Johns Hopkins announces funding for 40 Washington, D.C.-based events, projects

Forty convening, research, and teaching endeavors based at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., have been selected to receive funding from the university's Nexus Awards Program over the next year.

The projects span every academic division of the university and include nearly 150 scholars exploring a diversity of topics, from climate resilience and population displacement to generative AI and enhanced learning to mental health and health equity.

This is the second round of funding distributed via the Nexus Awards, a $15 million program designed to support research, teaching, and event programming at the new Hopkins Bloomberg Center, which officially opened in the fall of 2023. Funding for award recipients begins July 1.

"Since last fall, our first class of Nexus winners and their bold ideas have animated our new home in Washington," JHU President Ron Daniels said. "With this second cohort of Nexus Award winners, we are building on the momentum underway at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center, as faculty from across Johns Hopkins convene policymakers and the public, embark on innovative research, and inspire our students to engage society's greatest challenges."

Nexus Awards are available in three categories:

• Convening: Convening teams may request up to $100,000, with an award term of up to one year for the development and execution of an academic or policy-focused conference or a series of conferences on any topic. These may be one-time events or a series of related events.

• Research: Research teams may request up to $300,000, with an award term of up to two years focusing on either a new area of collaborative work or an expansion of an ongoing area of collaborative work in fundamental, clinical, or applied research, or projects within the arts and humanities. Proposals may include an external, D.C.-based partner, and cross-disciplinary work is encouraged.

• Teaching: Teaching applicants may request up to $25,000 (renewable for two years) for undergraduate or graduate courses or co-curricular opportunities. While single faculty members may apply, courses that span multiple departments, schools, or divisions are encouraged.

"Nexus Awards help propel the ideas, scholarship, and pedagogy of our faculty in exciting directions," Provost Ray Jayawardhana said. "I am eager to see their insights and discoveries brought to life at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center, fostering dialogue and enhancing impact in the heart of the nation's capital."

Over the past year, the Nexus Awards have supported a range of offerings at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center, including the university's inaugural international women's leadership summit, a series of events focused on science diplomacy, a series of Humanities on the Mall film screenings and conversations, and the exploration of a pro-democracy conservative agenda, among many others.

"The Nexus Awards support a dynamic pipeline between our communities in Baltimore and Washington," said Lainie Rutkow, executive vice provost. "It's wonderful to see how these awards have helped to integrate the Hopkins Bloomberg Center with the broader Johns Hopkins community."

The application period for a new round of funding will open later this year, with proposals due in late February.

Nexus Awards recipients for 2024 are:

Convening

• Advancing Gender Equity Research to Create Sustainable Change: David Smith (CBS), Colleen Stuart (CBS), Anna Kalbarczyk (BPSH), Michele Decker (BSPH)
• AI-Powered Strategies to Address Inequities in Deaths of Despair: A Series of Translational Workshops: Emily Haroz (BSPH), Roland Thorpe (BSPH), Alexis Battle (WSE), Kadija Ferryman (Berman), Keshia Pollack Porter (BSPH), Mathew Eisenberg (BSPH), Roy Adams (SOM), Gordan Gao (CBS), Anjalie Field (WSE)
• AI Synergy Summit: Integrating Generative AI and Human Ingenuity for Enhanced Learning Approaches: James Diamond (SOE), William Gray-Roncal (APL)
• Aligning Key Stakeholders for Development of a Nation: A Convening for Afghanistan: Nadia Akseer (BSPH), Sama El Baz (BSPH)
• Brain Related Aging, Injury-recovery, and Neurological-disability; Health Equity Initiative (BRAIN-HEI): Jessica Gill (SON)
• Can Economic Sanctions Be Reformed?: Narges Bajoghli (SAIS), Vali Nasr (SAIS)
• Centering Equity in Global Partnerships: A Convening of Partners, Donors, Governance Leaders, and Policymakers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center: Joseph Ali (Berman), Juan-Jose Gomez Camacho (SAIS), Chelsea Modlin (SOM), Judd Walson (BSPH), Chizoba Wonodi (BSPH), Amita Gupta (SOM), Vanya Jones (BSPH), Jeff Kahn (Berman), Nancy Reynolds (SON), Alexandre White (KSAS)
• Cryosphere 2025: Innovations for Water Security and Climate Resilience: Jaafar El-Awady (WSE), Samuel Myers (BSPH), Alexandra Phelan (BSPH), Christopher Stiles (WSE), Tamer Zaki (WSE), Benjamin Zaitchik (KSAS)
• Democracy and the Academy—Critics and Defenders: Andrew Perrin (KSAS), Steven Teles (KSAS)
• Enabling Access to Emerging Bioimaging Techniques: Rapid Transitions from Development to Wider Availability: Ian Dobbie (KSAS)
• Exposome Moonshot Summit: Fenna Sille (BSPH), Meredith McCormack (SOM), Kirsten Koehler (BSPH), Thomas Pisanic (WSE), Pete DeCarlo (WSE), Ana Rule (BSPH), Thomas Hartung (BSPH), Alex Maertens (BSPH)
• Food as Medicine in the Black Community: Oluwabunmi Ogungbe (SON)
• A Forum on the Science Supporting Arms Control Policy and the MSEE-URA Annual Technical Review: Tim Weihs (WSE), Todd Hufnagel (WSE), Gigi Gronvall (BSPH), Jane Vaynman (SAIS)
• The Fragmenting Global Economy: Jonathan Hoddenbagh (SAIS), Laurence Ball (KSAS), Francesco Bianchi (KSAS), Gordan Bodnar (SAIS), Vadim Elenev (CBS), Stelios Fourakis (KSAS), Olivier Jeanne (KSAS), Ryan Kim (SAIS), Annie Lee (SAIS), Alessandro Rebucci (CBS), Carlos Vegh (SAIS)
• The Future of Health Care Delivery: Melinda Buntin (BSPH), Daniel Polsky (BSPH), Matthew Eisenberg (BSPH)
• Global Summit of Musicians' Health Advocacy: Kris Chesky (PBY)
• Hopkins India Conference: Bringing the Best of Hopkins & India for a Better World: Amita Gupta (SOM)
• Humanitarian Frontiers: Bridging Climate, Conflict and Displacement Analytics for Lifesaving Anticipatory Action: Paul Spiegel (BSPH), Kathryn Falb (BSPH), Ahmed Hassoon (BSPH), Tak Igusa (WSE), Molly Lasater (BSPH), Samuel Myers (BSPH), Youseph Yazdi (SOM), Ben Zaitchik (KSAS)
• Making Evidence-Based Tutoring "Business as Usual" in Schools: The Inaugural ProvenTutoring Convening: Nancy Madden (SOE), Amanda Neitzel Inns (SOE), Cynthia Lake (SOE)
• National Care Without Borders: Catalyzing New Pathways for Cross-State Telehealth: Helen Hughes (SOM), Mark Sulkowski (SOM), Ada Hamosh (SOM), David Hackam (SOM), Yvonne Commodore-Mensah (SON)
• The Nexus of Open Science: FAIR Data, Software and Resources Bridging Data Science and AI to Clinical Research: Andreia Faria (SOM)
• A New Policy Agenda to Address Mental Health and Addiction in the U.S.: Matthew Eisenberg (BSPH), Elizabeth Stuart (BSPH), Brendan Saloner (BSPH), Alene Kennedy-Hendricks (BSPH), Mark Meiselbach (BSPH), Catherine Ettman (BSPH)
• Rising Stars in Cell Biology Symposium: Jian Liu (SOM)
• Shaping the Future of the Healthcare Workforce: Policy and Best Practice Recommendations for the Use of Simulation for Healthcare Education: Kristen Brown (SON), Geoffrey Miller (SOM)
• SuperCollider Symposium 2025: Sam Pluta (PBY), Ted Moore (PBY)
• Thriving through Crisis and Conflict? Interdisciplinary Insights for an Uncertain Future: Brian Gunia (CBS), Suntae Kim (CBS), Kathleen Sutcliffe (CBS), Adria Lawrence (SAIS), Sergey Radchenko (SAIS), Sinisa Vukovic (SAIS), Elayne Whyte-Gomez (SAIS)

Research

• Elevating Evidence-Based Medicaid Home-and Community-Based Long-Term Services and Supports: A Compendium of Policies: Katherine Miller (BSPH), Maya Rockeymoore Cummings (BSPH), Chanee Fabius (BSPH), Karen Shen (BSPH), Jennifer Wolff (BSPH), Melinda Buntin (BSPH), Kali Thomas (SON), Cynthia Boyd (SOM)
• Estimating Unequal Perceptions of Place to Address Housing Inequality in the Baltimore-Washington Region: Michael Bader (KSAS), Filipe Campante (SAIS)
• The Johns Hopkins Drug Supply Chain Data Dashboard: Improving Data Transparency and Increasing Resiliency in the U.S. Pharmaceutical Supply Chain: Mariana Peixoto Socal (BSPH), Jeromie Ballreich (BSPH), Gerard Anderson (BSPH), Maqbool Dada (CBS), Tinglong Dai (CBS), Jeremy Greene (SOM), Josh Sharfstein (BSPH)
• Neuro-Theater: How Neurotechnology and Artificial Intelligence Can Transform Immersive Media, Interactive Storytelling, and Live Performance: Debra Mathews (Berman), Lauren Hutchinson (Berman), Tom Lippincott (KSAS), Nathan Crone (SOM), Susan Magsamen (SOM), Sig Libowitz (KSAS), Bernadette Wegenstein (KSAS), Graham Sack (KSAS)

Teaching

• Biotech, Health Security, and AI: Gigi Gronvall (BSPH), Erin Sorrell (BSPH)
• Connecting Johns Hopkins Students with DC's Deaf Community: Matthew Sampson (KSAS)
• Disability Futures: An Introduction to Medicine, Science, and the Humanities: Alicia Puglionesi (KSAS), Franz Castro (SON)
• Generative AI: Minghong Xu (CBS), Graeme Warren (CBS), Xiangyang Li (WSE)
• Health-Centered Community Consensus Building Course: A Course on the Health-Peace Nexus: Majd Al-Ghatrif (SOM), Daniel Serwer (SAIS), Yusra Shawar (BSPH), Youseph Yazdi (WSE)
• Indigenous Perspectives on Environmental Health: Donald Warne (BSPH), Samuel Myers (BSPH)
• Internationally Renowned Practitioners of Health System Accountability in DC: Binita Adhikari (BSPH), Kerry Scott (BSPH), Harshini Sampathkumar (BSPH)
• JHU Leadership Challenge: Chris Myers (CBS)
• Regulation and Policy's Influence on Investment in Health Care: Emilia Simeonova (CBS), Melinda Buntin (BSPH)
• Sustainability Leadership through Engineering: Preparing Communities for Resilience to Climate Change in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed: Eric Rice (WSE)