate student. They take a risk on young scientists to give them the opportunity to explore and do things that are different. The great thing about American science is that we invest in students, and that is something we should not forget."
"ARCS Foundation is honored to recognize Dr. Agrawal as our 2025 Hall of Fame Inductee," says Beth Wainwright, ARCS National Foundation President. "His achievements validate our mission and remind us how important it is that we continue to support the best and the brightest future US scientists who impact the world in significant ways."
About ARCS® Foundation: ARCS Foundation is a national nonprofit volunteer women's organization that promotes US competitiveness by providing financial awards to academically outstanding US citizens studying to complete degrees in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and health disciplines at 50of the nation's leading research universities. The organization has awarded more than $142million to more than 12,000 scholars since 1958. ARCS Foundation Scholars have produced thousands of research publications and patents, secured billions in grant funding, started science-related companies, and played a significant role in teaching and mentoring young people in the STEM pipeline. More information is available at arcsfoundation.org.
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Rebekah Jones, ARCS Foundation, 1 (706) 407-2266, [email protected], https://www.arcsfoundation.org/
SOURCE ARCS Foundation
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