May 15: Annual Membership Luncheon Meeting, home of Yvonne Chen, 11 am-1:30 pm

Jun 8: Picnic/Barbeque, home of Patty Sparrell, 4-8 pm

Dear ARCS MWC Members,

April was a busy month! There were numerous highlights, from the Eagle Award Celebration to the five university visits. The university visits allowed us to see firsthand the amazing talents of our scholars and the appreciation of our university partners. Special thanks to Michelle Francis for organizing these visits and to all members who reached out to carpool. More details are provided below.

We look forward to seeing you at the May 15 Membership Luncheon meeting at Yvonne Chen’s home, when your participation is most important as we elect our new Board. This will be an opportunity to thank the outgoing Board members for their dedication and welcome the incoming members. Today is the last day to RSVP for the luncheon, so click here now! 

The last ARCS MWC event of the year is the Annual End of the Year BBQ including Members, Scholars and Scholar Alumni at Patty’s home on Jun 8. Come, enjoy the fun and food, and celebrate our successful year! Registration details provided below or click here to RSVP.

As we all know, the ARCS MWC Mission to "Advance STEM in our Nation's Capital" is as important today as it was 57 years ago when our chapter was founded. The comments shared by the Deans and faculty members during the recent university visits reinforced their appreciation of our continued support during these uncertain times. Our chapter's fiscal year comes to a close on Jun 30. If you would like to donate to the scholar fund, providing an opportunity to support future scholars, now's the time! You can donate via Zelle at mwctreasurer@arcsfoundation.org, pay via check (ARCS-MWC) or donate online via the website. Also, feel free to invite a friend to donate to a cause very important to you. If you have any questions, contact Assistant Treasurer Lubna Zahir at lubnavzahie@gmail.com or one of us.

With sincere appreciation,

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

The ARCS members were incredibly impressed by the student scholars' presentations during the recent ARCS MWC visits to the five partner universities. Member comments included:

~ The visits are so motivating!

~ The scholars are so impressive!

~ The opportunity to hear from a few scholars at a time reinforces my commitment to ARCS!

~ I enjoyed getting to know my ARCS peers during the carpool drive!

The messages delivered by the research advisors and research deans were heartfelt, “… during these uncertain times, ARCS funding of research in the areas of science, engineering, and medicine is appreciated and even more important!” We reconfirmed our commitment and ongoing support to this effort. 

The research topics included: cancer research, quantum computers, memory loss, patient support techniques, as well as astrophysics and many more. Even though the research was very sophisticated, the scholars repeatedly described their work in very understandable terms. It was great to hear how they are using their ARCS awards, as one scholar mentioned, “… I was able to travel to conferences around the world and network with scientific colleagues, which allowed me to expand my research focus and accelerated my project.” All attendees look forward to next year’s visits and encourage additional members to join.

George Washington University, April 23

Campus Visit to George Washington University (l-r): Becky Corcoran, Dr. Murray Loew, Patty Sparrell and Scholar Sanjori Mukherjee.

Campus Visit to George Washington University (l-r): Julie Hohl, Scholars Emily Cheung and Hallie Fausey, and Michelle Francis.

Campus Visit to George Washington University (l-r): Julie Hohl, Miriam Erickson, Becky Corcoran, Elli Nesbitt, Charlotte Knight, Michelle Francis, Dr. Jason Zara, Scholar Emily Cheung, Helen Miller, Dr. Alexander van der Horst, Dr. Suresh Subramaniam, Dr. Murray Loew, Scholar Sanjori Mukherjee, Patty Sparrell, Scholar Hallie Fausey and Dr. Chad Heap.

University of Maryland, April 15

Campus Visit to University of Maryland (l-r): Scholars Eman Mirdanmadi, Patrick Bannon, Emily Powsner and 2025-26 Scholar Kieran Barvenik.

Campus Visit to University of Maryland (l-r): Scholar Patrick Bannon discusses his research on quantum technologies, including quantum networks.

Campus Visit to University of Maryland (l-r): Jane Riddle, Miriam Erickson, Duncan Sparrell, Michelle Francis, Scholar Eman Mirdanmadi, Julie Hohl, Scholar Patrick Bannon, Patty Sparrell, Scholar Emily Powsner, Irene Lukoff, future Scholar Kieran Barvenik, Helen Miller, Ravinder Sandhoo and Tamika Hodnet.

Georgetown University, April 9

Campus Visit to Georgetown University (l-r): Scholar DaVonne Henry in his lab.

Campus Visit to Georgetown University (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).

University of Virginia, April 2

UVA Scholars (l-r): Emma Glass, Tyler Horoho and Najwa Labban.

Johns Hopkins University, April 1

Campus Visit to Johns Hopkins University on Apr 1: Front row (l-r): Scholars Alexander Lu, Zachary Gold and Ariel Slepya. Back row (l-r): Rebecca Baxter, Sabahat Rahman, Akshaya Annapragada and Sydney Shannon.

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.

The proposed candidates for the Board of Directors 2025-26 are listed below and will be voted on during our Spring Annual Meeting on May 15.

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

Antonia Schierling (Toni) has been a member of ARCS Metro Washington Chapter (ARCS MWC) since 1992. We applaud Toni’s continued commitment to ARCS MWC and her many contributions to the chapter over the past 33 years, especially her participation in so many leadership roles on the Board!

Toni was sponsored by Joan Jordano. Joan was already an active ARCS MWC member at that time and had been asking Toni to join for several years but Toni was busy bringing up her kids and traveling. But once she learned that the chapter needed someone to help Molly Church, the chapter’s Treasurer, Toni immediately volunteered. Toni and Molly first kept the books by hand and then transitioned to QuickBooks®—and Toni wasn’t even a member yet! While working with Molly, Toni also got to know the other wonderful ladies of ARCS MWC and, when they asked her to join, she agreed because she liked the camaraderie she found with a visionary group of women dedicated to outreach and education and she was very impressed with the ARCS mission. 

During her time with ARCS MWC, Toni has been a member of all the Councils and financial committees and served as chapter President during 2006-08. She was also named an ARCS Angel and an ARCS Light because of her service and leadership to the chapter! She found it so rewarding to see the progress and successes of the scholars. In one case, when Toni interviewed a scholar, he told her that receiving the ARCS award set him up for receiving more rewards. Toni said it was almost euphoric seeing such wonderful and meaningful results of the ARCS award. 

One of her greatest achievements as President of the chapter was setting up a luncheon for scholar networking at a local country club and identifying donations to underwrite it. The scholars really enjoyed meeting each other, networking, and exchanging notes on their research. The event was very meaningful to the scholars because they were all at similar stages in their educational journey. 

When asked what would she say to the ARCS MWC membership, especially the newer members, Toni immediately replied: “Kindness is contagious!” She added that it was so compelling to create a ripple effect of giving and generosity that, in turn, fosters a culture of empathy and connection in a world filled with so much self-interest. Toni said that it is powerful to believe that someone else has potential because that mindset opens doors to students that might otherwise have remained closed. As we support our amazing scholars, we are empowering the next generation of innovators and changemakers and furthering significant advances in U.S. science and engineering!

Emily Cheung – MWC Chapter Scholar

1st Year Scholar, PhD candidate, Biomedical Engineering

George Washington University

Research: To develop a novel therapy that provides targeted activation of specific neuron populations in the brain to mitigate progression of cardiovascular diseases that have higher prevalence in women. I use high-speed optical mapping techniques to measure cardiac conduction and electrophysiological properties, and examine the efficacy of this treatment on failing hearts.

How Will Your Research Benefit Society? 

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Identifying 

novel therapies can increase longevity, improve quality of life, and alleviate the 

immense burden it places on individuals and healthcare systems. My research focuses on developing a treatment for heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, which impacts about 50% of all heart failure patients and has a higher prevalence in women. There is high translatability of this work into the clinic, so I am hopeful that this research will provide lifesaving treatment for women.

How will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?

An ARCS award will allow me to build upon my research and explore aspects of heart failure that affect organ systems beyond the heart. Receiving an ARCS award would provide me with funding to investigate the mechanics of neuroinflammation in heart failure and assess the potential of our innovative treatment to prevent or alleviate inflammation of brain regions. Furthermore, the ARCS award would allow me to connect with a broad network of incredible ARCS scholars and industry leaders in science and technology, whom I could look to for support and mentoring as I continue to grow as a researcher and scientist.

Career objectives: After completion of my PhD, I plan to pursue a career in the biotechnology industry, where I can apply techniques and skills learned during my doctoral studies to new applications. One aspect that I am particularly interested in is brain computing interface technology. I find the brain such a fascinating organ and am excited to design and test technology that can be used to better understand interconnections between the brain, the origins of neurodegenerative diseases and ways to mitigate them, and if and how brain functions can be used as indicators of overall health. Lastly, as a graduate teaching assistant, I have found a passion for teaching, and would like to teach adjunct at universities, sharing my experience and expertise in the biotechnology field with the next generation of scientists.

Sydney Shannon – Virginia Lukasik Memorial Scholar

1st Year Scholar, PhD candidate, Biomedical Engineering

Johns Hopkins University

Research: Gene therapies are transforming treatment approaches for many human diseases; but current approaches can be very costly and not available for all patients. This research focuses on engineering novel biomaterials that incorporate natural immune signals to activate the body’s immune cells to treat cancer. My platform has the potential to mediate anti-tumor effects as a more accessible and durable “off-the-shelf” therapeutic, and therefore available to more patients.

How Will Your Research Benefit Society? 

Even with treatment advances, the annual global burden of new cancer cases and deaths is still expected to rise. There is a critical need for novel therapies that specifically engineer the immune system to prevent cancer progression in a more globally accessible and longer-lasting manner. My thesis dissertation therefore focuses on engineering biomaterials for activation of cytotoxic T-cells in treating cancer without the need to harvest a patient’s cells for current immunotherapy treatments. My passion lies in recreating artificial antigen-presentation (aAPCs) using injectable biodegradable platforms. Synthetic aAPC platforms made with polymers provide distinct advantages over current cellular systems in terms of manufacturing, long-term storage, overall costs, and the ability to optimize T-cell activation and biocompatibility. My dissertation work will address critical challenges in immunoengineering and cancer immunotherapy, leading to a safe, effective, and flexible platform for stimulation of cytotoxic anti-tumor T-cells in vivo, which has direct impact on human health and equitable access to cancer treatments.

How will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?

The Scholar Award will help cover research-associated costs and allow me to focus on more experimental productivity and career development moving into my final years. My data output depends on a growing necessity for advanced programming packages, including Prism and FlowJo; these software packages require licenses to statistically analyze and sort the overwhelmingly large data sets that I collect.

Further, I will be able to attend conferences outside the local area that are important to me as a scientific researcher and minority in STEM. The ARCS award will fund expensive travel and registration-related costs that are not covered by my laboratories or department and have hindered my ability to attend these larger-scale international conferences.

Career objectives: Upon enrolling in my first undergraduate engineering courses, I was alarmed by the limited female representation and the realities of the “glass ceiling.” I therefore want to advise and empower future generations of scientists with diverse backgrounds, breaking down barriers that nearly discouraged me from pursuing my PhD and passion for biomedical research. Secondly, I want to lead a laboratory and pioneer the development of biomaterials for cancer immunotherapies, transforming discoveries into accessible realities from the bench to the bedside. I am excited by current medical therapies and treatments, but even more so by the fact that they would not exist without pioneers in research.

Ariel Slepyan – Willard and Marilynn Sweetser Scholar 

1st Year Scholar, PhD candidate, Electrical & Computer Engineering

Johns Hopkins University

Research: My research is focused on developing ‘CS-Skin’, a next-generation touch sensor mimicking the acuity of human skin. CS-Skin boasts a large area, numerous sensors, and fast response times, replicating human touch. This innovative technology, tested successfully in robotic hands, enhances dexterity and object recognition. CS-Skin has the potential to revolutionize prosthetics, robotics, and everyday surfaces by granting them human-like touch capabilities.

How Will Your Research Benefit Society? 

The key benefit of CS-Skin lies in its ability to achieve human-level tactile perception in a scalable way. This paves the way for widespread adoption and integration into various technologies, ultimately improving our ability to interact with the world around us. Benefits include:

• Revolutionizing prosthetics: Amputees could regain a more natural sense of touch, drastically improving their ability to interact with the world and enhancing quality of life for amputees.
• Enhancing robotics: Robots equipped with CS-Skin would be safer and more capable. They could perform delicate tasks with greater dexterity, identify objects by touch, and navigate environments with improved awareness. This could lead to advancements in areas like manufacturing, search and rescue, and even eldercare.
• Widespread touch-based interfaces and interactive displays: CS-Skin has the capacity to equip nearly any surface with human-like touch sensitivity. This opens doors for innovative interfaces in countless areas. Imagine walls that respond to touch gestures, car dashboards that provide tactile feedback, or clothing that can communicate information through touch. This could also transform human-computer interaction, leading to more intuitive and immersive experiences for gaming, education, and various other applications.

How will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?

A critical use of the award will be to help cover the costs of fabricating numerous samples and test beds of my CS-Skin that I can showcase and distribute at the conferences I attend. By fabricating many samples of my sensors, I can share them with collaborators so they can use and test them in their own work.

Additional potential benefits include attending conferences and workshops, collaborating with leading researchers outside of JHU, advancing the impact of my research through dissemination of sensors, and paying publication fees at leading, high-impact journals. Being an ARCS scholar will also connect me with a valuable community of scholars and mentors.

Career objectives: My career objective is to become a university research professor, as I am passionate about mentoring and educating the next generations of students and researchers in cutting-edge technology. I also am excited to start my own lab focused on solving critical real-world problems through high-resolution sensing. I want to immediately build on the innovations of my PhD research to solve problems in robotics and prosthetics, and also adapt my scalable sensing solutions to other sensor modalities. Ultimately, I aspire to build large collaborative centers where academics can converge with industry to foster synergistic development partnerships. By bridging the gap between theory and practice, these collaborative endeavors will accelerate the journey of innovative technologies from the confines of the laboratory to impactful products that benefit society. 

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.