Cheers: May 2017

*Cheers is a monthly listing of appointments, promotions, and honors and awards received by faculty and staff. Submissions can be emailed to hubatwork@jhu.edu.

Applied Physics Laboratory

Carolyn Ernst, Space Exploration Sector planetary scientist, has been honored by the International Astronomical Union and Minor Planet Center, which recently approved the name Ernst for the asteroid designated 11008. Ernst, who joined APL in 2008, researches impact cratering and the surface evolution of asteroids and other solar system objects. She joins a group of at least 20 current APL staff members—as well as APL itself and Johns Hopkins University—with asteroids named after them.

Johns Hopkins Medicine

Stephanie Reel, chief information officer for the Johns Hopkins Health System, has been named to Health Data Management's list of 75 Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT. Among them are top hospital CIOs and IT executives, health care IT thought leaders, and health care IT vendor executives, who will receive their awards at a conference in May. Reel is also CIO for the university.

For the third time since 2013, a team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center has won the Team Science award from the American Association for Cancer Research. This award honors their innovations in developing blood tests, or "liquid biopsies," for cancer. Scientists recognized are Luis A. Diaz, Nishant Agrawal, Chetan Bettegowda, Frank Diehl, Peter Gibbs, Stanley R. Hamilton, Ralph H. Hruban, Hartmut Juhl, Isaac Kinde, Kenneth Kinzler, Martin Nowak, Nickolas Papadopoulos, David Sidransky, Jeanne Tie, Victor E. Velculescu, and Bert Vogelstein. Johns Hopkins scientists previously won the Team Science award for innovations in brain cancer research and in pancreatic cancer genome sequencing.

Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

Hollis Robbins, director of the Center for Africana Studies and Humanities chair at Peabody, was named a 2017–18 Delta Delta Delta Fellow at the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. She is one of 35 fellows invited to the NHC next year as resident scholars from 15 states, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Chosen from 630 applicants, the fellows represent humanistic scholarship in English language and literature, environmental studies, European languages and literature, history, history of science, medieval studies, music history and musicology, philosophy, religion, sociology, and South Asian studies, along with theater, dance, and performance studies. Robbins will use the year to complete her book Forms of Contention: The African American Sonnet Tradition, under contract with the University of Georgia Press.

Multidisciplinary

Paul Rothman, dean of the School of Medicine, and Arturo Casadevall, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in the schools of Medicine and Public Health, are among the 228 new members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Read more on the Hub.

Three researchers have each received a 2016 Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research Award from the Hartwell Foundation. They are Samuel M. Alaish, an assistant professor in the School of Medicine's Department of Surgery; Jill A. Fahrner, an assistant professor in the School of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics; and Ho Lam Tang, a research associate in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology in the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Read more on the Hub.

Peabody Institute

Faculty artist Nasar Abadey was honored with a DC Jazz Leadership and Service Award presented by the DC Jazz Lobby, a subset of the Capitol Hill Jazz Foundation, in celebration of International Jazz Day on April 30. The DC Jazz Leadership and Service Awards annually recognize individuals within the DC jazz community who have worked to promote and support members of the DC jazz scene.

Symphony No. 2 by Composition Department Chair Michael Hersch was featured April 26 on American Public Media and NPR's Composers Datebook. Host John Zech did an overview of Hersch's early career and the compositional inspiration behind Symphony No. 2 and featured a recording of the piece by the Bournemouth Symphony under the baton of Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and director of Peabody's Graduate Conducting Program. Composers Datebook is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present.

Faculty artists David Smooke and Judah Adashi were each awarded $6,000 from the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards. Faculty artist Manuel Barrueco was awarded $3,000. The Maryland State Arts Council's annual Individual Artist Award recognizes the importance of artists and their works to Maryland's cultural life.

School of Medicine

Alan Cohen's book Pediatric Neurosurgery: Tricks of the Trade (Thieme, 2016) has won first prize in the category of Textbook/Clinical Medicine in the PROSE Awards given by the Association of American Publishers. The book previously won first prize in the 2016 British Medical Association Book Awards in the category of Surgical Specialties. Cohen is the Benjamin S. Carson Sr., M.D., and Dr. Evelyn Spiro, R.N., Professor of Pediatric Neurosurgery and director of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery.

Nephrologist and epidemiologist Deidra Crews, an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Nephrology, and associate vice chair for diversity and inclusion in the Department of Medicine, was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society at the School of Medicine's Institute for Excellence in Education conference in March. Election to Alpha Omega Alpha is an honor signifying a physician's lasting commitment to scholarship, leadership, professionalism, and service.

Jennifer Elisseeff has been appointed to TEDCO's board of directors by Gov. Larry Hogan. Elisseeff is the Morton Goldberg Professor and director of the Translational Tissue Engineering Center at the Wilmer Eye Institute and the Department of Biomedical Engineering. In 2004, Elisseeff co-founded Cartilix Inc., a startup that translated adhesive and biomaterial technologies for treating orthopedic disease and was acquired by Biomet Inc. in 2009. Also in that year, she founded Aegeria Soft Tissue, a startup focused on soft tissue regeneration and wound healing. She is a member of the National Academy of Inventors and advises a number of biotech companies around the country.

Jonathan A. Forsberg, an assistant professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, a professor in the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences–Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Department of Surgery, and a Navy captain, has been selected to receive the 2017 Ellis Island Medal of Honor. Forsberg was among 100 individuals chosen from business, government, medicine, art, education, and all branches of the military whose accomplishments in their fields and service to the nation are "a cause for celebration," according to the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, which sponsors the Medal of Honor.

Charlene Gamaldo, an associate professor of neurology, medicine, and psychiatry, and medical director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Sleep, has been selected to join the American Academy of Neurology board of directors. A member of the School of Medicine faculty since 2004 and vice chair for faculty development in the Department of Neurology, Gamaldo has served on the AAN sleep section leadership committee, its medical student pipeline committee, and its undergraduate education and minority scholars subcommittees.

Elizabeth M. Jaffee, deputy director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center and leader of the Stand Up to Cancer–Lustgarten Foundation Dream Team, has been named president-elect of the American Association for Cancer Research. She will begin her one-year term as AACR president in 2018. Jaffee, a professor of oncology, is an international leader in the development of immune-based therapies for pancreatic and breast cancers.

Rita Rastogi Kalyani, an associate professor of medicine and editor-in-chief of the Johns Hopkins Diabetes Guide, has been named one of the Top 100 Women in Maryland by The Daily Record, the Baltimore-based legal and business newspaper. Since 1996, the newspaper has compiled this list of women who not only are leaders in their profession but dedicate time and energy to mentoring and to community work.

Jennifer Lawton has been named head of the Division of Cardiac Surgery. The first woman to hold the position, Lawton was previously associate chief of the division. She also is director of both the Cardiac Surgery Research Laboratory and the cardiothoracic fellowship training program.

Reza Sedighi Manesh, an assistant professor of medicine, has received the 2017–19 Jeremiah A. Barondess Fellowship in Clinical Transaction, given by the New York Academy of Medicine in collaboration with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Manesh received the award in March at the 2017 ACGME Annual Educational Conference in Orlando, Florida. The two-year, $50,000 fellowship will support his study of the use of the Human Diagnosis Project as a scalable and objective measure of clinical reasoning.

Daniel O'Connor, an assistant professor of neuroscience, is among 102 winners of Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers. The awards are the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. O'Connor's research focuses on neural circuits for sensory perception. His lab is working to reveal the neural circuit foundations of touch perception and to provide a framework to understand how circuit dysfunction causes mental and behavioral aspects of neuropsychiatric illness.

Linda Regan, an associate professor of emergency medicine, has been appointed first vice chair of education for the Department of Emergency Medicine. A 10-year veteran of the department, Regan will oversee all the department's education programs and faculty development related to education. She also will retain her role as program director of the Emergency Medicine Residency Program.

Stephen Baylin, the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Oncology and Medicine, co-director of the Cancer Biology Division, and associate director for research programs at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center; Peter Calabresi, director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center and a professor of neurology; Garry Cutting, the Aetna/U.S. Healthcare Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine, McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine; Sherita Hill Golden, the Hugh P. McCormick Family Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism and executive vice chair of the Department of Medicine; Frank Giardiello, the John G. Rangos Sr. Professor of Medicine, program director for the gastrointestinal fellowship and director of the Johns Hopkins Colorectal Cancer Registry and Risk Assessment Clinic; and Justin McArthur, the John W. Griffin Professor in Neurology and director of the Department of Neurology, were elected to the Association of American Physicians at the meeting of the organization in April in Chicago.

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center are among a Dream Team that will share in $12 million in research funding from Stand Up to Cancer, a nonprofit organization that is part of the Entertainment Industry Foundation. The research funds will be used to explore immunotherapy and other treatments for colorectal cancer. Nilofer Azad, an associate professor, will serve as the Dream Team principal for the Johns Hopkins group, which includes oncologists Dung Le, an associate professor, and Daniel Laheru, a professor. The Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center is home to the Bloomberg Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

School of Nursing

Omonike Akinleye, a student in the Master of Science in Nursing: Entry into Nursing program, received the Rev. Melvin B. Tuggle Community Excellence Award from the Bloomberg School of Public Health for her work with the Dunbar Nursing Enrichment program and her impact on Baltimore youth. The Dunbar Hopkins Enrichment Program introduces juniors and seniors from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School to the profession of nursing. It covers clinical skills, degree options, resume building, job opportunities, and more.

Tener Veenema, an associate professor in the Department of Acute and Chronic Care, received a 2017 Visiting Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award funded by the Fulbright Commission and Council for the International Exchange of Scholars. Through the award, she is teaching and conducting research at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

Sheridan Libraries and University Museums

Stephanie Gamble, the librarian for History and Anthropology, presented on two panels—"Finding the Gaps: Building Powerful Partnerships Across Campus" and "Transforming First-Year Information Literacy: Understanding Authority in a Sea of Information"—at the Association for College and Research Libraries conference in March. She also co-authored a chapter, "Who's the Boss? Getting Students to Understand Authority in an Academic Context," in the recently released The First-Year Experience Library Cookbook, published by ACRL.

Robin N. Sinn, a scholarly communications specialist at the Sheridan Libraries, moderated the panel discussion "Scientific Societies and Associations: A Look Into Publication and Beyond" at the 2017 Association of College & Research Libraries national conference in April. Panelists included executives from the American Educational Research Association, American Political Science Association, and American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery.

Whiting School of Engineering

Matthew Green, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and a member of the JHU Information Security Institute, has been chosen by the National Science Foundation for its CAREER Award, which recognizes early-stage scholars with high levels of promise and excellence. Using his $500,000, five-year grant, Green aims to deepen the fundamental understanding of the design, architecture, and implementation of secure messaging systems and examine the conflicting requirements created by the need for exceptional access mechanisms.

James Guest, an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, is one of five recipients of an American Society of Civil Engineers 2017 Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize. He was recognized "for research at the forefront of topology optimization, focusing on the rigorous integration of mechanics, optimization, manufacturing, and uncertainty quantification."

Archana Venkataraman, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was installed as the John C. Malone Assistant Professor in a ceremony in April. She directs the Neural Systems Analysis Laboratory and is affiliated with the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare. Her research lies at the intersection of multimodal integration, network modeling, and clinical neuroscience.