10 from Johns Hopkins elected to National Academy of Medicine

Ten Johns Hopkins University faculty members have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, an independent organization of leading professionals from diverse fields, including health, medicine, and the natural, social, and behavioral sciences. It serves alongside the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering as adviser for the nation and the international community.

Through its domestic and global initiatives, the academy works to address critical issues in health, medicine and related policy. Membership is considered one of the highest honors in health and medicine.

The announcement of the 100 new members was made today as part of the academy's annual meeting. The 10 elected from Johns Hopkins are Pablo Celnik, Ted Dawson, Darrell Gaskin, Jessica Gill, Sherita Hill Golden, Taekjip "TJ" Ha, Drew Pardoll, Sarah Szanton, Tener Goodwin Veenema, and Cynthia Wolberger.

New members are elected by current members through a selective process that recognizes people who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health.

More on the new members from Johns Hopkins:

Pablo Celnik, the Lawrence Cardinal Shehan Professor and director of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the physiatrist-in-chief at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is co-director of the Sheikh Khalifa Stroke Institute and director of the Human Brain Physiology and Stimulation Laboratory at Johns Hopkins. Celnik is internationally recognized for his expertise and research in neurologic rehabilitation, particularly in patients with stroke and brain injury, as well as his studies in human motor learning.

A native of Argentina, Celnik received his medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine. He completed his residency training in neurology in Argentina and a residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Ted Dawson, the Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Professor in Neurodegenerative Diseases, director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and professor of neurology, neuroscience and pharmacology and molecular sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He leads a laboratory focusing on the molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying movement disorders. He was the first to discover the role of nitric oxide in brain cell injury in stroke and to describe the molecular mechanisms by which nitric oxide and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase kill neurons. Many of his discoveries have informed the development of new agents to treat Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Dawson received his medical degree and doctorate in pharmacology from the University of Utah School of Medicine. He completed a residency in neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and fellowship in neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Darrell Gaskin, the William C. and Nancy F. Richardson Professor in Health Policy and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Gaskin is a health economist and health services researcher whose work has advanced fundamental understanding of the role of place as a driver in racial and ethnic health disparities. Through his work he hopes to advance community and market-level policies and programs that reduce health disparities.

Gaskin earned his doctorate in health economics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a master's degree in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor's degree in economics from Brandeis University.

Jessica Gill, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Trauma Recovery Biomarkers with primary appointments in the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and School of Medicine, Department of Neurology. Gill investigates differential responses in military personnel, athletes and other patients who have experienced traumatic brain injuries and the mechanisms underlying these divergent responses. Specifically, she looks for ways to use biomarkers to identify which patients are at high risk for poor recovery and long-term effects, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and post-concussive syndrome, and to develop treatments.

Gill obtained her bachelor's degree in nursing with a minor in biology from Linfield College, her master's degree in psychiatric nursing from Oregon Health and Sciences University, and her doctorate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. Gill was the first nurse to receive the Lasker Clinical Research Scholar Award, considered the most prestigious research grant given by the National Institutes of Health.

Sherita Hill Golden, the Hugh P. McCormick Family Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism and vice president and chief diversity officer for Johns Hopkins Medicine. Golden's work as a physician-scientist focuses on diabetes epidemiology, health services research and disparities. In her role as chief diversity officer, Golden is developing health equity operational strategy, systematizing collection of patient demographic data, overseeing unconscious bias and anti-racism training, and collaborating with institutional leaders to diversify the biomedical workforce.

Golden graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Virginia School of Medicine before training in internal medicine and endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. She received her master of health science degree in clinical epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Taekjip "TJ" Ha, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, Biophysics, and Biomedical Engineering at the School of Medicine. Ha's laboratory focuses on visualizing how individual molecules move within proteins and DNA. Understanding these basic biological processes gives scientists a zoomed-in view of how cells maintain the genome.

Ha completed his undergraduate studies in physics at Seoul National University, Korea, and his doctorate in physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Drew Pardoll, director of the Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, co-director of the Cancer Immunology Program at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and Martin D. Abeloff Professor of Oncology, Medicine, Pathology and Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Over the past two decades, Pardoll has studied molecular aspects of immune cell biology and immune regulation, particularly related to mechanisms by which cancer cells evade elimination by the immune system.

Pardoll completed his undergraduate studies in human biology at The Johns Hopkins University and his medical degree and doctorate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy and the National Academy of Inventors.

Sarah Szanton, dean and Patricia M. Davidson Professor for Health Equity and Social Justice at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. Szanton is best known for co-developing the visionary CAPABLE program, which combines handyman services with nursing and occupational therapy to improve older adults' mobility, reduce disability and decrease health care costs. The program has been researched and scaled to 45 places in 23 states, and it is expanding through several policy mechanisms as Medicare Advantage and Value Based care.

Szanton earned a bachelor of science degree in nursing from the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, a master of science in nursing from the University of Maryland, and a doctorate from The Johns Hopkins University. Szanton has a joint faculty appointment in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Tener Goodwin Veenema, a senior associate in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a contributing scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the school of public health. She is an international expert in disaster nursing and public health emergency management, with a focus on health systems optimization and health care worker protection during disasters and large-scale biological events such as pandemics and radiation/nuclear disasters.

Veenema is an elected fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the National Academies of Practice, and the Royal College of Surgeons, faculty of nursing and midwifery, Dublin, Ireland. In 2013, she was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal of Honor (International Red Crescent), the highest international award in nursing for her professional service in disasters and public health emergencies.

Cynthia Wolberger, director and professor of the Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Wolberger's laboratory studies proteins that pack DNA into a bundle within a cell and how special tags, called ubiquitins, are attached to these proteins and help turn genes on or off. She uses advanced imaging techniques to determine 3D models of the cellular machinery that controls DNA packaging, revealing how the process may go awry in human disease and thus providing potential avenues to developing drugs that can correct the process.

Wolberger received her undergraduate degree in physics from Cornell University and her doctorate in biophysics at Harvard University. She completed postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.