Sharon Gerecht, winner of the $250,000 President's Frontier Award (see Message), recently received two other honors. She was named the first Kent Gordon Croft Investment Management Faculty Scholar, an appointment that provides three years of flexible financial support for her lab, and she received an American Heart Association Established Investigator Award, a five-year grant supporting investigators with "unusual promise."
Three finalists for the Frontier Award were each awarded $50,000 to support their research and advance their academic pursuits. They are Scott Bailey, an associate professor in the Bloomberg School of Public Health; Samer Hattar, an associate professor in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences; and Sean Sun, an associate professor in the Whiting School of Engineering.
Adam Riess, professor of physics and astronomy in the Krieger School and a Nobel laureate, has been named a recipient of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the discovery of the acceleration of the universe. Two research teams will share the award of $3 million: one led by Saul Permutter, of UC Berkeley, the other co-led by Riess and Brian Schmidt, of the Australian National University.
Elizabeth Jaffee, professor of oncology in the School of Medicine and a pioneer in the field of vaccine therapy for pancreatic cancer, has been appointed deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. She succeeds Stephen Baylin, who will return to his position as director of the Division of Cancer Biology.
Two Krieger School seniors are heading to England in the fall with prestigious scholarships. Peter Kalugin received a Rhodes Scholarship and will enter the University of Oxford to pursue a two-year MSc in oncology degree. Sandya Subramanian was named a Churchill Scholar and will enter the University of Cambridge, where she will conduct research in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences.
Henry Brem, director of the Department of Neurosurgery in the School of Medicine, was honored with a Castle Connolly National Physician of the Year Award for Clinical Excellence.
Ben Schafer, chair of the Department of Civil Engineering in the Whiting School, was chosen by the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Structural Engineering Institute to receive the 2015 Shortridge Hardesty Award, recognizing his contributions to the field of structural stability.
Johns Hopkins led the United States in higher education research spending for the 35th straight year in fiscal 2013, with $2.2 billion for medical, science, and engineering research, according to the National Science Foundation. The university also ranked first on the NSF's separate list of federally funded research and development.
Laura Gitlin, professor in Community-Public Health in the School of Nursing, is the recipient of the M. Powell Lawton Award from the Gerontological Society of America.
The three-part PBS documentary series Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies, set to premiere March 30, filmed the segments that focused on patients' stories primarily at the Kimmel Cancer Center and the Charleston (West Virginia) Area Medical Center.
Pamela Paulk started in her new position as president of Johns Hopkins Medicine International on March 1. She most recently served as senior vice president of human resources for Johns Hopkins Medicine.
The Middle States Commission on Higher Education reaffirmed in November Johns Hopkins University's accreditation. Former Vice Provost Jonathan Bagger and Assistant Vice Provost Philip Tang chaired the 25-member steering committee of faculty, staff, and students that led the reaccreditation process and produced the 229-page report.
Three Johns Hopkins online graduate programs are among the best in the nation, according to rankings released in January by U.S. News & World Report. JHU's graduate nursing programs rank No. 3, up from No. 24 a year ago. Two programs administered by the Whiting School's Engineering for Professionals were also recognized. Computer Information Technology is listed at No. 5 (up from No. 13), and Engineering is at No. 12 (up from No. 14).
Daniel Markey has been appointed academic director of the new Master of Arts in Global Policy Program at SAIS. Markey was formerly the senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Theoretical physicist Marc Kamionkowski, professor in the Krieger School's Department of Physics and Astronomy, is a winner of the 2015 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics, awarded by the American Astronomical Society and the American Institute of Physics.
All the Things You Are, a solo album by Peabody faculty artist Leon Fleisher, was named one of NPR's 50 Favorite Albums of 2014. And two albums featuring faculty artist Michael Formanek, Thumbscrew and Palo Colorado Dream, were on allmusic.com's Best of 2014 list of Favorite Jazz Albums. The Thumbscrew trio's self-titled album was also on The Wire's list of Top 50 Albums of 2014.
Robert W. Blum, professor and chair of the Bloomberg School's Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, received the Martha May Eliot Award at the American Public Health Association's 142nd Annual Meeting & Exposition. The award "honors extraordinary health service to mothers and children."
Lisa Feigenson, professor of psychological and brain sciences in the Krieger School, is a recipient of the National Academy of Sciences' 2015 Troland Research Award, which recognizes unusual achievement by young investigators in experimental psychology.
James Segars has joined the School of Medicine as the inaugural professor and director of Reproductive Science and Women's Health Research, a newly established division of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics.
Joanne Katz, professor and associate chair of International Health in the Bloomberg School, was awarded one of two $50,000 Data for Life Prizes from CappSci. The funds will support her research in the use of portable ultrasound for expectant mothers in rural Nepal.
Marikki Laiho, chief of the Division of Molecular Radiation Sciences in the School of Medicine, is one of 11 physician/scientists in the nation to receive a 2015 Harrington Scholar- Innovator Grant worth at least $100,000 annually over two years. The grant will support her research in the relevance and implications of cellular DNA damage from cancer.
Theoretical particle physicist David Kaplan, professor of physics and astronomy in the Krieger School, received a 2015 Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award in Journalism for his contributions to the production of Particle Fever, a documentary about the identification of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva in 2012.
