32 early-career faculty members earn Johns Hopkins Catalyst Awards

Thirty-two promising early-career faculty members hailing from eight divisions of the university will receive 2018 Johns Hopkins Catalyst Awards.

Among the wide range of research and creative endeavors that the awards will support are improving pain management for people with sickle-cell disease; decreasing the opioid overdose mortality rate through novel tools for public health practitioners and policymakers; and writing the authorized biography of the late Anthony Hecht, a U.S. poet laureate, WWII veteran, Holocaust witness, and Pulitzer Prize recipient.

Other recipients are investigating treatments and interventions for prostate, breast, and oral cancers. One awardee is exploring how management practice and the motivation of developing-world bureaucrats interact in producing public sector outcomes and ultimately citizens' welfare. Another is developing an economic framework to assess the social value of pharmaceutical innovation.

These experts represent two dozen departments-including Otolaryngology, Economics, Civil Engineering, Mathematics, the Writing Seminars, Musicology, and Radiology.

"In an environment where federal research funding remains elusive, especially for early-career faculty, it is vital that we support the most creative and ambitious ideas of our brightest minds," says Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels. "Our investment in these scholars is a commitment not only to them and to our institution but to the future of their fields."

The 2018 honorees-selected on the basis of their accomplishments to date, creativity and originality, and academic impact-will each receive a $75,000 grant to support their work over the next year. They also will have the opportunity to participate in mentoring sessions and events designed to connect these colleagues at similar stages in their careers.

The Catalyst Awards program was launched in early 2015, as was the Discovery Awards program for interdivisional collaborations. Together the two programs represent a $30 million university commitment to faculty-led research by university leadership along with the deans and directors of JHU's divisions.

The Catalyst Awards program is open to any full-time faculty member appointed to a tenure-track position within the past three to 10 years. More than 70 senior faculty members from across the university served on the committee that selected the awardees from a pool of 122 submissions.

This is the fourth year of the program; a combined 105 faculty were recognized during its first three cycles. Recipients are celebrated alongside the winners of the Discovery Awards at an event each fall.

"Earlier this year, we were thrilled when the Catalyst and Discovery awards were extended for an additional three award cycles," says Denis Wirtz, JHU's vice provost for research. "The remarkable and ambitious projects we were able to fund demonstrate the depth of talent across this university. We are greatly looking forward to engaging with this new cohort and celebrating alongside them as they make progress on their individual ventures."

2018 Johns Hopkins Catalyst Award recipients

• Yaa Akosa Antwi, Economics and Management, Carey Business School
• Kamila Alexander, Department of Community-Public Health, School of Nursing
• Keri Althoff, Department of Epidemiology, Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Timothy Amukele, Department of Pathology, School of Medicine
• James Arthur, The Writing Seminars, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
• Ishan Barman, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering
• Emily Boss, Department of Otolaryngology, School of Medicine
• Jennifer Coughlin, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine
• Yong Du, Department of Radiology, School of Medicine
• Michelle Eakin, Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, School of Medicine
• Richard Edden, Department of Radiology, School of Medicine
• Jaafar El-Awady, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering
• Li Gao, Department of Medicine, Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, School of Medicine
• Daria Gaykalova, Department of Otolaryngology, School of Medicine
• Danielle German, Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Daniele Gilkes, Department of Oncology, School of Medicine
• Loyal Goff, Department of Neuroscience, School of Medicine
• Lydia Gregg, Departments of Radiology & Art as Applied to Medicine, School of Medicine
• Daniel Honig, International Development, School of Advanced International Studies
• Robert Ivkov, Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences, School of Medicine
• Philip Jordan, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Nicholas Papageorge, Department of Economics, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
• Christopher Potter, Department of Neuroscience, School of Medicine
• Laura Protano Biggs, Department of Musicology, Peabody Institute
• Alessandro Rebucci, Finance and Real Estate, Carey Business School
• Sergi Regot, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, School of Medicine
• Emily Riehl, Department of Mathematics, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
• Eileen Scully, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, School of Medicine
• Karen Sfanos, Department of Pathology, School of Medicine
• Sauleh Siddiqui, Department of Civil Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering
• David Yezzi, The Writing Seminars, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
• Meng Zhu, Marketing, Carey Business School