l-r: Charlotte Knight, Doris Pierson, Helen Miller, Fall Meeting Host Amy Mykityshyn, Trish O’Malley, Beth Czaban, Rebecca McNeilly, Julie Hohl.

View all photos from the Fall Membership Meeting here!

This year's Scholar Awards Reception (SAR) will be held on Thurs, Nov 5 at 6:30 pm at the National Academy of Sciences.

Our featured speaker is ARCS MWC Scholar Alum Dr. Gurpartap "GP" Sandhoo. GP is the Director of the Space Development Agency and the Space Force Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Missile Warning and Tracking. A renowned national security and technology leader across the private and public sectors, he is a veteran of more than 36 years in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. Dr. Sandhoo was an ARCS MWC Scholar during 1995-97 while he was earning his PhD at GWU.

We hope you will join us and bring a guest! RSVP by Oct 26. For planning purposes, please RSVP with either your confirmation or your regrets.

Interested in sponsoring the SAR? Reach out to Jane Riddle at mwcpresident@arcsfoundation.org.

Planning is already underway for our 2027 Eagle Celebration, where we will be honoring Commander Everett Alvarez Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.). Everett was the first American aviator shot down over North Vietnam and was held as a prisoner of war for more than eight years. Following his Navy career, he served as Deputy Director of the Peace Corps, Deputy Administrator of the Veterans Administration, and for more than 20 years as a member and two-time chair of the Board of Regents of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the nation’s military medical school. Everett’s wife, Tammy, has been a member of our chapter since 1986 and has helped in several roles over the years.

Please save the date! The Eagle Celebration will be held on Apr 2, 2027 at The Army and Navy Club in Washington, DC. Thank you to Alice Laning for being our club sponsor. More details on this sure to be exciting event will be sent out in the coming months.

Lynn Dillon joined ARCS Metro Washington Chapter (ARCS MWC) in 2000! We thank Lynn for her continuing commitment and contributions to the chapter over the past 26 years, especially her willingness to lend a hand and step in when needed! Lynn’s sponsor was Mary Kennedy. 

Mary (Lynn’s neighbor at the time) introduced her to ARCS. Mary was an enthusiastic advocate for ARCS MWC, praising its mission and its wonderful members. Thanks to Mary’s graciousness, Lynn attended a few ARCS events to learn more about the organization, to meet members, and to better appreciate the key role ARCS plays in supporting higher education and scientific advancement in the United States.  

Lynn stayed an ARCS MWC member because it is truly unique as an all-volunteer organization - making the contributions of every member important and assuring that every dollar donated goes to the Scholars. Lynn added that meeting the Scholars and learning about their amazing research projects is always inspiring. She finds it extremely impressive how, over the course of their careers, each Scholar advances science and engineering for the greater good. 

Lynn’s proudest achievement was her service on the ARCS MWC Board as President, especially during a Board-led strategic realignment. She says that many initiatives were underway at that time, including reorganizing the Board structure, attracting new members, building the chapter’s external donor base with corporations and foundations, hiring a professional firm to manage the Endowment Fund, and re-energizing annual field trips for members (with visits to Goddard Space Center and the National Observatory). It was a busy time! 

When asked what she would say to the members, especially newer members, Lynn offered the following suggestions: 

• Connect with fellow members and the Scholars. 
• Determine how you would like to be engaged – opportunities include sponsoring new members, coordinating with university partners and the Scholars, supporting donor outreach, and/or planning or hosting events. Each and every effort builds for the future!
• Have fun.  

Meet our three Second Year Scholars!

Kieran Barvenik – Angie Delaney Memorial Scholar

2nd Year Scholar, PhD Candidate, Mechanical Engineering

University of Maryland

Research: My research seeks to explore the development of novel soft hemispherical robots, which utilize a flexible hemispherical shell coupled with pneumatic or hydraulic loading to produce a complex “Pac-Man” grasping shape. Because soft robots tend to deform more slowly and with less force than rigid, motorbased robots, we utilize the unique spherical geometry to exploit the principle of mechanical buckling to improve speed and force output. My research also aims to characterize this intrinsic sensing capability and observe how the devices can be used as low-cost grippers with a sense of touch. 

How Will Your Research Benefit Society?

Soft robots pose a variety of benefits over their rigid counterparts including low cost, ease of manufacturability, and safety for human interaction. Our gripper’s ability to avoid stressing biological tissue, coupled with its passive environmental sensing capability, make it poised for surgical implementation. Additionally, due to the low manufacturing cost of the device, it could be easily customized for patient-specific treatment in settings for which the cost of cutting-edge laparoscopic devices is prohibitive.

How will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?

The ARCS Foundation’s support has already been extraordinarily impactful for my research. Beyond providing exceptional opportunities for networking and professional development, it has enabled me to live close to UMD’s campus such that I can devote more time and attention to the progression of my degree. In reapplying for an ARCS Award, I would seek to increase my conference attendance to expand the reach of our research. These conferences are instrumental towards gathering intermediary feedback on the research and creating new avenues for interdisciplinary collaboration. Focusing more on out of-lab collaborations will also facilitate the goal of implementing the soft robotic devices in true medical environments.

Career objectives: In my career path, I have sought opportunities to utilize fundamental mechanical engineering principles within medical applications to improve quality of life through enhancements to safety or reductions in cost. I hope that I can continue using my understanding of soft robot design, manufacturing, and modeling to conceptualize and implement low-cost devices to revolutionize minimally invasive surgical applications in areas with limited funding and resources.

Isaac Bilsel – Barbara Luchsinger Memorial Scholar

2nd Year Scholar, PhD Candidate, Computer Engineering

George Washington University

Research: Modern large language models use a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) approach to scale to massive sizes by activating only parts of the model at a time. While this reduces computation, it creates complex communication between different computing units, leading to performance bottlenecks. This work investigates hardware-software co-design strategies to support these MoE communication patterns. 

How Will Your Research Benefit Society?

As machine learning models develop to process more and more data, traditional general purpose hardware is failing to keep up, causing excess energy consumption with devastating environmental and economic impacts. The current rate at which LLM model size and usage is scaling is unsustainable without drastic change in the underlying hardware. The development of AI accelerators can reduce global energy consumption, and allow for these models to be implemented on various smart devices to improve productivity.

How will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?

The ARCS award would be primarily used for attending conferences to gain insight on modern trends and interact with experts in computer architecture. These conferences are essential to gaining a sound understanding into the state of current research. Additionally, because this field is rapidly changing, conference papers are generally valued more than publications in journals or books. 

Career objectives: In the future, I hope to work in a research and design oriented role in ASIC hardware development. My aim is to develop low energy solutions for processing machine learning workloads in order to reduce the growing environmental impact of modern data-driven applications. 

Alexander "Sasha" Frolov – Endowment Scholar

2nd Year Scholar, PhD Candidate, Computer Science

University of Maryland

Research: My research area is cryptography, which is the mathematical study of secure communication and computation. I am interested in making cryptographic systems faster and more capable. I currently work on Zero-Knowledge Proofs, which let users show that statements like "I have a valid Social Security number" or "I am in Washington, DC" are true without revealing any private data like their Social Security number or location. 

How Will Your Research Benefit Society?

Faster and more capable cryptographic systems are more likely to be used in practice, where they will actually help keep people’s data secure. For example, when I worked at Meta, I helped build a new system for monitoring usage of cryptographic algorithms at the company. The system helped us find many ways to improve the company’s security, and has thus improved the security of billions of users’ data. My current work is more forward-looking. Better Zero-Knowledge Proofs and new applications for them can help keep people’s data safe and give people more control over their data in new and novel ways.

How will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?

I have already received an ARCS Award in 2025. The money has given me the opportunity to not work as a teaching assistant this semester, and instead focus entirely on research. I also worked on a project last semester evaluating the ability of Large Language Models to generate phishing emails. Parts of this project involved making very large (and potentially expensive) queries to AI systems like Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s GPT series. I felt more comfortable making a paid account for these services with money from ARCS.

A future ARCS award will help me continue to focus on research instead of teaching. I am currently beginning work on some projects which involve working with GPUs, which are an often expensive type of computer hardware. Consistent research funding will allow me to continue to have access to specialized computing resources for research.

Career objectives: My eventual aim is to return to an industry research lab and help deploy advanced cryptographic technologies to billions of users. When I worked at Meta, I worked on these types of problems as an engineer. One of my main goals in graduate school is to develop the skills and knowledge to be able to lead large-scale applied research projects in industry as a scientist.