Content will be added on this page as alumni submit updates, so check back periodically! If you have an update, please let us know. Last update: 9/19/2025
1960s
Margaret "Kit" Ellis (B.S. 1967, M.S. 1969) was interviewed by Jill Freidberg for HistoryLink.org on managing the 195-acre Ellis Family Forest near Gig Harbor, WA. The June 3, 2025, interview (edited for clarity and length), along with shorter audio recordings and photographs are posted as HistoryLink.org Essay 23325.
Prof. Bruce Kowalski (Ph.D. 1969) was featured in an Icons of Spectroscopy article by Jerome Workman Jr. titled Bruce R. Kowalski: The Maverick Mind Behind Chemometrics published on June 2, 2025. Bruce Kowalski (1942-2012), an internationally recognized analytical chemist, pioneered the development of "chemometric" data analysis tools to convert instrumentally collected data into chemically relevant information. Through Bruce's vision for addressing real-world challenges with emerging analytical technology, Bruce became the founding director of the Center for Process Analytical Chemistry (CPAC) at the University of Washington in 1984 along with Prof. Jim Callis ’70, via seed funding from the National Science Foundation. CPAC rapidly evolved as an Industry-National Laboratory-University research center globally recognized as a model for interdisciplinary research collaboration. The field of chemometrics was the keystone of the myriad successes of CPAC, which facilitated the education of literally 100s of PhD degrees. Indeed, throughout Bruce's career his leadership in the development of chemometrics as a discipline and research tool, coupled with the growth of CPAC, led to the mentoring and collaborative influence of many scientists at all levels, strengthening our national economy by optimizing our nation's industrial effectiveness. Workman Jr.'s tribute also mentions coworkers Sharaf Muhammad Abdallah, Ph.D. ’82; Deborah L. Illman ’76; Karl Booksh, Ph.D. ’94; and Avraham Lorber, Ph.D. ’90. Additionally, Brian Rohrback, MBA ’85 is acknowledged for reviewing the article. (This update was contributed by Prof. Rob Synovec.)
1980s
ManYee Betty Tsang (Ph.D. 1980) won the 2025 Glenn T. Seaborg Award for Nuclear Chemistry from the American Chemical Society "for exceptional research contributions related to the equation of state of nuclear matter and neutron stars, the production of unstable nuclei, and the dynamics of heavy-ion collisions." Betty is a professor of nuclear science at Michigan State University.
1990s
Yongdong Wang (Ph.D. 1992) is the founder and president of Cerno Bioscience, with over a decade of industry experience and dozens of patents in chemometrics, calibration and scientific instrumentation. He was the former head of Global Science & Technology at PerkinElmer Analytical Instruments, and in addition to his Ph.D. in chemometrics from the UW, he has an MBA from Columbia Business School. Yongdong was interviewed by Technology Networks about Cerno's software for mass spectrometry data analysis.
2010s
Jonathan Cox (Ph.D. 2012) moved with his wife and children to Kyrgyzstan for about a year to work with a non-profit that seeks to improve agricultural practices in Central Asia. Learn more about his experience in Kyrgyzstan at his Substack, The Nomad Scientist.
Jacob Fillman (B.S. 2019) graduated from veterinary school in May 2025 with a DVM degree and is practicing in Las Cruces, NM.
Beeta Heydari (B.S. 2019) and Bahar Heydari (B.S. 2019) earned Ph.D.s in organic chemistry from San Diego State University in spring 2025. CBS News in San Diego covered their academic journey in "Chemistry prodigies | Identical twins earn PhDs from UCSD/SDSU, following mother's scientific legacy" on May 16, 2025.
Venkateswar Reddy Guvvala, Ph.D., who conducted postdoctoral research with Michael Gelb from 2013-15, is an API process development supervisor at Raghava Life Sciences in Hyderabad, India. Prior to joining Raghava, he worked in well reputed organizations like Dr. Reddy’s and Hetero labs. His work focuses on safe, effective and green chemistry approaches for the API and CDMO process development by following the SELECT principles. Through rational API process design by QbD approach and following effective quality risk management (QRM) strategies by using risk management tools like FMEA and FMECA, this comprehensive quality system ensures products are safe, effective and consistently produced to high quality standards that fulfill the regulatory (FDA, EMA ... etc.) requirements in the API generic world.
Johanna Schwartz (Ph.D. 2017) and collaborators were awarded funding from the Scialog: Automating Chemical Laboratories initiative to identify membrane targets for synthesis, characterization and testing in hydrogen fuel cells. Schwartz, who is a staff scientist/primary investigator at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, says "This award will enable me to integrate LLNL’s Studying-Polymers-On a-Chip (SPOC) high-throughput screening and characterization system with my collaborators’ high-throughput computational and experimental efforts to improve fuel cell membranes at speeds not previously possible.” LLNL published a press release on June 17, 2025.
2020s
Lina Mikaliunaite (Ph.D. 2024) traces her path from high school in Vilnius, Lithuania, through a B.Sc. in chemistry at Pepperdine University and doctoral research with Prof. Robert Synovec at UW, to her current role as an application chemist at Markes International. She shares her story in The LCGC Blog: Charting My Chemistry Journey—From Undergraduate LC to Industry GC×GC (August 25, 2025).
Zachary Potter-Engelskirger (Ph.D. 2023), now a postdoctoral associate at Scripps Research, was awarded the 2024 AACR-AstraZeneca Breast Cancer Fellowship from the American Association for Cancer Research for "Discovery and mechanistic characterization of paralog-restricted, allosteric covalent CDK4 ligands." More about Zack's research is on the AACR page for 2024 Grantees.
Kelly Walsh (Ph.D. 2024) was awarded the Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemical Sciences from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation (April 2025). Kelly earned her Ph.D. working with Prof. Daniel Gamelin and is now a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley in the group of Prof. Kwabena Bediako. Also a member of the Bediako Lab is Meg Takezawa (B.S. 2024) who worked with Prof. Ashleigh Theberge while at the UW and is currently funded by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
Next Steps
Lia Barrow (B.S. 2025), who conducted undergraduate research with Lauren Rajakovich, will be a research associate at the Broad Institute.
Priya Christensen (B.S. 2025) is a Postbaccalaureate Research Fellow supported by the Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) at the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Center.
Beth Fawcett (MSACST 2025) and Tingxuan Liu (B.S. 2023, MSACST 2025) will both be starting the Ph.D. program at the University of Utah! While at the UW, Beth worked with Matt Bush and Tingxuan worked with Bo Zhang.
Doyk Hwang, Ph.D., who worked with Cody Schlenker as a postdoctoral scholar and with Munira Khalil as a research scientist, is starting a role at Meta as a process engineer.
Sebastian Krajewski (Ph.D. 2025) will be starting a position as a core scientist in diffraction at Yale University's Chemical and Biophysical Instrument Center.
Deesha Malik, Ph.D., who was a postdoctoral scholar with Julie Kovacs, is moving to the University of California, San Diego to conduct postdoctoral research with Assistant Professor Julia Stauber.
Hao Nguyen (Ph.D. 2025) will be starting a role as a process engineer at Lam Research.
Chetan Poudel, Ph.D., who was a Washington Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow with Joshua Vaughan, will be an assistant professor at Indiana University School of Medicine.
Michael Rosen (B.S. 2025), who conducted undergraduate research with Prof. Anne McCoy, is starting grad school at Princeton!
Ann-Marie Vo (B.S. 2025) will be starting the DMD program at Penn Dental Medicine with a scholarship from the Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship Program. She plans to serve as an army dentist after completing her degree.
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