James Arnold

James Arnold has a passion for engineering, especially for seeing things built from the ground up. Based on a wide variety of related interests he began cultivating in high school, including designing and coding apps, Arnold chose to study mechanical engineering because of the field’s broad array of applications.

As a student in ASU’s Barrett, the Honors College, Arnold worked as a community assistant in the college for three years. To apply the engineering skills he learned in class, Arnold became involved in Fulton Schools activities beyond his coursework. He led a team project to develop an app to help underserved students learn music, which won an Engineering Projects in Community Service Catalyst Award.

He also got involved in research, working two semesters through the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative, known as FURI, at the ASU Neuromuscular Control and Human Robotics Laboratory on developing exoskeletal robots.

“Hyunglae Lee, my FURI advisor and Barrett thesis director, is by far the most instrumental professor I have met during my time at ASU,” Arnold says. “Dr. Lee is the reason I became interested in robotics and decided to pursue a master’s in robotics and autonomous systems. I greatly respect Dr. Lee’s work ethic and willingness to help.”

Apart from academics and research, Arnold is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the local rock band The Fuzz Buckets, which sprang two years ago from among a group of friends performing on Mill Avenue. The band now is now a regular at the First Friday arts event in downtown Phoenix.

Arnold plans to complete studies for a master’s degree in robotics and autonomous systems through the Fulton Schools 4+1 accelerated graduate degree program. For this coming summer, he has accepted an internship in the Boston area from MathWorks, the company that owns MATLAB.

Read about other exceptional graduates of the Fulton Schools’ fall 2019 class here.