VASEM Winter/Spring 2025 Newsletter

Dear friends,

I hope that everyone is enjoying some warmer weather. I know that I am tired of shoveling snow and glad that the grandkids are back in school.

This newsletter covers numerous exciting activities of the VASEM. The planning for the 2025 Summit on Artificial Intelligence is well underway. The Summit will be held at the new Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria on September 23-24, 2025. AI topics will be inclusive, and covers areas of science, engineering, and, especially, medicine.

As a complement to our COVES Policy Fellows Program, we will be adding a pilot undergraduate policy program (UPP) for the summer of 2025. The new program will bring ten undergraduate students from our institutional partners to Richmond for a week-long engagement with legislators and state agencies. We hope to inspire more scientists and engineers to involve themselves in public policy.

Asa part of our strategic plan, we decided to create programs that encourage more member engagement. We have created our first Technical Working Group (TWG) focused on energy. Our hope is to establish a set of members and other invited individuals that will be available to answer questions from legislators on the topic of energy.

We are happy to report that Hampton University has joined the Virginia Academy as our most recent institutional member.  Hampton University is also now a participant in our COVES Policy Fellows.

The Virginia Academy has selected its sixth cohort of COVES Policy Fellows for the summer of 2025. We had 49 applications for the 21 available positions. There are several interesting articles about people from past programs and their future activities in this newsletter. We have also hired a future replacement for our COVES Director, Sarah Hall, that will shadow her for the upcoming offering. Careen De Cardenas, the new hire, is a graduate student in civil engineering at the University of Virginia.

We are pleased to add Dr. Mark Peters to our membership roster. He arrived in Virginia after being appointed the CEO of the Mitre Corporation.  Dr. Peters is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

It is also a pleasure to introduce you to another one of our accomplished members. In this issue, we profile De. Tony Beasley, the Director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville, VA. He has had a long career with NRAO having joined NARO as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 1991. I know that you will enjoy reading about this amazing man.

As you can see, the Virginia Academy and its members and friends are very active.  I hope that you find this newsletter informative and enjoyable. Please feel free to contact me if I can be of any assistance.

JimSincerely,
James (Jim) H. Aylor
President,
Virginia Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine

The VASEM Summit on Artificial Intelligence will play a crucial role in advancing scientific, economic, and societal progress in Virginia by fostering collaboration among AI researchers, industry leaders, and policymakers.

As AI continues to transform industries, this summit will bring together experts from Virginia’s thriving technology sector and institutions across the Commonwealth to explore its potential, challenges, and future applications. By connecting stakeholders from academia, government, and private industry, the event will drive new research directions, attract investment, and position Virginia as a leader in AI innovation. The discussions will also help inform policy decisions, ensuring that AI development aligns with ethical, regulatory, and societal needs.

More information and registration.

VASEM Strengthens Legislative Engagement with an Inaugural Breakfast at the General Assembly

On February 11th, Nat Draper, Laura Novey, and Bess Toole hosted VASEM’s first legislative breakfast at the Virginia General Assembly Building. This event reinforced VASEM’s presence among state lawmakers and showcased how our members and programs contribute to Virginia’s progress.

Building strong relationships between policymakers and the science, engineering, and medical communities is essential to advancing evidence-based policy. By ensuring that Virginia’s elected officials and their advisors are aware of VASEM’s expertise, we continue to serve as a trusted resource for science-driven solutions.

During breakfast, VASEM highlighted two key initiatives: the COVES Fellowship Program, which places graduate students in science policy roles, and our white paper initiative, which leverages members’ expertise to address critical energy policy questions in the Commonwealth.

Nat, Laura, and Bess actively engage with legislators and state agencies year-round, furthering VASEM’s mission and expanding our network to support informed policymaking.

VASEM is pleased to announce that it has been awarded two years of funding from the Luck Companies Foundation in Goochland, Virginia. This generous support will fund the launch of the VASEM Undergraduate Policy Program (UPP)—a new initiative designed to empower STEM-H undergraduate students by bridging the gap between science and policy through hands-on case studies, mentorship, and legislative insights.

The UPP program aims to:

• Teach key policy-making concepts, including public values, ethics, and decision-making in complex environments.
• Highlight the intersection of science and policy, exposing students to policy-related career paths.
• Use case studies to explore the role of science, engineering, and technology in policymaking. Examples include Virginia’s energy demands due to data centers and the evolving role of AI in the Commonwealth.
• Familiarize participants with Virginia’s General Assembly and the Joint Commission on Technology and Science (JCOTS).
• Provide shadowing opportunities with COVES Fellows to gain real-world policy experience.

The program will bring ten undergraduate students from VASEM’s university partners to Richmond for a week-long immersive experience from July 28 to August 1. VASEM envisions the UPP as an opportunity to inspire students to think beyond the classroom, explore interdisciplinary career pathways, and forge connections they may not have previously considered.

We look forward to welcoming the first UPP cohort this summer and are grateful to the Luck Companies Foundation for making this initiative possible!

• Spring Meeting – A review of state-based activities and legislative outcomes relevant to energy.
• Fall Meeting (potentially at the VASEM Annual Meeting) – A discussion on key priorities and activities for the upcoming year.

• Data centers and their impact on energy demand
• Clean energy transitions
• Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)
• Microgrids and grid modernization
• Expansion of transmission and distribution networks
• Resilience strategies for extreme events
• Education, training, and workforce development

VASEM is proud to welcome Hampton University as its newest institutional member. Since its founding in 2013, VASEM has brought together leading academic institutions to advance science, engineering, and medicine in the Commonwealth.

With Hampton University’s addition, VASEM now includes nine institutional members:

• University of Virginia
• Virginia Tech
• Virginia Commonwealth University
• Norfolk State University
• William & Mary
• Virginia State University
• Old Dominion University
• George Mason University
• Hampton University

We look forward to collaborating with Hampton University to further our mission of fostering interdisciplinary research, policy engagement, and innovation across Virginia. Welcome to the VASEM community!

• Diksha Aggarwal – PhD Mechanical Engineering, VT
• Navya Annapareddy – PhD Data Science, UVA
• Jalyn Bullock – MS Cybersecurity, NSU
• Oziomachukwu Chinaka – PhD Translational Biology, Medicine, & Health, VT
• Kenn Dela Cruz – PhD Developmental Psychology, UVA
• Aerin Cuff – PhD Psychology, VSU
• Julia Davis – PhD Civil & Environmental Engineering, UVA
• Annie Hinson – PhD Microbiology & Immunology, VCU
• Ravneet Kaur – PhD Plant Physiology, VT
• Dipin Khati – PhD Computer Science, W&M
• Nichole Leach – MS Biology, ODU
• Zobia Minhas – PhD Biomedical Sciences, ODU
• Linda Miranda – MS Biological Sciences, HU
• Seemya Mohamed – MS Computer Science, VSU
• Danielle Recco – MS Marine Science, William & Mary, W&M – VIMS
• Asha Rudrabhatla – PhD Clinical Psychology, GM
• Jeanie Schreiber – PhD Mathematics, GM
• Chariz Seijo – PhD Clinical Psychology, VCU
• Belal Shanab – PhD Mechanical Engineering, VT
• Sai Sindhu Tirumalasetty – MS Computer Science, VSU
• Miranda Wood – PhD Chemical Biology, UVA

VASEM is excited to announce that we have hired a new COVES Fellowship program coordinator, Carreen de Cárdenas. Carreen was a COVES fellow in 2024 and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate, Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Virginia.She is excited about the opportunity to bring her experience and passion for the COVES Fellowship to the Program Coordinator position. Participating in the COVES fellowship this past summer deepened my appreciation for the program’s mission and fueled my interest in contributing to its continued success. During my time as a fellow, I gained firsthand insight into the collaborative and supportive community that the COVES Fellowship fosters, and I am enthusiastic about the opportunities for professional development and growth that it provides for the participants.

This year Carreen will work with the current program coordinator Sarah Hall (COVES Fellow 2020) who has run the program for the past four years. Sarah has done a fantastic job growing the program and will help Carreen understand all the innerworkings that go into the program coordinator position. Carreen will officially take over the role starting in August of 2025.

When Frankie Edwards applied for a COVES Policy Fellowship in 2022, he already knew that he wanted to conduct research on opioid treatment programs for a public agency. A doctoral student in the Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health program at Virginia Tech, he was conducting research in the Roanoke area on a behavioral intervention that could increase naloxone use among people who actively inject opioids. “I knew I was interested in the intersection of research and policy, and the COVES Fellowship could serve as a pivotal stepping stone on my journey in this field,” Edwards says.

For his COVES project, Edwards worked with the chief medical director of the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. He was tasked with determining the costs of training peer support providers needed to staff Virginia’s 988 suicide and crisis lifeline. “When I completed the COVES application, I made sure to clearly articulate my research interests and how they aligned with the work of various agencies,” Edwards says. “COVES matched me with an agency doing the kind of work I wanted to do.”

Equally important, COVES helped Edwards secure his current position as a researcher for the Division of Research and Data Analysis (RDA), part of the Department of Social and Health Services in Washington state. He attended a COVES Lunch-and-Learn presentation by UVA law professor Richard Bonnie, a member of the National Academy of Medicine and an expert on public health law and substance abuse. Edwards scheduled a follow-up informational interview with Bonnie, who connected him to the head of RDA. “A few months after I talked with RDA, they sent me a posting for a job they thought I would be interested in,” he says.

Among other projects, his team utilizes an integrated database to assess the effectiveness, racial disparities, and implementation fidelity of grant-funded programs for Washington’s Healthcare Authority. “The COVES Policy Fellowship reaffirmed my conviction that I would like to find a position outside academia in which I could do research that informs public policy,” Edwards says. “And if it weren’t for COVES, I wouldn’t have made the connections that led me to RDA.

Gates Palissery, a Ph.D student in translational biology, medicine, and health at Virginia Tech, worked with Senator Lashrecse Aird’s office for her 2024 COVES Fellowship. During the 2024 legislative session, Senator Aird carried SB487, a bill that would establish policies and procedures around the procurement and use of AI by the Commonwealth. While this bill did not pass in its original intended form, Senator Aird remains determined to establish AI policies for the Commonwealth–a role that Gates provided as a COVES Fellow.

Gates spent the summer immersed in AI policy, studying what other states have successfully and unsuccessfully accomplished in this area, what policies the federal government put in place, and what policies currently exist in Virginia. She combed through databases of states’ legislation, wrote many policy one-pagers, attended meetings of a multi-state AI working group comprised of legislators trying to create AI legislation in their states, took meetings with stakeholders interested in AI policy, and went to the National Conference of State Legislatures annual summit. One of the most important experiences she had as a COVES Fellow was explaining AI works to legislators on the Joint Commission on Technology & Science (JCOTS) and going into more detail about Virginia-specific AI policies for the JCOTS AI subcommittee. After the COVES Fellowship ended, Gates became a consultant with JCOTS, authoring the Commission’s final report about AI use and recommendations, which was submitted to the General Assembly.

Gates noted that her time as a COVES Fellow was invaluable to her and her career. She absolutely loved what she did with the Senator’s office and JCOTS—despite not being a subject-matter expert. She experienced firsthand how useful her scientific background, research training, and science communication skills are in the policy sphere, and is more confident in herself and her future. The COVES Fellowship challenged her to grow as a person and a professional and, more importantly, has empowered her to pursue a career in science policy. After defending her dissertation in April, she will be joining the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as the Hellman and Simons Fellow in Science and Technology Policy, where she will continue working on AI policy, among other topics.

Mark Peters is the president and chief executive officer of MITRE, the global not-for-profit technology company that manages R&D centers around the world. He leads a nearly 10,000-strong multidisciplinary team who stand united in MITRE’s mission: Solving Problems for a Safer World. Peters is responsible for governance and oversight of MITRE’s diverse markets including artificial intelligence, aerospace, telecommunications, homeland security, cyber, transportation, defense and intelligence, health, and government innovation.

A recognized expert in nuclear energy and national security, Peters spent more than 25 years leading scientific discovery for federally funded R&D centers (FFRDCs). Before joining MITRE in 2024, he served as the executive vice president for laboratory management and operations at Battelle Memorial Institute. Prior leadership roles include director of the Idaho National Laboratory and president of Battelle Energy Alliance LLC, a large, multipurpose laboratory focused on nuclear energy, national and homeland security, and energy and environmental science and technology.

Peters also served two years as chair of the National Laboratory Directors’ Council, an independent body that coordinates initiatives and advises the Department of Energy and other national laboratory stakeholders. Prior to joining Battelle, he was associate laboratory director for Energy and Global Security at Argonne National Laboratory.

Peters was awarded the 2023 Henry DeWolf Smyth Nuclear Statesman Award, which recognizes individuals for outstanding service in developing and guiding the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society. He also serves on the Idaho Power Board, the National Academies Board on Human-Systems Integration, and several that support innovation and economic development. Peters holds a bachelor’s degree in geology from Auburn University and a doctorate in geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago. He has also completed extensive executive management education and training courses, including the Strategic Laboratory Leadership Program at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

We live in a golden age of astronomical discovery, propelled by cutting-edge observatories collecting data across the electromagnetic spectrum. The revolutionary Hubble and Webb space telescopes, for instance, focus on the optical and infrared wavelengths, while a suite of no-less inventive terrestrial instruments, designed, deployed, and operated by the Charlottesville-based National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), concentrates on radio emissions. These have the lowest energies, longest wavelengths, and lowest frequencies of any type of radiation.

“By combining evidence from these different sources, scientists gain a more complete picture of phenomena in the universe,” says NRAO Director Anthony Beasley. “At the same time, investigations at each segment of the spectrum produce discoveries in their own right.” For example, scientists using NRAO’s telescopes have determined that black holes seed the formation of galaxies, not the other way around—and identified a cosmic hole of a different sort—a giant void a billion miles across that is empty of stars, galaxies, gas, and dark matter.

Driving the Technology

Audacity of engineering is one reason NRAO’s telescopes have produced such groundbreaking discoveries. The surface of the 100-meter dish of the 8,500-ton Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia is virtually flawless, giving scientists the ability to identify molecules at a point in deep space with unmatched sensitivity.

NRAO researchers have also harnessed advances in interferometry to mesh data from multiple dish-antennas, allowing them to examine emissions from a broader slice of universe. The 27 telescopes that make up the Very Large Array (VLA) in a remote New Mexican desert are arranged along a Y-shaped track, effectively forming a telescope 20 miles in diameter. NRAO went a step further in 1993 by creating a continent-spanning observatory, the Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA), comprising a group of 10 telescopes that stretch from Hawaii across the continental U.S. territory to the Virgin Islands. NRAO then partnered with an international coalition to build the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), which consists of 66 dish-antennas deployed at 16,500-feet in the dry Chilean desert, an environment hostile to life but ideal for detecting faint radio signals. ALMA began scientific observations in 2011 and is considered the best radio telescope in the world.

But for Beasley, best is a moving target. “Whatever the project, we’re always trying to push the instruments harder to make better observations, even if that means taking them apart and modifying them,” Beasley says. “As director, that’s always been a big priority for me.”

Building an Organizational Foundation

NRAO’s effectiveness, however, owes as much to its ability to manage the disparate teams building and operating these complex, often decentralized engineering projects as it does to its scientific and engineering prowess. Beasley has played a critical role in advancing NRAO’s ability to tackle ever-more complicated initiatives.

Beasley was first exposed to a radio telescope as a graduate student at the University of Sydney. There is a long tradition of radio astronomy in Australia, and Sydney Uni’s School of Physics operates its own observatory. “Being able to put my hands on an instrument right at the beginning of my career had a huge influence on me,” Beasley says. By the 1960s the United States had moved ahead—and Beasley joined NRAO in 1991 as a postdoctoral fellow working on the VLA. He remained with NRAO, with time out for short stints at other organizations, for most of the next 25 years.

Beasley’s scientific interests include nonthermal stellar radio emissions, very long baseline interferometry techniques, radio supernovae, and astronomy of stellar/interstellar masers (the microwave analog of lasers)—and he played a critical role in the commissioning and completion of the VLBA. “As someone interested in very long baseline science, bringing the world’s best long baseline telescope into operation was a great opportunity.”

The longer Beasley worked at NRAO, the more he gravitated to leadership positions. “It was apparent to me from my earliest days at university that I had some ability to be able to organize things and get a group of people to march in one direction,” he says. “I think we all need to look at where we can have the most impact.”

Expanding His Skill Set

At times, this philosophy has led Beasley to leave NRAO. “There is value in steeping yourself in institutional knowledge and staying with one organization,” he says. “There is also value in going out and seeing how other organizations do things and gain a different set of experiences.”

In 2000, Beasley became project manager for the 23-antenna Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy in California, a precursor to ALMA. He returned in 2004 as assistant director and project manager for ALMA, rebuilding and strengthening the collaborative relationships that were essential to its ultimate success. Beasley then left again in 2008 to become chief operating officer and project manager for the National Ecological Observatory Network, now a collection of over 80 field sites across 20 ecoclimatic domains. “Although the science is very different, there were a lot of technical parallels with instruments like the VLBA,” he says.

In 2012, Beasley returned to NRAO as director, a post he has held ever since. “I keep coming back to NRAO because we run the best telescopes in the world, and the scale of operations is massive,” he says. “I can’t imagine a more interesting and intellectually demanding environment.” For his achievements over his career, Beasley was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021.

Looking Ahead

Looking forward, Beasley sees no shortage of challenges. He is deeply involved in laying the groundwork for the Next-Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA), which will consist of 244 antennas spread across 5,500 miles. He also shepherding the process of developing a high-power radar at the Green Bank Observatory for use in both planetary science and surveillance applications. “One of my goals as NRAO director is making sure people appreciate both the pure research and the real-world applications of our instruments,” he says.

At the same time, Beasley is proud of what he has accomplished. “We are passing through an amazing time during which our observatories, both ground and space-based, are capable of exploring the universe to the very edge of the Big Bang,” he says. “I am very proud to have helped build some of the instruments responsible for these advances.”

• John Scully, Charles Henderson Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Virginia, received the @024 UVa Research Collaboration Award, https://research.virginia.edu/initiatives/research-achievement-awards/2024-research-award-winners/2024-research-achievement
• Aidong Zhang, Thomas M. Linville Professor of Computer Science, received a 2024 Distinguished Research Award. https://research.virginia.edu/initiatives/research-achievement-awards/2024-research-award-winners/2024-research-achievement
• General Lester Lyles, Former Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, received the 2025 Edward C. Aldridge Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Security Space. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/national-security-space-association_nationalsecurityspace-disc25-activity-7287537217273487360-Dd5R/
• Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, Senior Group Leader at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, was part of a team of researchers used a new technique, called high-resolution template matching, or HRTM, to uncover in unprecedented detail the movement of ribosomes — the molecular structures that synthesize proteins inside cells. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/12/241219152210.htm#google_vignette

VASEM Members: Share articles and highlights of your work with us by email: info@vasem.org