Edmund Arimantas Arbas was an Associate Professor in the ARL Division of Neurobiology and held a joint appointment in the Department of Physiology. He taught undergraduate, graduate, and medical students principles of cellular and systems neurobiology and was a lively and insightful contributor to university-wide activities such as the Motor Control Training Program, the Committee on Neuroscience, and the Center for Insect Science. Ed also was engaged in university and national committees involved with scientific research and science education at all levels and thoroughly enjoyed launching outreach activities aimed at exciting school-age children about the wonders of science.

Ed grew up at the ocean's edge in Santa Monica, California. He was in love with the beach and ocean and stayed near the shore for college, earning his B.A. in Biology at the University of California at San Diego. He then obtained his Ph.D. with Graham Hoyle at the University of Oregon, exploring the neural control of flight in grasshoppers. He pursued postdoctoral training with Ron Calabrese at Harvard University, where he studied the biophysics of neurons that control heartbeat in the leech, and with Barry Ache at the University of Florida, where he worked on the structure and function of olfactory neurons in the crayfish brain. In 1986, Ed and his young family moved west again and, first working with John Hildebrand and then as an independent faculty member at the University of Arizona, Ed developed pivotal research programs in three areas: the neural basis of olfactory processing and the control of flight muscles by pheromone perception in the moth Manduca sexta; mechanisms underlying transneuronally induced muscle atrophy in grasshoppers; and the evolution of the neural pattern generator for flight in flightless grasshoppers. His passionate interest in neural mechanisms for generating behavior and the evolutionary implications of those mechanisms was contagious, and a generation of students, postdoctoral trainees, and faculty colleagues found themselves drawn into Ed's web of fascination with comparisons made across diverse species.

In 1995, enjoying a seaside holiday with his wife and daughters in Mexico, Ed died in a sailboat accident. In his memory, the Arizona Research Laboratories established the Edmund A. Arbas Awards for Excellence for ARL employees.

In 2005, we are celebrating our 10th year of recognizing exemplary employees with the Arbas Awards for Excellence.