Two members of Argonne’s Mathematics and Computer Science Division – Jeffrey Larson, an assistant computational mathematician, and Ja-Quel West, a senior clerk – received Pacesetter awards ​“for their tireless dedication to spending their evenings and weekends organizing and managing the 9 month per year very successful Argonne ACT-SO High School Research Program.” The awards were presented by Paul Kearns, Argonne’s interim laboratory director.

Also recognized for their work as mentors were three other MCS Division members: Prasanna Balaprakash, Zichao ((Wendy) Di, and Sandeep Madireddy.

ACT-SO – short for Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics –  provides early-career mentors and facilities to help African-American high school students plan, design and implement research projects for a national competition. The program at Argonne, started in 2012, seeks to inspire students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.