Apr 15: Visit at University of Maryland, 10:30 am–4:15 pm

Apr 23: Visit at George Washington University, 2:30–4 pm

May 15: Annual Membership Luncheon Meeting, home of Yvonne Chen

Jun 8: Picnic/Barbeque, home of Patty Sparrell

Dear ARCS MWC Members,

Our annual fundraising event, the Eagle Award presentation on Apr 4, was amazing! The more than 82 attendees had fun, the venue was fantastic, and the auction and the paddle events alone raised over $45,000! Additional donations were made before and after the evening, which are still being tallied. All in all, a great success! Many thanks to Eagle Event co-chairs Charlotte Knight and Mary Jo Ruane for leading this wonderful event to celebrate scholarship, innovation and research. Additionally, thank you to over 15 other ARCS MWC members who volunteered their time and talents to make the evening a success. Additional details regarding the Eagle Honoree, Dr. John Mather, as well as the other speakers, are described in the article below.

University visits began this month! We were welcomed at three of our universities recently and had a chance to hear from our talented scholars. We reinforced our commitment to advancing science to the scholars and faculty; the faculty leaders acknowledged these are very uncertain times and ARCS unrestricted support is more important than ever! They are very thankful for both the financial and moral support! To continue our scholar support please come join us at the final two University visits. See photos below and details further down.

Mark your calendars! May 15 is the Annual Membership meeting to elect the 2025-2026 Board, and come meet scholars and scholar alums at Patty’s annual barbeque on Jun 8!

We are honored to lead such an amazing group of women!

~ Julie Hohl and Patty Sparrell, ARCS-MWC Co-Presidents

Campus Visit to Johns Hopkins University on Apr 1: Front row (l-r): Scholars Zachary Gold, Akshaya Annapragada, Sydney Shannon, Ariel Slepya, Alexander Lu, Rebecca Baxter and Sabahat Rahman. Back row (l-r): Amy Burdette, Kristen Bloschock, Jane Riddle, Patty Sparrell, Julie Hohl, Anne Wingo, Elli Nesbitt, Becky Corcoran, and Lauren Ryan.

Campus Visit to Georgetown University on Apr 9 (l-r): Miriam Erickson, Jane Riddle, Julie Hohl, Scholar DaVonne Henry, Becky Corcoran, Rebecca McNeilly, DaVonne's lab partner, and Dr. Paola Barbara, Physics Department Chair and co-mentor to DaVonne Henry, along with Dr. Amy Liu (not pictured).

The stars glittered at the ARCS MWC Eagle Award Celebration on Fri, Apr 4, 2025, at the illustrious Army and Navy Club in Washington, DC! 

Patty Sparrell and Julie Hohl, MWC Co-Presidents, bookended the cosmic cohort of speakers:

Our chapter's 2025 Eagle Awardee Dr. John Mather, a Nobel Laureate in Physics and Senior Astrophysicist, made a stellar presentation addressing topics ranging from his early days growing up on a Rutgers University agricultural research farm, which sparked his interest in science, to his groundbreaking work on both the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (the focus of his Nobel Prize) and the James Webb Space Telescope. He also donated copies of his book to four lucky attendees!

The constellation of speakers also included DaVonne Henry and Prachi Shah, two current ARCS MWC Scholars from Georgetown University, and Dr. GP Sandhoo, of the Space Development Agency, and 1995 ARCS Scholar at George Washington University.  

Over 82 attendees – including MWC members, donors, and other friends – raptly enjoyed the sold-out event! We were honored to have ARCS Foundation National President Beth Wainwight, who spoke during the program. Pat Anderson, Co-President of the ARCS Illinois Chapter, and her husband John Anderson, President of the National Academy of Engineering, also joined the festivities.

A highlight of the evening was the auction featuring auctioneer extraordinaire Amy Mykityshyn! Amy had the audience on the edge of their seats as she chanted “going, going, gone” on fantastic auction items with the bids supporting our scholars! Charlotte Knight then added to the MWC scholar fund as she led the successful “raise the paddle” feature! 

Thanks to Charlotte and Mary Jo Ruane, Co-VPs of Activities, for leading the fantastic event! Thanks also to the many MWC volunteers and donors who made the event a resounding success!

Patty Sparrell, Dr. John C. Mather and Julie Hohl.

Dr. Kathie Olsen and Beth Wainwright, ARCS Foundation National President

DaVonne Henry, Hilary Sparrell, Prachi Shah, Dr. Isaac Cervantes-Sandoval and Patty Sparrell.

Susan Trice, Bob Trice, Lauri Rustand, Gina Kim-Ahn and Becky Corcoran.

Prachi Shah, MWC Chapter Scholar, discussing her research into understanding the neurobiological basis of memory disruption (forgetting).

DaVonne Henry, Hesse Endowment Scholar, discussing his work on high-density magnetic data storage and decreasing storage device size.

Per our bylaws, the proposed candidates for the Board of Directors 2025-26 should be distributed to all the Members six weeks prior to the Chapter's Spring Annual Meeting, which is May 15 this year.

Many thanks to these Members, who have pledged their time and talents to these positions in the furtherance of the ARCS MWC mission.

There are two remaining Spring Campus Visits!

Apr 15: Visit at University of Maryland, 10:30 am–4:15 pm

Apr 23: Visit at George Washington University, 2:30–4 pm

Schedule and agenda details for UMD and GWU are below. To attend, RSVP to Michelle Francis at msmahf@gmail.com. Please include any dietary restrictions along with your RSVP.

University of Maryland Visit

Apr 15, 10:30 am–4:15 pm

Draft Agenda

• 10:30 am: Arrival
• 11:00 am: Welcome Remarks from CMNS and ENGR with scholar presentations to follow
• 12:15 pm: Presentations conclude and break
• 12:30 pm: Lunch and welcome remarks
• 1:45 pm: Lunch concludes

Tour Information

We are planning a tour at the University of Maryland's Institute for Health Computing (IHC) located in Bethesda, MD. Validated parking at the IHC will be provided. 

Tour schedule is as follows:

• 2 pm: Depart UMD Campus for the IHC Campus
• 2:45 pm: Arrive at the IHC Campus by personal cars with validated parking
• 3–4 pm: IHC Tour
• 4:15 pm: Depart IHC Campus

George Washington University Visit

Apr 23, 2:30–4 pm

Draft Agenda

• 2:30 pm: University Welcome from Dr. Suresh Subramaniam
• 2:35 pm: Opening Remarks by ARCS Foundation
• 2:45 pm: Remarks from Dr. Chad Heap, GW Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
• 2:50 pm: ARCS Scholar Presentation: Hallie Fausey

Introduced by Advisor, Dr. Alexander J. van der Horst

• 3:10 pm: Remarks from Dr. Jason Zara, GW School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• 3:15 pm: ARCS Scholar Presentation: Emily Cheung

Introduced by Advisor, Dr. Matthew Kay

• 3:35 pm: ARCS Scholar Presentation: Sanjori Mukherjee

Introduced by Advisor, Dr. Murray Loew

• 3:55 pm: Closing Remarks by Dr. Suresh Subramaniam

ARCS MWC Scholar Emma Glass was featured in the March edition of the ARCS National newsletter! The article highlights her research using genome sequences of all known bacterial pathogens to create metabolic models of each one through a computational pipeline that she developed. Emma is a PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia. Read more about Emma and her research here.

Joan Jordano was sponsored as an ARCS MWC member by Margie Shanklin in 1988. We thank Joan for her continued membership in ARCS MWC and applaud her for her ongoing commitment and many contributions to our chapter over the past 37 years! 

Joan’s commitment to volunteering led her to ARCS MWC. Joan was a Docent at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) for 20 years and through fellow NGA volunteers learned of The Hospitality and Information Service (THIS) at Meridian International. Joan became active in THIS and two ARCS MWC members who were also involved in THIS – Margie Shanklin and Evelyn Moore – spoke highly of ARCS MWC to Joan. Joan was initially intrigued by ARCS MWC’s financial awards because she went to college through a scholarship. She stayed in ARCS MWC because it is such a wonderful organization, especially how it gets young people involved in the sciences and engineering. Joan also liked the camaraderie and the dedication of the other members. 

Joan has served ARCS MWC in many leadership roles. For example, in her first year in the chapter, she worked on one of the chapter’s signature benefit events. At that time, the events were held at venues such as the Congressional Country Club or the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. She was also Chairman (and before that Vice Chairman) of social events that allowed the members to get together and catch up. 

Joan says that her work on so many projects benefitting the Scholars during her long membership with ARCS MWC ranks among her greatest achievements. She is also pleased that she is able to donate a PhD financial award given the importance of the organization’s mission. Joan would like to tell fellow chapter members, especially the newer members, that she is very glad they are all getting the opportunity to see how important ARCS MWC is for our Scholars and she hopes that they will all continue contributing their time and resources to the chapter because it helps our country so much. Joan emphasized that these financial awards are our way to invest in the future.

ARCS MWC welcomes new member Ming Ward! Ming joined in January and is sponsored by Chi Pham.

Ming earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. She began her career as an engineer at GTE in Stamford, CT, developing a system to transmit high-resolution images over satellites. She relocated to Northern Virginia when the project was transferred to GTE Spacenet in McLean. When GTE Spacenet was sold, Ming opted to stay in the area and transitioned into computer systems consulting.

Planning to start a family and reduce travel, Ming chose a local consulting position at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at NIH. For over 25 years now, she has worked on the team that built the widely used human genetic variation database, dbSNP, or the Human Genome Project. Virtually all genetic researchers rely on dbSNP for the unique human variation Reference SNP(RS#) dbSNP’s computational system assigned. This involves genetic sequence matching to determine if two genetic variations are the same or different. If you’ve used services like 23andMe or Ancestry.com, you may have noticed the RS#. Currently, Ming is the Product Owner for the FHIR (Fast Health Interoperability Resource) delivery of NIH’s database of genotype and phenotype (dbGaP), another widely-used biomedical resource. Ming is deeply passionate about promoting genomic data sharing while protecting patient privacy, with the goal of enabling scientific discoveries.

Ming and Chi first met when their children were at Churchill Road Elementary school. Ming has volunteered much time to her two sons’ schools. She has coached Science Olympiad teams, supported the Langley Crew team as part of the booster club, and helped organize chess and flag football teams.

Ming enjoys running, hiking, sailing, skiing, and recently, weight training. While training for marathons, she listens to audiobooks and podcasts, especially enjoying biographies of scientists and podcasts on health/medical topics.

Ming attended the ARCS Friends Mixology/Cooking class in November 2023, where she first met some of our members. She attended the ARCS Eagle Award Ceremony in April 2024, and more recently, attended a small informal tea in December 2024 with our co-Presidents and other members. Please give Ming a warm 'hello' when you meet her!

DaVonne Henry – Hesse Endowment Scholar

1st Year Scholar, PhD candidate, Physics

Georgetown University

Research: Combining single-molecule magnets (SMMs) with graphene nanodevices can lead to high-density data storage or quantum computing applications. Using nanofabrication techniques, I create highly responsive devices that can be used to perform measurements on SMMs. Electrical measurements and computational models are used to assess the performance of these devices and determine their working principles.

How Will Your Research Benefit Society? 

To improve from the current state-of-the-art high-density magnetic data storage, novel solutions are needed to reduce the data storage device size while maintaining data integrity. Single-molecule magnets have the potential to greatly improve data storage density. This research involves electrical measurements and computational models to investigate the fundamental questions related to how these molecules can decrease storage device size.

How will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?

For accurate determination of the carrier density in graphene, and for measurements of devices tuned near the fermi level, I will need a setup that allows me to perform careful gate-dependent conductivity measurements inside the cryostat. This award will support the acquisition of instruments needed for these measurements.

Career objectives: I hope to continue researching novel technologies for information processing that can meet the world’s increasing demands in an energy-efficient manner. Additionally, through outreach and mentoring, I want to support a new generation of diverse scientists.

Community service: In the summer of 2020, I helped to found an organization within Georgetown Physics called Physicists Against Racism, which encourages faculty and students to consider how bias affects society and the scientific community.

Prachi Shah - MWC Chapter Scholar

1st Year Scholar, PhD candidate, Biology

Georgetown University

Research: Memory and forgetting are highly regulated biological processes fundamental for animal survival in an ever-changing environment. This project aims to understand the neurobiological basis of retrograde amnesia induced by different insults. This research requires the development of a number of cutting-edge, custom-made tools to explore the molecular, cellular and circuit mechanisms involved in the degradation of memory.

How Will Your Research Benefit Society? 

Until recently, it was thought that after memory acquisition occurs, there is a passive process of forgetting, where the memory just naturally decays over time. However, it is now known that forgetting is a highly, well-regulated active process in our brain. My research is the first to look at the cellular and molecular mechanisms of anesthesia-induced memory loss using the model organism, Drosophila melanogaster. 

My experimental data indicates anesthesia onset induces robust dopaminergic neuronal activity, which may be responsible for the subsequent forgetting. While paradigm shifting, we cannot have a complete understanding of how memory systems work until we understand the neurobiological basis of memory disruption. My research will shed additional light on the neurophysiological consequences of the use of anesthetics and offers an unparalleled resource to understand how anesthesia affects dopaminergic signaling and as a result, learning, memory and forgetting. Ultimately, this study can help anesthesiologists tailor anesthesia regimens to minimize memory impairment while still achieving adequate sedation.

How will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?

An ARCS award will allow me to purchase unconventional lab equipment that allows for cutting-edge experiments. The financial award will be used directly for research support, as the techniques I want to use will directly measure intrinsic electrical properties of dopaminergic cells, rather than using canonical methods where we rely on approximations, such as in calcium imaging.

Career objectives: My professional goals as a PhD candidate are to engage in collaborative research, actively participate in professional societies and attend conferences where I can meet a diverse network of scientists. Ultimately, I have a long-term goal of becoming a Principal Investigator in the field of neuroscience, hoping to contribute to the study of active forgetting. 

Patrick Banner – MWC 55th Anniversary Scholar

1^st Year Scholar, PhD candidate, Physics

University of Maryland

Research: This research spans atomic, optical, and detector physics. The primary research uses strongly interacting atoms to make light and matter interact in ways that can be used for both studies of fundamental few-body physics problems that cannot be solved analytically, as well as emerging quantum technologies – especially quantum networks. The results have application in specialized detector design as well as quantum computer design.

How Will Your Research Benefit Society? 

My work in atomic and optical physics promises not only to advance scientific knowledge of systems that are hard to study analytically, but also to improve emerging quantum networking technologies. Quantum technology promises, among other things, totally secure communication with new encryption standards, and it will be desirable for this communication to occur over long-distance quantum networks. My research will improve a platform that can serve as a node in a quantum network, ideally making these network nodes sufficiently robust, deterministic, and error-free that they can serve as the foundation for true quantum networks.

I am also interested in the sociological aspects of physics graduate education. My work in physics graduate student mental health will provide data that can support changes to physics graduate programs that will ameliorate mental health struggles in these programs. Not only do mental health struggles result in economic losses for institutions, but scientific research is extremely complex work. I hope this research will ultimately create more resilient, more productive, more daring, and more innovative scientists.

How will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?

On the personal side, some of my salary supports my family, and additional funds would relieve a great deal of financial stress, allowing me to be more productive in all aspects of my research. Additional funds will also allow me to engage in professional travel to attend conferences and workshops in my fields of research. Finally, I believe a critical portion of the award is the ability to develop a network of connections among ARCS members and alumni. Networking is crucial for a scientist to develop ideas and innovation, and I believe discussions with fellow ARCS physicists could provide insights for both my current research and future professional development.

Career objectives: My research experience makes me well-suited to continue innovative work in quantum science, and I hope to bring my various fields of expertise to a position in academia. My work in atomic and device physics makes me well-suited to help students understand experimental techniques, visualize physics concepts, and develop wonder about the natural world. Thinking about student mental health not only makes me a more compassionate instructor, but also expands my belief in what it means to “do physics,” which are epistemological goals I hope to communicate in my classrooms. I believe this combination of traits will help me be effective in training new generations of scientists and innovators.

Submit articles, pictures, pdfs, and website links by the 20th of each month for publication the following month to Helen Miller at mwccommunications@arcsfoundation.org.