Washington Academy of Sciences
2022 – 2023 term
| President Lynnette Madsen  |
Lynnette D. Madsen, Ph.D., is a material scientist and engineer. She has published two books, three book chapters/sections, and more than 100 articles; been awarded three patents; and delivered more than 100 invited talks. She is a Fellow of the Washington Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Ceramic Society, American Vacuum Society, Materials Research Society and ASM International, and is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. She currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Rosalind Franklin Society and editorial board for Materials Today. Dr. Madsen was recognized with a WAS Leadership in Science Award (2018) and subsequently served as Secretary of WAS (2018-2019). |
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Mahesh Mani is a Technology Manager at the Advanced Manufacturing Office, Department of Energy, Washington, DC. His research interest includes smart manufacturing, additive manufacturing, and sustainable manufacturing. He earned a doctoral degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National University of Singapore. |
Mark Spradley  |
Mark Spradley is committed to removing obstacles to educate and train the next generation of leaders in STEM fields and the arts. Spradley holds a PhD from Fielding Graduate University and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. He received an MBA from the TRIUM program, jointly issued by NYU Stern, London School of Economics, and HEC, Paris. Spradley earned an MBA degree from the University of London. His areas of interest are ESG, neuroscience of civic engagement, and organizational development. |
| Treasurer David Torain  |
David Torain’s research area is Optimization and Partial Differential Equations and currently studying the second derivative of Torain’s Equations, where he studies the use of parametric nonlinear differential equations as a mathematical model. Dr. Torain was elected in 2019 to American Association for the Advancement of Science: Section Y on General Interest in Science and Engineering Fellow: “For distinguished contributions to the field of Applied Mathematics, particularly for the discovery of Torain’s Equations that model the harvesting of species under abnormal conditions”. |
Mala Ramaiah  |
Mala Ramaiah is a subject matter expert in health information technology. Her roles include that of Research Scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Manager at the American College of Physicians developing guidance, managing applications, and handling clinical data in healthcare. She has a Doctorate in Medicine and a Masters degree in Health Care Management. |
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Vice President, Administrative Affairs
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Anne Kornahrens is the Director of Community for the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation and oversees the strategic engagement and mobilization of more than 1,200 Hertz Fellows. She was previously at the American Physical Society overseeing projects pursuing gender equity in physics and other physics education projects. Before that, she served as a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation in the Office of the Assistant Director for Mathematical & Physical Sciences. She enjoys rock climbing, biking on the Mt. Vernon trail, and providing long-term foster care for dogs. |
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Dr Mei Sun is the Neurosensory Portfolio Manager at US Army Medical Research and Development Command. She manages Science & Technology funding for neurosensory research projects. Prior to this position, Dr. Mei Sun served as Program Manager to lead Congressional Directed Medical Research Program’s Other Transaction Authority program to support the Science &Technology investment. She facilitated all communication and enable resources among government agencies and offices in all related process including solicitation announcement, proposal review, and post-award management for OTA contracts. Dr. Sun was awarded her PhD in Biology by the University of California, San Diego in 2007 and also achieved her MBA degree in the same year. |
Paul Arveson  |
Paul Arveson’s first career was as a physicist in the Navy, where he served as a researcher leading projects in acoustics and oceanography. He has a BS in Physics and an MS in Computer Systems Management. He has served as a website developer for NASDAQ and as a technology architect the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. He is co-founder of the Balanced Scorecard Institute, a strategic consulting firm, and helped to create the first professional certifications for the Association for Strategic Planning. Recently he served as a Senior Associate in the Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a Fellow of the Washington Academy of Sciences. |
At-Large Board Members
| Anne Kornahrens (2022-2024)  |
Anne Kornahrens is the Director of Community for the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation and oversees the strategic engagement and mobilization of more than 1,200 Hertz Fellows. She was previously at the American Physical Society overseeing projects pursuing gender equity in physics and other physics education projects. Before that, she served as a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation in the Office of the Assistant Director for Mathematical & Physical Sciences. She enjoys rock climbing, biking on the Mt. Vernon trail, and providing long-term foster care for dogs. |
| Judy Staveley (2022-2025)  |
Judy Staveley is a government contractor program analyst III, educator, mentor, scientist, researcher, and member of the Washington Academy of Sciences. Dr. Staveley has been a science educator and a mentor for over 18 years. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage, has a graduate degree in Medical Forensics DNA from the University of Florida School of Pharmacy, a Master of Science in Biology Infectious Diseases from the University of St. Joseph’s, studied Psychology at the Ph.D. level at Walden University, a degree in Education Specialist Educational Leadership, and an Ed.D. in Education from Liberty University with a cognate in Educational Leadership. Staveley’s mentoring and educational experience has provided the opportunity to make contributions nationally, state-wide, and locally on enhancing STEM education and retaining students in STEM academics. Judy is motivated and passionate about STEM education. In addition, she has a strong record of accomplishments. In 2020, Staveley was presented with a presidential award on behalf of Blue Star Families and the White House. She has been nominated three times for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring award. |
| Guru Venkataramani (2022-2023)  |
Guru Prasadh Venkataramani is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The George Washington University. He received his PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology. His research area is computer architecture and security, where he has published several articles in flagship conferences and journals. Dr. Venkataramani is a recipient of NSF CAREER award, ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, GWU’s Hegarty Award for Faculty Innovation, and several best paper awards in IEEE/ACM conferences. Dr. Venkataramani co-founded IEEE International Symposium on Secure and Private Execution Environment Design (SEED). Dr. Venkataramani served as a General Chair for IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA). He also organized the NSF Workshop on side and covert channels in computing systems. Dr. Venkataramani has served as a program chair for multiple IEEE conferences, including IEEE ICCD and IEEE SEED. He is a Fellow of EAI and a senior member of IEEE and ACM. |
| Vijay Kowtha (2022-2023)  |
Vijay Kowtha has volunteered as a judge for the Junior Academy of WAS since 2006 and has worked to mentor students in the Washington DC area from K to undergraduate for over 30 years. He had a career as an Electronics Engineer at the US Naval Research Laboratory, and after retiring in 2019 he founded MASER (Mentors Advancing STEM Education and Research), a nonprofit organization to mentor students. He is a member of IEEE, Rotary International, and the DC Council of Engineering and Architectural Societies. He was recently given the Sigma Xi Fellow award for two decades of service. |
| George Dimitoglou (2023-2024)  |
George Dimitoglou, Ph.D. is a computer scientist with over two decades of industry, government, and higher education experience. He has worked in different areas of computing, including telecommunications, software systems, data archiving, and space science. He holds a doctoral degree in computer science from the School of Engineering and Applied Science at The George Washington University and an Executive Certificate in Public Policy focusing on science and technology from the Kennedy School at Harvard University. |
Immediate Past President
Ram Sriram |
Ram D. Sriram is currently the chief of the Software and Systems Division, Information Technology Laboratory, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Before joining the Software and Systems Division, Sriram was the leader of the Design and Process group in the Manufacturing Systems Integration Division, Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory, where he conducted research on standards for interoperability of computer-aided design systems. Prior to joining NIST, he was on the engineering faculty (1986-1994) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was instrumental in setting up the Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory. Sriram has co-authored or authored nearly 300 publications, including several books and videos. Sriram was a founding co-editor of the International Journal for AI in Engineering. Sriram received several awards including: an NSF’s Presidential Young Investigator Award (1989); ASME Design Automation Award (2011); ASME CIE Distinguished Service Award (2014); the Washington Academy of Sciences’ Distinguished Career in Engineering Sciences Award (2015); ASME CIE division’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2016); CMU CEE Lt. Col. Christopher Raible Distinguished Public Service Award (2018); IIT Madras Distinguished Alumni Award (2021). Sriram is a Fellow of AAIA, AIBME, ASME, AAAS, IEEE, INCOSE, SMA, and Washington Academy of Sciences, a Distinguished Member (life) of ACM and Senior Member (life) AAAI. Sriram has a B.Tech. from IIT, Madras, India, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. |
| Journal Editor Ken Baclawski 
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Kenneth Baclawski is Associate Professor Emeritus at the College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern University. Professor Baclawski does research in data semantics, formal methods for software engineering and software modeling, data mining in biology and medicine, semantic collaboration tools, situation awareness, information fusion, self-aware and self-adaptive systems, and wireless communication. He is the holder of over 12 patents and has authored over 300 professional articles as well as several books and research monographs. He has served on numerous peer review panels for the NSF, the NIH, and the ACM and has served on many program committees of research conferences. He is a member of the IEEE, ACM, IAOA, and is the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Ontolog Forum. Dr. Baclawski became the Editor of the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences in 2021. |
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Michael P. Cohen is Principal Sampling Statistician at American Institutes for Research. Dr. Cohen was President of the Washington Academy of Sciences in 2003-04. He represents the Washington Statistical Society, the Philosophical Society of Washington (PSW-Science) and the National Association of Academies of Science to WAS. |
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Sethanne Howard has a PhD in astrophysics. She worked as an oceanographer, meteorologist, astronomer, and Chief of the Nautical Almanac Office. She was the Program Manager for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology at the National Science Foundation; now retired. Her avocation is the history of women in science and technology. She represents the American Astronomical Society on the board of the Academy. Dr. Howard served for many years as the Editor of the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences. |