Blair Magnet News: Fall 2024

Several Magnet students earned honors over the summer:

Rising senior Yunyi Ling won a Gold Medal at the International Chemistry Olympiad, representing Team USA.
Rising junior Kian Dhawan won a Silver Medal at the USA Biolympiad National Finals.
Rising senior Tejusvi Vijay was named Youth Volunteer of the Year at the 2024 Montgomery Serves Awards.
Graduated senior Jason Youm won a third place award at the International Science & Engineering Fair. (Fox 5 DC)
Five graduated seniors won University-Sponsored National Merit Scholarships: Mandy Guo (Univ. of Md.), Matthias Nigmann (Rochester Inst. of Tech.), Elliott Paschane (Univ. of Md.), River Qui (Univ. of Md.), and Sarah Stone (Purdue Univ.)
Six graduated seniors were awarded National Merit Scholarships by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation: Andy Cui, Reed Swearingen, Evan Zihan Wang, Steven Wang, Angela Wu, and Sophia Zeng

2024 also marked several major retirements from Blair:

Principal Renay Johnson retired after 13 years as Blair's principal (and 33 years in MCPS). The new acting principal is Kevin Yates.
Angelique Bosse retired after more than 30 years as a Magnet teacher for biology and senior research. She also coached the cross-country team for 29 years. In 2018 she was awarded the Lamberton Award for Teaching of Science, and in 2024 she was awarded Science Montgomery's Excellence in Science Education Award.
David Stein retired after teaching math at Blair for over 20 years. He taught popular electives in sports statistics and political statistics, and he has been a Puzzle Lord since the first Puzzlepalooza in 2010. He was awarded the Edyth May Sliffe Award for Distinguished Mathematics Teaching in 2016. He was elected President of the MCEA teachers' union in 2024.
Nora Burkhauser came to Blair as a computer science teacher in 2021 after more than 20 years of teaching at other schools in Maryland. She sponsored Blair's Computer Team and Code Girls. This fall, she is teaching Computer Science at the University of Maryland.
Diane Norris retired after teaching math at Blair for more than 15 years, including Magnet geometry.