Magnet Alumni News: Winter 2018
Awards and Recognition:Joshua Weitz '93, was elected a AAAS Fellow, and he was recognized as the Blair Magnet's 2018 Distinguished Alumnus.
Jonathan Gootenberg '09 was named one of Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30 for Healthcare. He is a graduate student at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he works with CRISPR to edit single RNA letters in human cells (mit.edu). His work was recently published in Science, RNA editing with CRISPR-Cas13, and in a Nature letter.
Simeon Kakpovi ‘14 was a Marshall Scholarship Finalist (@HowardU).
Research Publications:
Samie Jaffrey '89 co-wrote a News & Views article in Nature, Epitranscriptomics: Shrinking maps of RNA modifications.
Hormuzd Katki '92, co-authored a letter in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Preventing Lung Cancer Mortality by Computed Tomography Screening: The Effect of Risk-Based Versus U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Eligibility Criteria, 2005–2015.
Jeff Hostetler '93, working with the Smithsonian National Zoo, co-authored an article in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Quantifying the strength of migratory connectivity. He and his co-authors released a video explaining their research.
Alenda Chang '94 wrote the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, The multiple lives of permadeath.
Heather O'Hagan '94 is a co-author of an article in Cancer Cell, Chronic Cigarette Smoke-Induced Epigenomic Changes Precede Sensitization of Bronchial Epithelial Cells to Single-Step Transformation by KRAS Mutations.
Amir Caspi '96 presented preliminary results from his solar eclipse research at the 2017 American Geophysical Union fall meeting.
Ani Manichaikul '99 is the lead author of a paper in Respiratory Research, Genome-wide association study of subclinical interstitial lung disease in MESA; and one of the co-authors on a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Human airway branch variation and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Sarah Oh '00 contributed to an analysis of public comments to the FCC that were potentially fraudulent: Public Comments in the World of Massively Multiplayer Regulatory Proceedings.
Jennifer Helgeson '02, an economist at NIST, released the EDGe$ (Economic Decision Guide Software) Tool to help government officials and developers to select cost-effective, infrastructure-based community resilience projects.
Rahul Satija '02, a professor at the New York Genome Center, wrote a News & Views article in Nature Biotechnology, Strength in numbers from integrated single-cell neuroscience, discussing an article where Jean Fan '09 is a co-author, noted below.
Kristina Cammen '03 published an article in Conservation Genetics, Genetic diversity from pre-bottleneck to recovery in two sympatric pinniped species in the Northwest Atlantic.
Nicholas Stone '04 is a co-author of an article in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Black hole masses of tidal disruption event host galaxies.
Jeremy Goodman '06 published an article in The Review of Symbolic Logic, Counterfactuals and propositional contingentism.
Jean Fan '09 is the co-author of an article in Nature Biotechnology, Integrative single-cell analysis of transcriptional and epigenetic states in the human adult brain. She recently defended her Ph.D. dissertation in the Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics program at Harvard (@blairmagnetalum).
Teaching:
Diana Sung '99 is transitioning from her position as an English teacher to an administrative role in Frederick County, and she was interviewed by a former student.
Stacey Roshan '00 is a math teacher and technology coordinator at Bullis School, and she writes about being a technology facilitator for other teachers.
Daniel Bates '01 coached the Wheaton High School Science Bowl Team to victory at the Maryland Science Bowl, beating teams from Poolesville and Blair. Wheaton will represent Maryland at the National Science Bowl in April (@EllisaHidalgo)This semester, Ishaan Parikh '15 is teaching CMSC389M (SLAM: Why Robots Don’t Crash), and Alex Brassel '16 is teaching CMSC389E (Digital Logic Design through Minecraft), two of the student-initiated courses in the University of Maryland Computer Science Department.
Writing and Speaking:
Danyel Fisher '93 is the co-author of a new book, Making Data Visual.
Aaron Klein '94 is an economic policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he recently wrote about real-time payments, how the new tax law will cut infrastructure investment, and the risks when federal regulators shut down while financial markets stay open.
Alison Cardy '02 started a new podcast about her career coaching practice, To a Billion with Joy.
Elizabeth Green '02 wrote in The Atlantic about Charter School Crusader Eva Moskowitz, calling it the scariest story she's ever written.
Sherman Leung '12 wrote a reflection on his writing in 2017.
Lawrence Zhao '17 writes in the Daily Cal about eSports, including the new Cal eSports program.
Articles and Interviews:
Rosamond King '92 was interviewed about her poetry in Mosaic Magazine.
Jason Lunn '98 was interviewed by App Developer Magazine about device testing in the cloud.
Aileen Sandridge '98 was featured in an interview as Groupon's Vice-President of Engineering, Consumer Platform.
Nora Achrati '99 was praised by Broadway World for her dynamic performance in Mystery School at Wolly Mammoth Theater in Washington, DC.
Elinor Lichtenberg '99 was interviewed in the Sherman Denison Herald Democrat about her research on the impact of wildfires on pollinator species.
Erica Hartmann '05, a microbiologist at Northwestern, was interviewed about antimicrobial compounds in toothpaste and about microbes in dishwashers.
The December wedding of June Hu '06 and Joseph Kay was featured in the New York Times.
Jasleen Salwan '08, an internal medicine resident at Yale, was interviewed about the benefits of safe injection spaces.
Erik Agard '11 was interviewed by the New York Times Wordplay column about his efforts to start a Facebook Group to help diversify the pool of crossword puzzle constructors. He constructed the New York Times crossword puzzle for January 12, 2018: Where Berber Is Spoken.
Politics and Activism:
Dwight Patel '89 is the First Vice-Chairman of the Montgomery County GOP, and he offers advice to Republican candidates using social media and answering questions from the press.
Deep Sran '89 was quoted in The Economist discussing his run for Congress in Virginia.
Craig Rice '90 is hosting a series of Education Budget meetings for Montgomery County, starting February 21st at Northwest High School (@RicePolitics).
Fr. Martino Choi '05 delivered a homily to Catholic youth who gathered in Washington, DC in January for the March for Life (@WashArchdiocese).
Samir Paul '06 was endorsed by the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) and Run For Something in his campaign for the Maryland House of Delegates (americanbazaaronline).
Eric Hysen '07 is one of the co-founders of Project 100, a digital platform seeking to elect 100 progressive women to Congress by 2020.
As reported in Silver Chips, Theresa Regan '11 organized a group of hundreds of alumni who expressed concerns about harassment by retired magnet teacher, Mr. Walstein.
In Memoriam: The death of Michael Cohen '10 in September was the result of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), a complication of diabetes. Although he was not diagnosed until after his death, Michael likely had Type 1 diabetes, which can develop in adults or children, as recently reported by NPR. Michael's parents are hoping to spread awareness of Type 1 diabetes and DKA through the DKA Campaign coordinated by Beyond Type 1.
Share your own news below or by e-mailing alumni@mbhsmagnet.org. You can keep up with Magnet alumni news by following @blairmagnetalum on Twitter.