Magnet Alumni News: Spring 2025

Two alumni won prestigious academic awards:

• Jean Fan '09, a professor at Johns Hopkins, received a Presidential Early Career Award from President Biden in January. (jhu.edu)

• Malcolm Maas '22, a senior at the University of Maryland, won a Churchill Scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the University of Cambridge. (umd.edu)

More alumni awards and recognition:

• Daniel Yuan '22 and Clarence Lam '22 were part of a UMD team that finished in 7th place in the 2024 Putnam Competition.

• Haroon Mokhtarzada ‘97 and Eric Hysen ‘07 were named as Tech Titans by Washingtonian Magazine.

• Jared Duker Lichtman '14 won a share of the £1,000 Oxford DPhil Prize for his PhD thesis. (stanford.edu)

Research headlines:

• Lorrie Cranor '89: New password guidelines: What to know (WBUR)

• Joshua Weitz '93: Sargasso Sea Plankton and Other Marine Microbes Take Turns Sharing Nutrients (Univ. of MD News)

• Jennifer Caswell-Jin '02: New oncology testing program by Stanford professors receives $3.5 million (Stanford Daily)

• Wilma Bainbridge '05: You must remember this? (Univ. of Chicago Magazine)

• Jonathan Gootenberg '09: Tome founders launch next venture, an RNA contract research startup (STAT)

• Alex Wiebe '15: Richest nations ‘exporting extinction’ with demand for beef, palm oil and timber (The Guardian)

Mathematics research publications:

• R.P. Laudone and Andrew Snowden '00, Equivariant prime ideals for infinite dimensional supergroups (Trans. Amer. Math. Soc.)

• Rachel Kirsch '06 and JD Nir, A Localized Approach to Generalized Turán Problems (Elec. J. of Combinatorics)

• O. Gorodetsky, Jared Duker Lichtman '14, and M.D. Wong, On Erdős sums of almost primes (C. R. Math. Acad. Sci. Paris)

Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science research publications:

• A.M. Blevins et al., and Caleb Fassett '98, Apollo Impact Melts Record a Rapidly Declining Impact Rate in the Late Imbrian (JGR Planets)

• J.G. Mitchell et al., and Marc Pulupa '99, Delay of Near-relativistic Electrons with Respect to Type III Radio Bursts throughout the Inner Heliosphere (The Astrophysical Journal)

• E.M. Sherrill, K.M. Johnson, and Noel Jackson '04, Locating Boundaries Between Locked and Creeping Regions at Nankai and Cascadia Subduction Zones (JGR Solid Earth)

• A. Dekel, Nicholas Stone '04, et al., Growth of Massive Black-Holes in FFB Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn (Astronomy & Astrophysics)

Physics research publications:

• D. Shadmany et al., and Jon Simon '00, Cavity QED in a high NA resonator (Science Advances)

• Ning Bao '04 et al., Subregion duality, wedge classification and no global symmetries in AdS/CFT (J. High Energy Physics)

• R.D. Delaney et al., and William Cody Burton '08, Scalable Multispecies Ion Transport in a Grid-Based Surface-Electrode Trap (Physical Review X)

• T-G Zhou, Michael Winer '15, and B. Swingle, The magnetic maze: a system with tunable scale invariance (J. High Energy Physics)

• Jesse Griff-McMahon ‘16 et al., Proton radiography inversions with source extraction and comparison to mesh methods (Physical Review E)

Chemistry and Materials Science research publications:

• B. Kim et al., and Minjoo Larry Lee '94, Cryogenic GaAs laser power converters (Solar Cells)

• M. Degbevi, J.T. Stoffel, and Emily Tsui '04, Coordinated Anions Tune Z-Type Ligand Displacement from Colloidal CdSe and InP Nanocrystal Surfaces (Inorg. Chem.)

• Purnima Balakrishnan '09 et al., Manipulating Interface Magnetism in Manganite Thin Film Membranes by Substrate Surface Chemistry (J. Phys. Chem. C)

• Mari-Therese Burton '15 et al., Enhanced Microstructural Stability and Hardness of Multi-component Nanocrystalline Nickel Alloys Processed via Mechanical Alloying (Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A)

Computer Science and Robotics research publications:

• L. Fairfax and Patricio Vela '94, A concurrent learning approach to monocular vision range regulation of leader/follower systems (Autonomous Robots)

• R.K. Padhy and Aaditya Chandrasekar ‘09, Photos: topology optimization of photonic components using a shape library (Engineering with Computers)

• B. Rivière, John Lathrop '17, S-J Chung, Monte Carlo tree search with spectral expansion for planning with dynamical systems (Science Robotics)

• J. Chen, Mikhail Khrenov '18, et al., Data-driven inpainting for full-part temperature monitoring in additive manufacturing (J. Manuf. Sys.)

Ecology and Zoology research publications:

• Jeffrey Hostetler '92 et al., Challenges and opportunities for data integration to improve estimation of migratory connectivity (Methods in Ecology and Evolution)

• J.L. Palacios and Rebecca Segal '90, Exploration of Differential Equation Models for Phage-Bacteria Population Dynamics (Spora)

• D. Muratore et al., and Joshua Weitz '93, Diel partitioning in microbial phosphorus acquisition in the Sargasso Sea (Proc. Nat'l Acad. Sci.)

• A. Noel et al., and David Hu '97, Enhanced wet grip with North American river otter paws (Annals of the NY Acad. of Sciences)

• L. Leach, J.R. Stevens, and Kristina Cammen '03, Pinniped response to diadromous fish restoration in the Penobscot River Estuary (Front. Conserv. Sci.)

• R. Alex Wiebe '15 and D.S. Wilcove, Global biodiversity loss from outsourced deforestation (Nature)

Biology research publications:

• M. Oleynikov and Samie Jaffrey '89, RNA tertiary structure and conformational dynamics revealed by BASH MaP (eLife)

• J. Marchi et al., and Joshua Weitz '93, Multi-strain phage induced clearance of bacterial infections (PLOS Computational Biology)

• Z. Zhang et al., incl. Rahul Satija '02, A panoramic view of cell population dynamics in mammalian aging (Science)

• W. Wong et al., and Anthony Burnetti '07, Oxygen-binding proteins aid oxygen diffusion to enhance fitness of a yeast model of multicellularity (PLOS Biology)

• L. Li et al., and Vicky Yao '07, A best-match approach for gene set analyses in embedding spaces (Genome Research)

• R. dos Santos Peixoto et al., and Jean Fan '09, Characterizing cell-type spatial relationships across length scales in spatially resolved omics data (Nature Communications)

• K. Jiang et al., Jonathan Gootenberg '09, and O.O. Abudayyeh, Rapid in silico directed evolution by a protein language model with EVOLVEpro (Science)

Neuroscience and Psychology research publications:

• S. Tafazoli, A. Ardalan, and Timothy Buschman '97, Cognitive neuroscience: How the brain navigates abstract task spaces (Current Biology)

• C. Revsine, E. Goldberg, and Wilma Bainbridge '05, The memorability of voices is predictable and consistent across listeners (Nature Human Behavior)

• J.H. Wen, B. Sorscher, Emily A. Aery Jones '10, S. Ganguli, and L.M. Giocomo, One-shot entorhinal maps enable flexible navigation in novel environments (Nature)

Cancer research publications:

• C.C. Young, P. Kan, Stephen Chen '91, and F.F. Lang, Endovascular surgical neuro-oncology: advancing a new subspecialty (J. Neuro-Oncology)

• Hormuzed Katki '92, Testing stored control-arm specimens could dramatically increase statistical power yet reduce costs in cancer screening trials (J. Natl Cancer Inst.)

• T.P. Joshi, A.X. Wu, and Arash Kimyai-Asadi '92, Enhanced disease-specific survival following Mohs micrographic surgery compared to wide local excision for sebaceous carcinoma: a national database study (Int'l J. Dermatology)

• A.H. Ghobashi et al., and Heather O'Hagan '94, PTEN depletion reduces H3K27me3 levels to promote epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in epithelial colorectal cancer cells (PLOS One)

• D.E. Rathkopf, M.R. Patel, Atish Choudhury '95, et al., Safety and clinical activity of BMS-986365 (CC-94676), a dual androgen receptor ligand-directed degrader and antagonist, in heavily pretreated patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (Annals of Oncology)

• M. Ceribelli et al., incl. Erin Beck '99, Multi-Component, Time-Course screening to develop combination cancer therapies based on synergistic toxicity (Proc. Nat'l Acad. Sci.)

• K.E. Houlahan et al., Jennifer Caswell-Jin '02, and C. Curtis, Complex rearrangements fuel ER+ and HER2+ breast tumours (Nature)

• William Hwang '02 et al., Integrating priorities at the intersection of cancer and neuroscience (Cancer Cell)

• M. Wackel et al., and Melodi Javid Whitley '03, Metastatic Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma in Immunosuppressed Patient: A Systematic Review (JID Innovations)

• Padma Rajagopal '05, Refining Our Relationship to Cancer With Both Alleles (JAMA Network Open)

• A.C.Y. Chen, Debattama Sen '09, Hyperactive Dendritc Cells Redirect Aged Antitumor Immunity (Cancer Research)

Medical research publications:

• Horace Rhee '95 et al., Airway tryptase levels inform the lack of clinical efficacy of the tryptase inhibitor MTPS9579A in asthma (Allergy)

• A.L. Pyne, A.M. Uchida, M.W. Hazel, Maria Pletneva '96, et al., Differing Epithelial and Immunologic Activation Patterns Following Food Reintroduction Reveal Different Transcriptional Profiles in Active Eosinophilic Esophagitis (Gastroenterology)

• A.A. Dixit et al., and Eric Sun '96, Preoperative SGLT2 Inhibitor Use and Postoperative Diabetic Ketoacidosis (JAMA Surgery)

• M.A. Hyder, Dimana Dimitrova '02, et al., Intermediate-Dose Post-Transplantation Cyclophosphamide for Myeloablative HLA-Haploidentical Bone Marrow Transplantation (Blood Advances)

• N.S. Hosamane et al., and Michael Sidorov '03, Sleep is necessary for experience-dependent sequence plasticity in mouse primary visual cortex (Sleep)

• Alex Berger '04 et al., Longitudinal Reoperation Risk After Apical Prolapse Procedures in Women Aged 65 Years and Older (Obstet. Gynecol.)

• S. Yang et al., and Shwetadwip Chowdhury '06, DMD and microlens array as a switchable module for illumination angle scanning in optical diffraction tomography (Biomed. Optics Express)

• S.A. Jupitz, Christe Lin '07, et al., Higher Rates of Visualization for Axillary Reverse Mapping Using Indocyanine Green Fluorescence Compared With Blue Dye (J. Surg. Res.)

• Leora Goldbloom-Helzner '13 et al., Assessing the conjugation efficiency of surface-modified extracellular vesicles using single nanovesicle analysis technologies (Royal Soc. Chemistry)

Archaeology, Sociology, and Philosophy research publications:

• Naomi Cleghorn '89 et al., Knysna Eastern Heads Cave 1 – Stratigraphy, chronology, and archaeological find density from MIS 3 to MIS 1 on the edge of the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain (south coast, South Africa) (Quaternary Science Reviews)

• Ellen Kohl '97, Rights for nature or protecting people’s rights?: The operationalization of rights of nature in non-indigenous communities in the United States (Geoforum)

• Aleta Quinn '01, Community science and the value-free ideal (Synthese)

Public Policy research publications:

• Lorrie Cranor '89, Notice and Choice Cannot Stand Alone (Comms. of the ACM)

• F.X. Doo, J.D. Perchik, Nicole Hindman '93, et al., Current Status and Legislative Trends in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion in US Radiology (Radiology)

• R.L. Schumann, Miranda Mockrin '95, et al., Flashpoints between wildfire recovery & mitigation in northern California (Int'l J. Disaster Risk Reduction)

• M.S. Johnson, Dan Schwab '98, and P. Koval, Legal Protection against Retaliatory Firing Improves Workplace Safety (Rev. Econ. & Stat.)

• Jennifer Helgeson '02 and Brianna Lin '23, Adaptive resilience of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander businesses in the face of COVID-19 and complex events (Int'l J. Disaster Risk Reduction)

• Sarah Peitzmeier '06 et al., Toward a More Gender-Inclusive Sexual Experiences Survey: Development and Preliminary Validation With Transgender and Gender-Expansive Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault (Psychology of Women Quarterly)

More alumni headlines:

• Aaron Klein '94 appeared on CNBC (video) and testified at a Congressional Hearing to discuss de-banking. (Brookings)

• Cynthia Addai-Robinson '98 is reprising her role as Treasury agent Marybeth Medina in The Accountant 2, in movie theaters April 25th. (Entertainment Weekly)

• Sarah Oh Lam '00 wrote for Broadband Breakfast: How Should Secretary Lutnick Reform the $42 Billion Broadband Program?

• Ananth Hirsh '01 has published a new hardcover color version of his graphic novel, Buzz! (School Library Journal)

• Samantha Henig '02 joined the Washington Post as the new General Manager of WP Ventures.

• Lynn Favin '04 is in the cast of Uppercut, released in movie theaters in February. (imdb)

• Greg Jukes '05 will be the narrator for Peter and the Wolf , presented by the Columbia Orchestra in April.

• Erik Agard '11 wrote the New York Times Crossword Puzzle for February 17, 2025.

• Nina Lu '12 wrote about launching an app using only AI coding tools: Surrendering to Vibe Coding