A Gamble That Keeps Paying Off
ARS Administrator Simon Liu (left) and Executive Director of the Office of the Chief Scientist, REE, Deirdra Chester (right) congratulate Dr. Erin Legacki (center), one of the winners of the ARSX 2023 contest. (Photo courtesy of Zion Murphy).
When it began in 2020, the ARSX competition was a new endeavor, an attempt to do science in a different way – one that embraced risk and offered outsized benefits in exchange. Today, as ARSX enters its fifth year, ARS administrators and scientists alike say the concept has borne fruit, showcasing how bold questions, rapid feedback, and cross-disciplinary collaboration can lead to breakthrough innovation. Winning projects have spawned new patents and new products, all in the service of critical agricultural priorities.
The theme of the 2023 contest was “Secure Future Food Systems Through Safe and Sustainable Agriculture,” and the winning projects represented diverse takes on that idea, spanning topics from reproductive genetics in fish to platforms for combatting animal diseases. For the scientists involved, it represented a unique career opportunity.
“The ARSX format encourages ideas that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to justify pursuing,” said Vincent Ricigliano, a research entomologist at the Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Research Unit in Baton Rouge, LA, and one of the winners of this year’s contest. “ARSX is a venue to put ideas out into the world and see how they are received by scientists from diverse backgrounds.”
ARS Administrator Simon Liu (left) and Executive Director of the Office of the Chief Scientist, REE, Deirdra Chester (right) congratulate Dr. Revathi Shanmugasundaram (center), one of the winners of the ARSX 2023 contest. (Photo courtesy of Zion Murphy).
For Erin Legacki, another member of a winning project team and a research physiologist at the National Cold Water Marine Aquaculture Center, in Orono, ME, the contest’s experimental approach was a huge selling point.
“The high-risk, high-reward approach was useful because they expect that you’re not going to have that preliminary data, and they’re kind of hoping that you’re going to jump off the diving board,” she said. Legacki, who was relatively new to ARS when she participated in the competition, noted that “I didn’t have to worry about convincing people or pulling funds from other places. I was able to get a big bolus of money to support this research. That money went almost directly into training for the project team, so it was really helpful.”
The competition’s organizers hope that sense of adventure will continue to inspire scientists at ARS. Strategic Innovation Advisor Sujata Emani is one of four members of the ARSX executive team, along with Deputy Administrators Jeff Silverstein and Pam Starke-Reed, and Assistant Administrator Brian Nakanishi. According to Emani, the team’s goal is to provide the agency’s scientists with, “that license to say, ‘Hey, this is being recognized at ARS, let me keep trying, let me keep pushing the edges.’
“We’re getting, every year, really interesting ideas that come through, ideas that we would not have normally seen pop up in a project plan. ARSX acts as a forum for that.” — by Kathryn Markham, ARS Office of Communications
Stay tuned for profiles of the winning projects in upcoming editions of Under the Microscope.