Magnet Alumni News: Winter 2023

Awards and Honors:

• Robyn Sanderson '99, an Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U.Penn, was named a 2023 Sloan Research Fellow.

• Daniel Zhu '19 was named a Putnam Fellow for the third time, part of MIT's winning team in the 2022 Putnam Competition. (pdf)

  • Clarence Lam '22 and Daniel Yuan '22 were part of UMD's 4th place team.

  • Gabriel Wu '21 (Harvard) and Daniel Monroe '21 (UCSD) also scored in the top 100.

  • Philip Guo '20 (UMD) and Timothy Qian '21 (MIT) scored in the top 200.

• Craig Rice '90 won the Marilyn J. Praisner Public Service Award from the Maryland Association of Counties.

• Wilma Bainbridge '05 was recognized as a Rising Star of the Association for Psychological Science.

Scientific Journal Publications:

Biology:

• V. Despic and Samie Jaffrey ‘89, mRNA ageing shapes the Cap2 methylome in mammalian mRNA (Nature)

• K.E. Neville, et al., and Daniel Bergstralh ‘93, The Drosophila mitotic spindle orientation machinery requires activation, not just localization (EMBO Reports)

• J.D. Harris, S.W. Park, J. Dushoff, and Joshua Weitz ‘93, How time-scale differences in asymptomatic and symptomatic transmission shape SARS-CoV-2 outbreak dynamics (Epidemics)

• H. Vu, Z. Koch, P. Fiziev, and Jason Ernst ‘98, A framework for group-wise summarization and comparison of chromatin state annotations (Bioinformatics)

• G.R.B. Sanders, et al., incl. Ani Manichaikul ‘99, Genetic diversity fuels gene discovery for tobacco and alcohol use (Nature)

• M. VanBlunk, et al., and Yevgeny Brudno ‘00, Absorption rate governs cell transduction in dry macroporous scaffolds (Biomaterials Science)

• H-H Wessels, et al., and Rahul Satija ‘02, Efficient combinatorial targeting of RNA transcripts in single cells with Cas13 RNA Perturb-seq (Nature Methods)

• J. Shen et al., and Erica Hartmann ‘05, An improved workflow for accurate and robust healthcare environmental surveillance using metagenomics (Microbiome)

• M.T.N. Yarnall, et al., and Jonathan Gootenberg ‘09: Drag-and-drop genome insertion of large sequences without double-strand DNA cleavage using CRISPR-directed integrases (Nature Biotechnology)

• Stephanie Rager ‘15 and M.Y. Zeng, The Gut–Liver Axis in Pediatric Liver Health and Disease (Microorganisms)

Ecology:

• A. Roberts, et al., incl. Jeffrey Hostetler ‘92, Migratory connectivity of North American waterfowl across administrative flyways (Ecological Applications)

• A. Allen-Perkins, et al., incl. Elinor Lichtenberg ‘99, CropPol: A dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination (Ecology)

• J.R. Jackson and Aleta Quinn ‘01, Post-Darwinian fish classifications: theories and methodologies of Günther, Cope, and Gill (History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences)

Neuroscience:

• Timothy Buschman ‘97 and E.K. Miller, Working Memory Is Complex and Dynamic, Like Your Thoughts (J. Cognitive Neuroscience)

• S.H. Singh, F. van Breugel, R.P.N. Rao, and Bingni Wen Brunton ‘02, Emergent behaviour and neural dynamics in artificial agents tracking odour plumes (Nature Machine Intelligence)

• S.M. Plaza, et al., and Stuart Berg ‘03, neuPrint: An open access tool for EM connectomics (Frontiers in Neuroinformatics)

• X. Li, Wilma Bainbridge ‘05, and A. Bakkour, Item memorability has no influence on value-based decisions (Scientific Reports)

• Emily Aery Jones ‘10 and L.M. Giocomo, Neural ensembles in navigation: From single cells to population codes (Current Opinion in Neurobiology)

Medical Research:

• J.E. Goldberg, V. Prabhu, P.N. Smereka, and Nicole Hindman ‘93, How We Got Here: The Legacy of Anti-Black Discrimination in Radiology (RadioGraphics)

• T. Tsujino, et al., incl. Atish Choudhury ‘95, CRISPR screens reveal genetic determinants of PARP inhibitor sensitivity and resistance in prostate cancer (Nature Communications)

• V.R. Salasky and Wan-Tsu W. Chang ‘99, Neurotrauma Update (Emerg. Med. Clinics of N. Am.)

• S. Waliani, Jennifer Caswell-Jin ‘02, et al., Pharmacovigilance Analysis of Heart Failure Associated With Anti-HER2 Monotherapies and Combination Regimens for Cancer (JACC: CardioOncology)

• K.C. Priest, A.A. Balasanova, Ximena Levander ‘02, et al., Caring for Hospitalized Adults with Methamphetamine Use Disorder: A Proposed Clinical Roadmap (Am. J. Medicine)

• F.W.Z. LaPolla, et al., and Hao Ye ‘02, Rigor and Reproducibility Instruction in Academic Medical Libraries (J. Medical Library Ass’n)

• J.M. Fernandez, et al., and Melodi Javid Whitley ‘03, Gender differences in black patients with melanoma: a retrospective cohort analysis of 2464 cases from the National Cancer Database (Int’l J. Dermatology)

• Cynthia Xu ‘08, et al., Proteomic Assessment of Hypoxia-Pre-Conditioned Human Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Demonstrates Promise in the Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease (Int’l J. Molecular Sciences)

Physics and Chemistry:

• B. Saxberg, et al., incl. Jonathan Simon ‘00, Disorder-assisted assembly of strongly correlated fluids of light (Nature)

• A.P. Chorney and Steven Chemtob ‘02, Iron precipitation under controlled oxygen flow: Mineralogical implications for BIF precursors in the Archean ocean (Chemical Geology)

• Ning Bao ‘04 and J. Naskar, Code properties of the holographic Sierpinski triangle (Phys. Rev. D)

• K.V. Prather and Emily Tsui ‘04, Photoinduced Ligand-to-Metal Charge Transfer of Cobaltocene: Radical Release and Catalytic Cyclotrimerization (Inorganic Chemistry)

• Michael Winer ‘15 and B. Swingle, The Loschmidt spectral form factor (J. High Energy Physics)

Engineering:

• B. Magondu, et al., and David Hu ‘97, Drying dynamics of pellet feces (Soft Matter)

• A. Kim and Amanda Simson ‘98, Rapid optimization of 3D printed sediment microbial fuel cells (Int’l J. Energy and Environmental Eng’g)

• W. Krauze, et al., incl. Shwetadwip Chowdhury ‘06, 3D scattering microphantom sample to assess quantitative accuracy in tomographic phase microscopy techniques (Scientific Reports)

• Aaditya Chandrasekhar ‘09, et al., Graded multiscale topology optimization using neural networks (Advances in Engineering Software)

• Emily Lathrop ‘13, et al., Directionally Compliant Legs Enabling Crevasse Traversal in Small Ground-Based Robots (Advanced Intelligent Systems)

Mathematics:

• R.H. Eggermont and Andrew Snowden ‘00, Topological noetherianity for algebraic representations of infinite rank classical groups (Transformation Groups)

• J. Feng and Noah Simon ‘04, Ensembled sparse-input hierarchical networks for high-dimensional datasets (Statistical Analysis and Data Mining)

• Rachel Kirsch ‘06, et al., Shortened universal cycles for permutations (Discrete Applied Mathematics)

• Elliott Kienzle ‘18 and S. Rayan, Hyperbolic band theory through Higgs bundles (Advances in Mathematics)

Social Science and Public Policy:

• Aaron Klein ‘94, The Financialization of Recession Response (J. Financial Crises) 

• Miranda Mockrin ‘95, et al., Balancing development and forest conservation: the impact of Maryland’s Forest Conservation Act on spatial configuration of forest and housing (J. Environ. Planning and Mgmt.)

• Ellen Kohl ‘97 and J. Walenta, Legal Rights for Whose Nature? (Annals of the American Association of Geographers)

• Jonah Berger ‘98, et al., What Holds Attention? Linguistic Drivers of Engagement (J. Marketing)

• L.F. Chavez, N.L. Gottdenker, J.V. Runk, and Luke Bergmann ‘98, Reifications in Disease Ecology 2: Towards a Decolonized Pedagogy Enabling Science by, and for, the People (Capitalism Nature Socialism)

• T. Tomiczek, Jennifer Helgeson ‘02, et al., A Framework for Characterizing Uncertainty Factors in Postdisaster Structural Performance Assessment Data (Natural Hazards)

• T. Jiwatram-Negron, Sarah Peitzmeier ‘06, et al., Associations between transactional sex and intimate and non-intimate partner violence: findings from project WINGS of Hope (J. Family Violence)

• J. Bae, R. Kapuscinski, and John Silberholz ‘06, Cost-Saving Synergy: Energy Stacking In Battery Energy Storage Systems (SSRN)

• A.R. Ong, R. Schultz, Sofi Sinozich ‘12, et al., A User-Driven Method for Using Research Products to Empirically Assess Item Importance in National Surveys (J. Official Statistics)

Local Activism:

• Kristin Mink '03 is Montgomery County's first Asian-American Council Member, one of six new women elected to the Council. She visited Blair in February (@blairprincipal).

• Anika Seth ‘21 and Aviva Bechky ‘21 helped to create the "Student Strong" app for MCPS.

Books and Stories:

• Carl Miller '97 shared his story at "The Moth," The Universal Language of Everything: YouTube

• Jonah Berger '98 has published a new book: Magic Words

• Kyle Orland '00 has published a new book on the history of Minesweeper. (Ars Technica)

Journalism:

• Elizabeth Green '02 co-authored a new "Roadmap for Local News"

• Jeff Guo '07 is a co-host of NPR's Planet Money, and he recently investigated How the cats of Dixfield, Maine came into a fortune — and almost lost it.

• Sophia Deng '13 has started a podcast on games: Game of Life

• Neil Dalal '14 covers the Washington Wizards for the Sports Daily, recently reporting that John Wall Is Grateful For The Flowers From Wizards Fans As He Pivots To A New Role For The Clippers.