Cheers is a monthly listing of honors and awards received by faculty, staff, and students plus recent appointments and promotions. Contributions must be submitted in writing and be accompanied by a phone number.
Academic Centers and Affiliates
Kelly Curran, director of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Diseases at Jhpiego, was recently named by The Daily Record as one of the Leading Women of Baltimore. The award recognizes young women who show outstanding leadership in their field and whose commitment to inspiring change is making a real difference in the lives of the populations they serve. Curran is a respected member of the HIV/AIDS health care community and an expert on voluntary medical male circumcision, which is helping stop the spread of the pandemic across Africa. The awards ceremony will be held Dec. 6.
Bloomberg School of Public Health
David W. Dowdy has been named the recipient of the inaugural B. Frank and Kathleen Polk Associate Professorship. The endowment supports junior faculty within the Bloomberg School's Department of Epidemiology who show great potential for future contributions to public health. Dowdy, who is currently an assistant professor in Epidemiology, received his MD, PhD, and ScM degrees from Johns Hopkins. A board-certified internist whose work merges expertise in classical epidemiology, economic evaluation, infectious disease modeling, and public policy, Dowdy is an emerging leader in modeling the impact and cost-effectiveness of diagnostic interventions for tuberculosis. He has advised the World Health Organization in crafting policy related to TB diagnostics, and he was recently named to the eight-member steering committee of the TB Modeling and Analysis Consortium sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He also serves as the director of the modeling core for the National Institutes of Health-funded TB Clinical Diagnostics Research Consortium. His modeling and economic work has been published in The Lancet, PLoS Medicine, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Wietse A. Tol has been named the inaugural recipient of the Dr. Ali and Rose Kawi Professorship in Mental Health. Ali A. Kawi is a Bloomberg School graduate and a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the State University of New York. The professorship supports individuals whose work and studies will advance public mental health research and practice in keeping with Kawi's lifelong work in treatment, research, and education. Tol's extensive research combines science and practice in the development and evaluation of mental health and psychosocial support programs for populations in extreme adversity, especially those exposed to disasters and political violence in low- and middle-income countries. In 2011, he was awarded the Chaim and Bela Danieli Young Professional Award by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, which recognizes excellence in science or research in the field of traumatic stress by an individual who has completed his or her training within the last five years. Tol joined the Bloomberg School in 2012 as an assistant professor in the Department of Mental Health. He was previously a fellow with the Yale University Global Health Initiative and earned his doctoral degree from the Vrije University Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Yingying Wei and Zhenke Wu are co-recipients of this year's June B. Culley Award, which honors outstanding achievement by a Biostatistics student on his or her schoolwide examination paper. Wei's paper was titled "Correlation Motif Method for High-Throughput Genomics Data." Her adviser is Hongkai Ji. Wu's paper was titled "Hierarchical Bayesian Model for Combining Information From Multiple Biological Samples With Measurement Errors: An Application to Children Pneumonia Etiology Study." His adviser is Scott Zeger and his co-adviser, Han Liu.
Homewood Student Affairs
Jed Gaylin, music director of the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, has assumed the post of music director of the Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra in Shepherdstown, W. Va. Gaylin, who was named after a nationwide search, is also music director of the Bay-Atlantic Symphony, principal guest conductor of the National Radio and Film Philharmonic, and principal conductor of the Cape May Music Festival. A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, he holds a doctor of musical arts degree in conducting from the Peabody Conservatory.
Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Chia-Ling Chien, the Jacob L. Hain Professor of Physics and director of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, is a winner of the inaugural Asian Union of Magnetic Societies Award, recognizing his "seminal contribution to magnetic materials, nanostructures, magnetoelectronic phenomena, and devices." Chien's current research interests include fabrication of nanostructured materials and their structural, electronic, magnetic, and superconducting properties; highly spin polarized materials, spin-transfer torque effects, and magnetoelectronics. The Asian Union of Magnetic Societies was established in 2009 to promote research, education, and application development in magnetism, magnetic materials, and magnetic devices. As part of his prize, Chien has been invited to speak at next year's International Conference of the Asian Union of Magnetic Societies, which was held this year in October in Japan. Chien received his bachelor's in physics from Tunghai University in Taiwan and his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University. He has published more than 400 papers in refereed journals and holds several patents. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Physical Society, and is one of the most-cited scientists, with more than 15,000 citations. He is also an honorary professor at Nanjing, Lanzhou, and Fudan universities in China.
Tyrel McQueen, an assistant professor in the Chemistry Department, has been awarded a 2012 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, one of 16 awarded nationwide by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The fellowships bestow unrestricted funds of $875,000 over a five-year period to unusually creative young faculty members in science and engineering. McQueen will use the award to continue his work toward discovering, designing, and controlling materials with exotic electronic states of matter, with applications ranging from fundamental science to solving energy problems.
Brice Ménard, an assistant professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, was named Outstanding Young Scientist of 2012 by the Maryland Academy of Sciences. He received the award Oct. 24 at a ceremony at the Maryland Science Center. His research involves statistical analyses of large astronomical data sets and aims to achieve a better understanding of how galaxies form and evolve, and how dark matter is distributed in space. His work has led to the detection of gravitational magnification by dark matter around galaxies, the discovery of tiny grains of dust in the intergalactic space, and a better understanding of how light rays propagate throughout the universe.
Multidisciplinary
Ten faculty members associated with Johns Hopkins are among the 1,119 mathematical scientists from around the world who have been named fellows of the American Mathematical Society for 2013, the program's initial year. The designation recognizes members who have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics. Among the goals of the program are honoring excellence and creating an enlarged class of mathematicians recognized by their peers as distinguished for their contributions to the profession.
The inaugural fellows from Johns Hopkins are William P. Minicozzi, Bernard Shiffman, Christopher D. Sogge, Joel Spruck, W. Stephen Wilson, and Steven M. Zucker, professors in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences' Department of Mathematics; J. Michael Boardman, Jun-ichi Igusa, and Takashi Ono, professors emeriti in the Krieger School's Department of Mathematics; and Edward Scheinerman, a professor in the Whiting School of Engineering's Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics.
Sgt. Emily Thompson Schelberg, a member of the Marine Corps and a master's degree candidate in the School of Nursing, has been selected as the 2012 NFL-Tillman Military Scholar for her leadership and service to the medical profession. Thompson Schelberg, whose goal is to be a nurse practitioner focusing on orthopedics, was recognized at the Baltimore Ravens football game on Nov. 11. The NFL-Tillman Military Scholars program was established in 2010 by the Pat Tillman Foundation to annually honor an individual who exemplifies football-player-turned-soldier Pat Tillman's legacy of service. Thompson Schelberg is one of 59 students nationally, including four from Johns Hopkins, selected as 2012 Tillman Military Scholars. The others from JHU are Army Spc. Kate Hoit, who is pursuing a master's degree in writing in the Krieger School; Air Force Staff Sgt. Elizabeth O'Herrin, who is pursuing a master of arts in government in the Krieger School; and Army Staff Sgt. Nick Culbertson, an MD candidate in the School of Medicine.
Peabody Institute
Faculty artist Amit Peled has been given use of Pablo Casals' Matteo Gofriller cello by Casals' widow, Marta Casals Istomin, and the Casals Foundation. Peled recently released a CD, Reflections, on which he performs Ernest Bloch's Schelomo with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hajime Teri Murai.
William Wisnom, a Master of Music candidate in the Organ Department, performed at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 25. He will also give public recitals at St. Thomas Church in New York City on Dec. 16, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco on Jan. 6, and River Road Church in Roanoke, Va., on Jan. 27.
Faculty member Garnett Bruce, stage director of Peabody's Nov. 27 Opera Potpourri, is the director of the Dallas Opera's production of Aida, which opened Oct. 26, and of Pagliacci at Austin Lyric Opera, which opened Nov. 10. He is also director of The Magic Flute at Opera Carolina in Charlotte, opening Jan. 19; The Magic Flute at Opera Omaha, opening Feb. 22; and Turandot at the Dallas Opera, opening April 5.
School of Medicine
Wesley Blakeslee, executive director of the Johns Hopkins Technology Transfer Office, has been named Penn State University's Outstanding Engineering Alumnus for 2013. Blakeslee joined Johns Hopkins in 1999 as associate general counsel; before his law career, he was an engineering manager at NASA, where he oversaw a software design, development, and implementation group. JHTT is the university's intellectual property administration center, serving Johns Hopkins researchers and inventors as a licensing, patent, and technology commercialization office and acting as an active liaison to parties interested in leveraging JHU research or materials for academic or corporate endeavors.
Catherine DeAngelis, Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of pediatrics and former editor in chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association, has received a Special Recognition Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges, celebrating extraordinary achievements in academic medicine. DeAngelis was the founding director of Johns Hopkins' Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, as well as vice dean for academic affairs. She returned to the university in 2010 after a decade at JAMA and is working to establish a Center for Professionalism in Medicine and the Related Professions, including nursing, public health, business, and law.
David Hellman, vice dean and director of the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, has been named the school's interim vice dean for education. He will continue to serve as vice dean for Bayview and will serve as vice dean for education until a permanent successor to David Nichols, now president and CEO of the American Board of Pediatrics, is named. The inaugural holder of the Aliki Perroti Professorship of Innovative Medicine, Hellman created Bayview's nationally recognized Aliki Initiative, which imbues students and residents with the importance of knowing each patient as an individual.
Sewon Kang, a professor and director of the Department of Dermatology, has been elected to a three-year term on the board of directors of the Association of Professors of Dermatology, the oldest national organization for education leaders in the field.
Michele Manahan, an assistant professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery, has been re-elected to a one-year term as vice speaker of the house of delegates for The Maryland State Medical Society. MedChi's house of delegates develops the association's policies and procedures
Edward McCarthy, a professor of pathology and orthopedic surgery, has received one of the world's highest honors in bone pathology and radiology, an invitation to deliver the Founder's Lecture at a meeting of the International Skeletal Society in Rome. He spoke on "The Skeleton in Art History."
Stephen Milner, a professor of plastic surgery and director of the Johns Hopkins Burn Center at Bayview Medical Center, has been honored by the James R. Jordan Foundation International for the medical care he provided to burn patients, as well as the instruction on burn treatment he gave to medical professionals in Kenya, Africa. In 2009, the foundation sought the assistance of Milner and other Hopkins Burn Center staff to aid the Kenyatta National Hospital in its care for dozens of people injured in a major explosion that left more than 100 dead. The foundation currently is building a new hospital in Kenya that will include the Stephen M. Milner Burn Centre.
Jeremy Nathans, a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator, was awarded the Eye & Ear Foundation of Pittsburgh's 2012 Albert C. Muse Prize in Ophthalmology for outstanding research revealing the mechanism of how color vision works. Nathans was presented with the award and a $5,000 cash prize on Oct. 24 at the University of Pittsburgh, where he gave a presentation titled "The Evolution of Human Color Vision." Nathans has determined the genetic code of the human visual pigment molecules of cone cells, which along with rod cells are the two types of photoreceptor cells in the eye's retina. The pigment molecules in the cone cells capture light and are essential for our color vision. He has also discovered some of the ways genes control eye development and contribute to inherited eye dysfunctions such as color blindness and to diseases such as macular degeneration.
Stephen Sisson, a professor and vice director for clinical affairs in the Department of Medicine, has been elected governor of the Maryland Chapter of the American College of Physicians. ACP is the largest medical-specialty organization and second-largest physician group in the United States. Its membership of 133,000 includes internists, internal medicine subspecialists, and medical students, residents, and fellows. As the state governor, Sisson will serve on the board of governors, which advises the board of regents, ACP's policymaking body.
The Bayview Diversity Council was honored by the Association of Diversity Councils as one of the top 25 diversity councils in the United States for a second consecutive year. Among the others recognized were AT&T, FedEx Freight, Hyatt Hotels, and The Boeing Co.
University Administration
Jennifer Mielke has been named director of Community Affairs in the Office of Government and Community Affairs.
Salem Reiner, formerly director of Community Affairs, has joined the President's Office as associate director of Economic Development.
Whiting School of Engineering
Mounya Elhilali and Mark Foster, assistant professors in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, are recipients of the Office of Naval Research 2012 Young Investigator Award. Elhilali and Foster are two of only 26 investigators selected for the award from a group of 369 applicants. The ONR program seeks to fund early-career, tenure-track scientists and engineers who demonstrate extraordinary promise for producing creative research, and the award is meant to support their investigations and encourage the recipients in their teaching and research careers. Elhilali's proposal was "Active Listening, Closing the Loop Between Sensation, Perception, and Behavior." Foster's was "Critical Performance Enhancement of Ultrahigh-Bandwidth Microwave Photonic Links through Nonlinear Photonic Signal Processing."
Jerry Prince, the William B. Kouwenhoven Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Image Analysis and Communications Lab, is the recipient of the Enduring Impact Award from the Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention Society. Prince is only the fourth recipient of this award, given to a senior researcher whose publications and work "have proven, persistent impact on the field of medical image analysis and interventions."?
