Magnet Alumni News: Fall 2026

Alumni Headlines:

• Chris Williams '01 returned to earth after 241 days on the International Space Station (nasa.gov) (WTOP). In an interview with Bethesda Magazine, he credited the Magnet for his love of science and space. (Bethesda Magazine)

• Cooper Li '26 was named a U.S Presidential Scholar (mocoshow)

• Pria Anand '06 won the 2026 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for The Mind Electric (pen.org)

• Kristin Mink '03 won re-election to the Montgomery County Council and was named to the transition team for new County Executive Will Jawando (Bethesda Magazine)

• Yevgeny Brudno '00 was named a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (aimbe.org)

Fellowships and Appointments:

• Tung-Hui Hu '94 joined MIT as an associate professor in Comparative Media Studies/Writing (mit.edu)

• Capt. Ashley Wright '98 was named Commanding Officer of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division. (navy.mil)

• Julia Simon-Mishel '05 was awarded a fellowship from the National Academy of Social Insurance (nasi.org)

• Sara Shonkwiler '14 became an assistant professor of industrial engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno (unr.edu)

• Michael Winer '15 left academic physics to work full-time on AI alignment at the Alignment Research Center

Class of 2026 College Destinations:

• 17 students to the University of Maryland

• 8 students to Georgia Tech

• 5 students to Carnegie Mellon

• 2-4 students each at Yale, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Caltech, Cornell, UC Berkeley, USC, U.Penn., Pitt, Georgetown, Dartmouth, and Case Western

• Other schools with at least 1 Blair student: UC Irvine, Univ. of Washington, Duke, Rice, Mary Washington, Univ. of Virginia, Penn State, West Virginia Univ., Northwestern, Oberlin, Purdue, U.Chicago, Univ. of Michigan, Johns Hopkins, Morgan State, Towson, U.S. Naval Academy, Berklee College of Music, Bowdoin, Northeastern, Olin College, UMBC, Montgomery College

Notable Research Publications:

• V. Srikanth et al., and Yevgeny Brudno '00, Hydrodynamic dispersion drives viral–cellular contact for gene delivery in porous media (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

• S.M. Pugliese et al., and Bingni Wen Brunton '02, Connectome simulations identify a central pattern generator for fly walking (Nature)

• A. Ransford et al., including William Cody Burton '08, A 98-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer with all-to-all connectivity (Nature)

• Jean Fan '09, Ten years of mapping gene expression in tissues (Nature)

• Eser Aygün, Anastasiya Beleva '11, et al., An AI system to help scientists write expert-level empirical software (Nature)

Medical Research:

• E. Ramirez-Ferrer et al., and Stephen Chen '91, Preserving Continuity of Cancer Therapy in Patients with Hematologic Malignancies and Chronic Subdural Hematomas: Comparative Outcomes of Middle Meningeal Artery Embolization and Surgery (Cancers)

• Arash Kimyai-Asadi '92 et al., Second Primary Malignancies Incur Significant Mortality Penalty in Patients With Cutaneous Melanoma (Dermatologic Surgery)

• Nicole Hindman '93, A. Tong, and K. Huang, How I Do It: Identifying Signs to Differentiate Uterine Sarcoma (Leiomyosarcoma) from Leiomyomas at MRI (Radiology)

• T.T. Vuong et al., and Heather O'Hagan '94, DNA Methyltransferase Inhibition Prevents Platinum-Induced Ovarian Cancer Stem Cell Enrichment (Cancer Research Communications)

• A.A. Dixit, B. Deverett, and Eric Sun '96, Extended Work Periods Among Anesthesiologists and Postoperative Patient Outcomes (JAMA Network Open)

• Jennifer Caswell-Jin '02, S.K. Plevritis, and A.W. Kurian, Mapping the contributions of adjuvant tamoxifen, 20 years later (Journal of the National Cancer Institute)

• Dimana Dimitrova '02 et al., Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation for partial RAG deficiency in children and adults: Excellent outcomes with a reduced-intensity posttransplantation cyclophosphamide–based approach (Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology)

• A.V. Potharazu et al., and Nisha Gilotra '02, A high-value, cross-continuum approach to heart failure: A narrative review (American Journal of Medicine)

• D. Gong et al., and William Hwang '02, GLIS3 marks a neural-like progenitor cell state that drives metastasis in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (Cell Reports)

• D.P. Montgomery et al., and Michael Sidorov '03, Periodic and aperiodic contributions to EEG delta power are translatable and complementary Angelman syndrome biomarkers (Communications Medicine)

• E. Fan et al., and Melodi Javid Whitley '03, Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Coverage and Keratinocyte Carcinoma Among Kidney Transplant Recipients (Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology)

• Melis Anahtar '04 et al., Deep learning–enabled discovery of antibiotics effective against Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Science Translational Medicine)

• A. Sunkara et al., including Srikanth Divi '05, Variation in outcomes following ACDF performed by orthopedic and neurosurgery-trained surgeons (The Spine Journal)

• R.K. Padhy, Aaditya Chandrasekar ‘09, and A.M. Mirzendehdel, PILL-CoDe: Inverse design of polypills via automatic differentiation for prescribed drug-release kinetics (Computer-Aided Design)

• A. Parambath et al., including Sherman Leung '12, The Value of Innovation and Venture Exposure during Clinical Training (NEJM Catalyst)

Biology Research:

• E. Scott et al., and Rebecca Segal '90, Intestinal Alkaline Phosphatase Interaction Gut Model (Bulletin of Mathematical Biology)

• M. Dominguez-Mirazo, R. Natan, S. Kirzner, D. Lindell, and Joshua Weitz '93, Inferring single-cell heterogeneity of bacteriophage lysis-associated life-history traits from population-scale dynamics (Science Advances)

• Stuart Berg '03 et al., Sexual dimorphism in the complete Drosophila male central nervous system connectome (Cell)

• N.A. Bracey et al., including Adrienne Long '05, Aging restricts maturation of CXCL13+ T follicular helper cells in human immunity (Cell Reports)

• E.D. Shulman et al., including Padma Sheila Rajagopal '05, AI-predicted spatial transcriptomics unlocks breast cancer biomarkers from pathology (Cell)

• E.K. Lee et al., including Pawel Przytycki '07, A multimodal approach for visualizing and identifying electrophysiological cell types in vivo (Nature Communications)

• Melodi Anahtar '12 et al., Integrated evaluation of antibody responses to mosquitoes and mosquito-borne pathogens using highly multiplexed serology (Science Advances)

• Aleksandra Dagunts '16 et al., Lysosomal down-regulation of the mu opioid receptor is opposed by the Retromer complex (Science Advances)

• A.S. Yadav et al., including Patrick Klees '19, Growth directions and stiffness across cell layers determine whether tissues stay smooth or buckle (Current Biology)

Ecology and Environmental Research:

• Jeffery Hostetler '92 et al., The North American Breeding Bird Survey, Analysis Results 1966 - 2025 (U.S. Geological Survey)

• A. Greer et al., and Mirana Mockrin '95, “There's a lot of life in a dead tree”: Attachment, loss, and the permeation of place through wildfire recovery in northern California (Journal of Environmental Psychology)

• Jennifer Helgeson '02 et al., Assessing Economic Impacts of Compound Coastal Water Events (Frontiers in Water and Climate)

• R.D. Francolini, R.S. Sleith, Kristina Cammen '03, et al., Sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima) population genetics map onto geographic distance and oceanographic features across coastal Maine (Journal of Phycology)

Neuroscience and Psychology Research:

• Y. Osako, G.R. Heller, S. Ährlund-Richter, Timothy Buschman '97, and M. Sur, Reusable modular architecture enables flexible cognitive operations in the mouse brain and artificial recurrent networks (Nature Neuroscience)

• O. Toubia and Jonah Berger '98, Optimally sequencing semantic search predicts creativity (PLOS One)

• T.A. Morton and Jessica Salvatore '98, When it doesn’t get better: Leaning into minoritized identity to brace for decline (Advances in Pyschology)

• Y. Bai et al., and Wilma Bainbridge '05, Diagnostic Images for Mild Cognitive Impairment Are Sensitive to Alzheimer's Disease Biomarkers and Reveal Abnormal Scene Processing (Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience)

Physics Research:

• E.M. Raftery et al., Minjoo Larry Lee '94, and K.D. Choquette, Buried dielectric quasi-photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers (Applied Physics Letters)

• C.D. White, Michael Winer '15, and N. Bernstein, Eigenstate condensation in quantum systems with finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces (Physical Review E)

• A.S. Patri, Josephine Yu '16, et al., Sound of electrons shattering: Current noise composition laws for electron fractionalization (Physical Review B)

• L. Skolc, Sambuddha Chattopadhyay '17, et al., Superradiant charge density waves in a driven hybrid cavity-matter system (Nature Communications)

Chemistry Research:

• W.L. Balliew and Emily Tsui '05, Spectroelectrochemical Measurement of Colloidal Cadmium Chalcogenide Nanocrystal Surface Reduction: Potentials, Anion Dissociation, and Speciation (Chemistry of Materials)

• E. Jones, Robert Martin '14, and D.W.C. MacMillan, Piecewise Stereoselective Assembly of Multisubstituted Alkenes (Journal of the American Chemical Society)

• K.M.K. Yap, M.R. Pabon, Jesse Matthews '17, et al., The Influence of ppm-Level Divalent Ionic Impurities from Real-World Feedstocks on Electrochemical Cu-Based CO2 Reduction (ACS Electrochemistry)

Earth and Space Science:

• M.-J. Kim et al., and Nikki Privé '95, Assimilation of All-Sky TROPICS Constellation Radiance Data in the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) (Earth and Space Science)

• E.G. Rivera-Valentin, Caleb Fassett '98, et al., Empirical Evaluation of S-band Radar Polarimetric Response to Surface Rock Abundance across the Lunar Highlands and Maria (Planetary Science Journal)

Mathematics Research:

• P. Etingof and Andrew Snowden '00, Classification of simple commutative algebras in the Delannoy category (Mathematische Zeitschrift)

• D. Fillmore, B. Goeckner, Rachel Kirsch '06 et al., The existence and structure of universal partial cycles (Designs, Codes, and Cryptography)

• Jared Duker Lichtman '14, The abc Conjecture is True Almost Always (The American Mathematical Monthly)

Public Policy Research:

• K.W. Okamoto, L.F. Chaves, Luke Bergmann '98, et al., Comparing the Risk of SARS-CoV-2 Immune Resistance Evolving Across Regions in the Americas with Differing Approaches to Public Health (Pathogens)

• Sarah Peitzmeier '06 et al., Transgender-Specific Correlates of Intimate Partner Violence Differ by Gender Identity and Type of Violence (Journal of Family Violence)

In the News:

• Lorrie Cranor '89 was quoted in The Atlantic: Logging In Was Never Supposed to Be This Complicated

• Craig Rice '90, CEO of Manna Food Center, was profiled in Montgomery Magazine: Craig Rice takes on Montgomery County's growing hunger crisis

• Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio '93 co-wrote an op-ed in Climate Home News: Human security relies on adapting to the world's new climate reality

• Gautam Mukunda '97 wrote in Bloomberg: Entrepreneurs Are Being Rewarded for Predatory Capitalism

• Cynthia Addai-Robinson '98 returns as Míriel in Season 3 of The Rings of Power, premiering November 11 on Prime Video (aboutamazon.com)

• Ning Bao '04 was quoted in Quanta Magazine: Entanglement Builds Space-Time. Now 'Magic' Gives It Gravity

In Memoriam:

• Jason Arora '09 passed away suddenly in August. His family has established a Memorial Scholarship Fund at the University of Maryland to honor his life and legacy.