News

We welcome our newest member, Dr. Natalie Gogotsi, who joined in June and is sponsored by Melissa Rhoads-Simpson. Melissa knows Natalie through their work together at Lockheed Martin and describes her as an outstanding talent and person, who today serves as the Technical Assistant to the CTO.

Natalie has been interested in STEM from a very young age and always knew she wanted to go into research and develop new materials. She earned her undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering at Drexel University, where she had opportunities to work in industry, a national lab, and academia during co-ops and then decided to go to graduate school for a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Halfway through that degree, she realized she didn’t want to stay in academia and so found a position at Lockheed Martin afterwards, where she spent 6 years doing materials research before shifting to focus more on strategy development.  

A large part of Natalie's interest in STEM came from the fact that she was exposed to it from a young age and was shown how exciting and fun it can be. Because of that, some of her favorite ways to volunteer are at Science Festivals and Engineers Week events where she can do demos for kids and young students and get them excited about STEM and all the interesting possibilities there.

Natalie views joining ARCS as a great way to give back and to support both undergraduate and graduate students in STEM. With the changes in the world and this country that we’ve seen in the past years, she thinks it’s more important than ever to support science and technology in the US and the students who are going to be the future leaders driving this country forward.

Natalie attended the Eagle Award Celebration in May as Melissa’s guest and actively engaged other members during the evening - even committing to a donation! She says that hearing one of the students speak about how they were able to use their funding to help pay their rent and move closer to campus solidified her interest in joining ARCS. While there are many opportunities for scholarships out there, most of them are tied to tuition or fees or something else directly related to the student’s research. There are so many aspects of a student’s life, however, that are commonly overlooked but that play a massive role in their physical and mental wellbeing. Natalie views the fact that the Scholars funded by ARCS are given the flexibility to decide what would be best for them as a fantastic aspect of this organization.