Magnet Alumni News: Fall 2019

Montgomery Blair 85/20 Celebration: The Blair Alumni Association is celebrating the 85th anniversary of Blair High School and the 20th anniversary of the Four Corners campus on Saturday, November 2nd. Craig Rice, Class of '90, will be the first Magnet alum inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame! Register online. More details at blairalumni.org.

Awards, Scholarships, Grants and Fellowships:

• • David Hu '97 won the 2019 Ig Nobel Physics Prize for his research asking: “How Do Wombats Make Cubed Poo?”

  • Jackie Villadsen '05 was awarded a $13,000 grant from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory to support student research.

  • Jean Fan '09 won the 2019 Nature Research Award for Inspiring Science, including a $20,000 grant co-sponsored by Estée Lauder and presented in London (Nature).Emily Guthrie '15 participated in Stanford's Data Science for Social Good fellowship program.

  • George Klees '18 won the NSA's Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition as the lead author of "Evaluating Fuzz Testing," based on his SRP research. (UMD)

  • Daniel Zhu '19 won a $10,000 Davidson Fellow Scholarship. (@wrose31)

Academic Milestones:

• • Alenda Chang '94 received tenure at the University of California, Santa Barbara (pdf)

  • Ani Manichaikul '99 received tenure at the University of Virginia (@UVaSOMFacDev)

  • Bingni Wen Brunton '02 received tenure at the University of Washington (@bingbrunton)

  • Emily Jones '10 successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis at the University of California, San Francisco (@EmilyAsterJones)

Research Publications:

• • S. Zaccara, R.J. Ries, and Samie Jaffrey '89, Reading, writing and erasing mRNA methylation (Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology)

  • E. Hoque and Maneesh Agrawala '90, Searching the Visual Style and Structure of D3 Visualizations (IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics)

  • S. Jain, et al., and David Weinstock '90, Targeted Inhibition of CD47-SIRPα Requires Fc-FcγR Interactions to Maximize Activity in T-cell Lymphomas (Blood)

  • Hormuzd Katki '92, et al., Basing eligibility for lung cancer screening on individualized risk calculators should save more lives, but life-expectancy matters (Journal of the National Cancer Institute)

  • S. Fan, et al., and Minjoo L. Lee '94, 20%-efficient epitaxial GaAsP/Si tandem solar cells (Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells)

  • Eric Sun '96, et al., Assessment of Out-of-Network Billing for Privately Insured Patients Receiving Care in In-Network Hospitals (JAMA Internal Medicine)

  • S. Bellezza and Jonah Berger '98, Trickle-Round Signals: When Low Status Is Mixed with High (Journal of Consumer Research)

  • Ani Manichaikul '99, et al., Identification of novel epithelial ovarian cancer loci in women of African ancestry (Cancer Epidemiology)

  • D. Erman, S.V. Sam, and Andrew Snowden '00, Big polynomial rings and Stillman’s conjecture (Inventiones mathematicae)

  • Cynthia Chang '01 and J. HilleRisLambers, Trait and phylogenetic patterns reveal deterministic community assembly mechanisms on Mount St. Helens (Plant Ecology)

  • Aleta Quinn '01, Diagnosing Discordance: Signal in Data, Conflict in Paradigms (Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology)

  • Bingni Wen Brunton '02 and M. Beyeler, Data-driven models in human neuroscience and neuroengineering (Current Opinion in Neurobiology)

  • Melodi Javid Whitley '03, et al., Papulonecrotic tuberculid and Poncet disease: A case of multisystem delayed-type hypersensitivity in a patient with Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection (JAAD Case Reports)

  • Sophia Strike '03 and M.E. Puhaindran, Nerve Tumors of the Upper Extremity (Clinics in Plastic Surgery)

  • Ning Bao '04 and J. Liu, Quantum algorithms for conformal bootstrap (Nuclear Physics B)

  • Alex Berger '04, et al., Long-Term Risk of Reoperation After Synthetic Mesh Midurethral Sling Surgery for Stress Urinary Incontinence (Obstetrics & Gynecology)

  • A.C. Quillen, et al., and Jessica Shang '04, A Light-Weight Vibrational Motor Powered Recoil Robot That Hops Rapidly Across Granular Media (Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics)

  • R. Simon and Noah Simon '04, Finding the intended use population for a new treatment (Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics)

  • K.A. Schival, et al., and Emily Tsui '04, Photoinduced Surface Charging in Iron-Carbonyl-Functionalized Colloidal Semiconductor Nanocrystals (Nano Letters)

  • Wilma Bainbridge '05, et al., Memorability of photographs in subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment: Implications for cognitive assessment (Alzheimer's and Dementia)

  • S.B. Maamar, J. Hu, and Erica Hartmann '05, Implications of indoor microbial ecology and evolution on antibiotic resistance (Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology)

  • Shwetadwip Chowdhury ‘06, et al., High-resolution 3D refractive index microscopy of multiple-scattering samples from intensity images (Optica)

  • J. Zhou and I. Schor et al., incl. Victoria Yao '07, Accurate genome-wide predictions of spatio-temporal gene expression during embryonic development(PLOS Genetics)

  • C. Xia, Jean Fan '09, and G. Emanuel, et al., Spatial transcriptome profiling by MERFISH reveals subcellular RNA compartmentalization and cell cycle-dependent gene expression (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

  • M.J. Kellner, J.G. Koob, Jonathan Gootenberg '09, O.O. Abudayyeh, and F. Zhang, SHERLOCK: nucleic acid detection with CRISPR nucleases (Nature Protocols)

  • Aarti Kolluri '11 and M. Ho, The Role of Glypican-3 in Regulating Wnt, YAP, and Hedgehog in Liver Cancer (Frontiers in Oncology)

  • L. Einav et al., incl. Abigail Ostriker '12, Screening and Selection: The Case of Mammograms (NBER Working Paper) (@pursuingabbynes)

  • Leora Goldbloom-Helzner '13, et al., Developing Regenerative Treatments for Developmental Defects, Injuries, and Diseases Using Extracellular Matrix Collagen-Targeting Peptides (International Journal of Molecular Science)

  • Jared Duker Lichtman '14, G. Martin, and C. Pomerance, Primes in prime number races (Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society)

  • G. Brunner, Mazda Moayeri ’16, et al., Neural Symbolic Music Genre Transfer Insights (12th International Workshop on Machine Learning and Music) (hmc.edu) (pdf)

Books:

• • Charlotte Artese '91 has published "Shakespeare and the Folktale: An Anthology of Stories" (Princeton Press)Alenda Chang '94 has written "Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games" (Univ. of Minnesota Press)

  • David Hu '97 won the American Institute of Physics Science Communication Award for his book, “How to Walk on Water and Climb Up Walls” (Princeton Press)

  • Jonah Berger '98 is working on a new book, "Cultural Velocity" (Initiative)

  • Stacey Roshan '00 shared an excerpt from her book "Tech With Heart" (Dave Burgess) in KQED Mindshift: How Tech Tools Can Reduce Anxiety And Strengthen Relationships With Students

  • Ananth Hirsh '01 and his partner Yuko Ota published "WANDER - a Johnny Wander Travelogue Collection" (Kickstarter)

On Stage and On Screen:

• • David Andalman '97 was the editor for "Crown Vic," which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and will release in November. (IMDB)

  • Cynthia Addai-Robinson '98 plays Ramona Gerrity in the sixth season of "Power" on Starz (@cynthiaaddairobinson)

  • Jiehae Park '98 was interviewed by the LA Female Playwrights Initiative about her play, "Hannah and the Dread Gazebo." Her play "Peerless" is being performed at Emory University in November (Facebook Event)

In the News and Online:

• • Lorrie Cranor '89 contributed to a Wall Street Journal quiz: How Much Do You Know About Password Security?

  • Rosamond King '92 wrote in Ms. Magazine about Serena Williams: Why Serena?

  • Joshua Weitz '93 was quoted in a Washington Post article about graduate student fees.

  • Aaron Klein '94 was quoted in an Economist article about real-time payments.

  • Jeremy Fain '95 writes in Ad Week: Advertisers Need to Pay More Attention to the Weather When Planning Campaigns

  • Dan Sandler '95 was quoted in a New York Times article about software easter eggs.

  • Haroon Mokhtarzada '97 is the CEO and a co-founder of Truebill, a Y Combinator-backed fintech company that is moving its headquarters to Silver Spring.

  • Jonah Berger '98 was interviewed by Research@Wharton about his research on vocal cues and persuasion.

• Hans Arora '01 and his wife Kavita were featured in a recent issue of the American Medical Association's Moving Medicine magazine focusing on physician burnout.

  • Samantha Henig '02 is joining BuzzFeed News as Executive Editor (@BuzzFeedBen)

  • Holman Gao '08 was interviewed by ideamensch about his experience founding BoostMySchool.

  • Erik Agard '11 constructed crosswords for the New York Times in August (Saturday 8/10; Monday 8/26), September (Saturday 9/21), and October (Tuesday 10/1; Sunday 10/13). He constructs monthly Weekend Crosswords for The New Yorker.

Blogging and Instagramming:

• • Diana Ekelman Sung '99 wrote about attending the FinCon19 conference.

  • Samir Paul '06 took over the Paul & Daisy Soros Foundation Instagram account for a week.Jean Fan '09 wrote about the problems with how academic publishers recognize co-first authors.

  • Eric Neyman '15 has started a new blog about math, politics, and philosophy: ericneyman.wordpress.com

  • Alice Park '17 wrote about her experiences reporting on #metoo at Yale.

Policy, Politics and Activism:

• • Craig Rice '90 is co-sponsoring two anti-vaping bills in the Montgomery County Council. (Washington Post)

  • Justine Barron '91 won a court order for public access to court audio recordings in Baltimore. (Baltimore Sun)

  • Joshua Weitz '93 led a faculty resolution to reduce graduate student fees at Georgia Tech (@joshuasweitz) (pdf)

  • Aaron Klein '94 co-wrote an article in Politico: The cannabis banking bill isn’t just about banks

  • Alex Epstein '98 debated Robert Kennedy, Jr. on the topic of fossil fuels and climate change. (Facebook Video)

  • Jesse Lee '98 has joined the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a senior communications adviser. (Politico Playbook)

  • Sarah Oh '00 co-wrote an analysis of the recent Mozilla v. FCC decision.

  • Kristin Mink '03 testified at a recent hearing on playground surfaces in DC. (WJLA)

Submit your own news to alumni@mbhsmagnet.org!