Directors

The WIFV Women of Vision Awards celebrate women's creative and technical achievements in media. On April 23, 2026 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, WIFV will recognize the work of **Kate Beyda, Phylicia Rashad,** and **Cheryl Ottenritter**. A moderated panel will provide significant time for the honorees to share their expertise, adventures, and answer audience questions! The reception and silent auction will begin at 6:00 pm in the Museum's mezzanine. Silent Auction bidding closes at 7:15 pm. The awards program will begin at 7:30 pm in the performance hall. **Ticket sales close April 20, 2026.** You MUST register here: https://www.wifv.org/calendar/#id=32427&cid=783&wid=401&type=Cal

> Join the first **FILMS MADE IN NOVA** meetup! We’ll get to know each other, share ideas, and plan our first collaborative film project. > This group is for actors, writers, editors, cinematographers, and storytellers of all kinds who want to create original films and actually finish them. > Come ready to brainstorm, collaborate, and turn ideas into completed projects. Whether you’re experienced or just passionate about filmmaking, this is a place to connect and make films happen.

Please join us every week for power networking! Our Chapter Passed $1,666,736 USD in the past 12 months! BNI members, on average, increase their business 20% the first year. Our chapter is a dynamic, committed group of business people who know how to refer business to each other. Come for our meeting -- stay for the referrals!!! We have open categories for individuals who will bring enthusiasm and integrity to our meeting. Just one person per professional specialty is allowed in each chapter. Visit a meeting to find out more and lock out your competition! Register Here: https://bninovanorth.com/va-nova-north-bni-mclean-business-connection--n136/en-US/visitorregistration?chapterId=16988

**IMPORTANT! Please register on [Luma page](https://luma.com/klm98cuc)** *Ignore the displayed time — it’s 5:30pm VA time.* AI is making us faster than ever — and at the same time, quietly questioning our place at work. ​We’re all feeling it: tools that boost output in minutes, automate entire workflows, and sometimes… do the job better. So where does that leave the human? ​This conversation dives straight into that tension — no sugarcoating, no generic optimism. Just real perspectives from people working inside the shift. ​ **Speakers:** [Nina Borysova, MBA ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nborysova/?utm_source=luma)**Director, Product Management Technical (PMT), Data Analytics and AI Solutions, Mastercard** **​**[Dr. Volodymyr Tkach ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/volodymyr-tkach/?utm_source=luma) CEO \| Ph\.D\, Associate Professor \| MIT Research Fellow \| Cybersecurity\, Threat Intelligence\, Anomaly Detection\, Artificial **​We’ll unpack:** ​– where AI actually boosts productivity vs. where it replaces thinking ​– which roles are evolving — and which are quietly disappearing ​– how teams are restructuring around AI (and what that means for individuals) ​– how to stay valuable when execution becomes automated ​– what “creative work” even means when AI can generate ideas on demand ​– the psychological side: anxiety, denial, adaptation ​If you’re feeling both excited *and* uneasy about AI — you’re not alone. And you probably shouldn’t ignore either feeling. ​Come for clarity. Leave with a more honest map of what’s ahead.

[Profs and Pints Northern Virginia](https://www.profsandpints.com/washingtondc) presents: **“Doom and Dinosaurs,”** a look at how mass extinctions shaped the dinosaurs and what research on these events tells us about Earth life’s long-term prospects, with Ian Wilenzik, paleontologist and visiting assistant professor of biology at George Washington University. [Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at [https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nv-dino-doom](https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nv-dino-doom) .] Pity the poor dinosaurs. They lacked both scientific research to help deal with potential environmental catastrophes and places where they could have a beer and discuss it. You, on the other hand, have the opportunity to come to Profs and Pints to hear a fascinating talk on the impact of mass extinctions on dinosaur evolution and what research on dinosaurs tells us about biodiversity and Earth’s current biodiversity crisis. Dr. Ian Wilenzik, who has studied and taught courses on dinosaur evolution, population spread, and extinction, will leave you with a greater appreciation of the resilience of life on earth and how we’re both the product and source of biologically catastrophic events. Many of us are familiar with how a big meteor impact about 66 million years ago wiped out the Earth’s dinosaur population, leaving us only with their feathered descendants, birds. Less well known is how the Earth actually has undergone five periods of mass extinction that wiped out nearly all life, and how dinosaurs arose from one and endured another—both caused by volcanic activity—before meeting their match in the third. To ground his discussion, Dr. Wilenzik will talk about how we study mass extinctions by looking for geologic evidence of volcanic activity, meteoric blasts, and other catastrophic activity and of gaps in the fossil record after them. He’ll also discuss what makes a dinosaur a dinosaur, describing their distinct anatomical features. He’ll talk about how they and other forms of life evolved over long periods of time and were affected by extinction events. We’ll look at how the meteor-caused mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous paved the way for the rise of mammals and the emergence of primates, and, eventually, us. Looking ahead to future mass extinctions and what might survive them, we’ll talk about how that plant you forget to water might have the last laugh, as well as why crocodiles might be around a while. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.) Image: A *Triceratops* mounted skeleton at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History (Photo by Allie Caulfield / Wikimedia Commons).