Arizona State University is proud to announce that biogeochemist and ASU instructor Ariel Anbar was recognized as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. The honor supports Anbar’s research and academic innovation, bestowing a five-year, million-dollar grant to continue his award-winning teaching efforts that have already impacted more than 1,500 ASU students.
Anbar is a professor in multiple academic areas at ASU, including the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the College of Liberal Art and Sciences’ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. His pioneering course “Habitable Worlds” is accessible through ASU Online. It merges technology and gamification to immerse students in learning concepts that promote sustainability – an often overlooked focus of the tech-savvy mindset.
His inspiring peer-reviewed research has been published more than 100 times and his course has now been adapted to public forums to reach more learners as “HabWorlds Beyond.”
He has been successful in this mission, and was one of only 15 professors honored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2014. He joins an elite class of 55 instructors exclusively chosen for this honor, and he is the first from ASU to achieve the distinction.