Cheers is a monthly listing of honors and awards received by faculty, staff and students plus recent appointments and promotions. Contributions must be submitted and be accompanied by a phone number.

ENGINEERING M. Gordon "Reds" Wolman, a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, was recently elected to the prestigious American Philosophical Society. Founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, the group describes itself as the oldest learned society in the United States devoted to the advancement of scientific and scholarly inquiry. Distinguished past members of the American Philosophical Society have included Thomas Jefferson, John James Audubon, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Albert Einstein and Robert Frost. Wolman was among 38 U.S. scholars elected during the society's annual general meeting in Philadelphia. He is an expert in geomorphology, the evolution of the landscape. He has devoted special attention to the significance of rivers and water resources. Wolman has been a Johns Hopkins faculty member since 1952. He chaired the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering from 1970 through 1990 and twice has served as the university's interim provost. In 1975, Wolman was named the university's B. Howell Griswold Jr. Professor of Geography and International Affairs. His election to the American Philosophical Society is the latest in a long list of honors Wolman has received, including membership in the National Academy of Sciences and winner of the American Geophysical Institute's prestigious Ian Campbell Award.

APL

Ira Blatstein has joined the Director's Office as deputy assistant director for programs. Blatstein recently retired from the Naval Surface Warfare Center Headquarters, where he served as its acting commander and technical director, and director of the University Affiliated Research Center Management Office of the Naval Sea Systems Command. After earning a bachelor of science degree in physics from Drexel University in 1967, Blatstein joined the staff of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in White Oak, Md., conducting research in underwater explosion effects and explosion acoustics. He continued his education at Catholic University, earning a doctorate in physics in 1974. His areas of technical expertise include antisubmarine warfare sensors, energetic materials, tactical nuclear warfare and nuclear simulators.

Arts and Sciences

Nadja Durbach and Frederick E. Klaits are among the 35 winners of the 1999 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships. Given by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the awards encourage original and significant study of ethical or religious values in all areas of the humanities and social sciences. The $15,000 fellowships make possible a year of uninterrupted research and writing leading to a timely completion of the doctoral dissertation. Durbach, who is in the Department of History, will look at "Disease by Law: Class, Culture and the Campaign against Compulsory Vaccination, 1853-1907. Klaits is in the Department of Anthropology; his topic is "Death and Social Loyalty in Botswana in the Time of AIDS."

Health System

Gayle Adams, director of community relations at Bayview, has been named Humanitarian of the Year by the Dundalk Optimist Club.

David Bush, director of Bayview's cardiac catheterization laboratory, has been named member of the year by the Association of Black Cardiologists. The award recognizes Bush's work in preventing and reducing cardiovascular disease in African Americans.

Sandra Dietzel of the Children's Center is one of four nurses in the Washington/Baltimore metro area to be named nurse of the year by Nursing Spectrum magazine. Dietzel, a nurse clinician II on an infant/toddler unit, specializes in helping children with major genitourinary anomalies and also serves as a board member and mission volunteer for the Maryland chapter of Operation Smile.

Bayview geriatrician Samuel C. Durso, director of Johns Hopkins Geriatrics at Putty Hill and associate medical director for Johns Hopkins HealthCare, has been named clinician of the year by the American Geriatric Society. The award is given once a year to a clinician who has made an outstanding contribution to delivering care to older people, who communicates well with patients and families, and who makes generous contributions to community health care efforts.

William H. Sharfman, a medical oncologist at Bayview and member of the Hopkins melanoma group, has been named director of medical oncology at Green Spring Station and director of cutaneous oncology for the Oncology Center.

Kathy Smolinski, an oncology clinical social worker, is one of 14 health care professionals and only two social workers nationwide to receive the 1998 American Cancer Society's Lane W. Adams Award. The prestigious award honors health care providers who give outstanding, compassionate care to patients and families and whose practice is characterized by innovation and excellence.

Marlene S. Williams, assistant professor in the Division of Cardiology at the School of Medicine, has joined the staff of Bayview. A specialist in ischemic heart disease and platelets, Williams came to Bayview from Hopkins Hospital, where she completed both her cardiology fellowship and her residency in internal medicine.

Medicine

William Baumgartner, chief of cardiac surgery, has been named vice dean for clinical affairs and president of the school's Clinical Practice Association. Baumgartner, who will continue to head Cardiac Surgery, will oversee all institutional clinical activities in his new role. He steps into the position previously held by Elias Zerhouni, who will remain executive vice dean and will be responsible for Hopkins' research enterprise.

Garry R. Cutting, director of the residency and postdoctoral training program in genetic medicine and of the DNA diagnostic laboratory, recently was installed as the first Aetna U.S. Healthcare Professor in Medical Genetics.

Eugene de Juan Jr., an ophthalmologist specializing in macular degeneration and other retinal diseases, was installed as the inaugural Joseph E. Green Professor in Ophthalmology at a dedication ceremony in Turner Auditorium on April 30.

Patricia D. Fosarelli, assistant professor, Pediatrics, is the recipient of the Central Maryland Ecumenical Council's Christian Life Award. Fosarelli, who works with children in the AIDS clinic, also is on the faculty at the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore.

Argye Hillis, a neurology resident, has received a two-year Stroke Research Fellowship award of $30,000 per year from the National Stroke Association. The NSA fellowships are awarded to promising young researchers who are advancing the treatment and understanding of stroke.

Louis R. Kavoussi, Patrick C. Walsh Distinguished Professor of Urology, recently was awarded the Golden Cystoscope Award by the American Urological Association. This honor recognizes someone who has made outstanding contributions to the profession of urology during the decade following residency.

Christoph Lengauer, research associate, Oncology, has been awarded the Benjamin Baker Scholar Award in Colorectal Research for his work in isolating the mitotic checkpoint in genes.

Donald Price, professor in the departments of Pathology, Neurology and Neuroscience, has received a five-year, $500,000 Bristol-Myers Squibb unrestricted neuroscience research grant to support investigation of the mechanisms and therapies of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Price is also director of the Division of Neuropathology and of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the hospital.

Joel N. Shurkin has been appointed bureau chief and editor of the JHM channel of Medcast, the Internet daily news, information and education service for practicing physicians. Shurkin has almost 30 years' experience writing science and medicine for news agencies and newspapers. As science editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, he was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the reactor accident at Three Mile Island. Most recently, he was a free-lance writer based in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Pediatric residents Adrianna M. Bravo, Beth Ebel and Jessica Sessions were selected from nearly 400 nominees to receive a 1999 Governor's Volunteer and Service Award. The three, who also received the university's Martin Luther King Awards this year, were recognized for helping to develop the Reach Out and Read program and to convert four debris-strewn acres into a safe playground at Harford Heights Elementary School.

Patricia Hill-Callahan, formerly director of donor relations and development services for the Fund for Johns Hopkins Medicine, has been promoted to director of development for the Cardiovascular Institute. Susan T. deMuth has been promoted from assistant director in the School of Medicine Development Office to associate director of donor relations and stewardship for the fund. Brian Hand, new associate director of development for departmental programs at the fund, comes to Hopkins from Penn State College of Medicine's Hershey Medical Center, where he was associate director of university development.

At the school's convocation on May 27, the W. Barry Wood Jr. Award for Excellence in Teaching was given to Jeremy M. Berg, professor and director of the Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, and Edward F. McCarthy Jr., associate professor of pathology and orthopedic surgery. The two were voted the most inspirational and effective teachers by students in the preclinical years. Pamela A. Lipsett, associate professor of surgery and anesthesiology/critical care medicine, was honored by senior students with the George J. Stuart Award, which recognizes an outstanding clinical teacher. Christopher J. Sonnenday, Department of Surgery fellow, took home the House Staff Award, given annually for excellence in clinical teaching by a member of the house staff. Katherine L. Wilson, associate professor of cell biology and anatomy, was recognized for excellence in teaching at the graduate level with the Graduate Student Teaching Award. The medical faculty gave the Professors' Award for Excellence in Teaching to Jay M. Baraban, associate professor of neuroscience and psychiatry, for teaching in the basic science years, and to Charles M. Wiener, associate professor of pulmonary medicine and physiology, for teaching in the clinical years.

The Department of Urology has received the Smithsonian Computerworld medal of recognition from the Smithsonian Institution for its robotic telementoring efforts with Hopkins-Singapore.

The University Continuing Education Association has awarded its top honor, the Innovations in Continuing Education Award, to the distance learning version of the Business of Medicine Certificate program. The program also placed second for the UCEA/Peterson's Award for Innovation in Distance Learning.

Nursing

Elizabeth Jordan, instructor and coordinator for maternal/newborn nursing in the undergraduate program, received the Caroline Pennington Award at the school's diploma ceremony on May 27. The award recognizes qualities that define special teachers. Jordan began working at Hopkins in 1989 as a clinical nurse specialist in the obstetrics department at the hospital. She began teaching at the School of Nursing in 1990 and two years ago started the doula program at Hopkins.

Public Health

Jane Eliot Sewell, associate, Health Policy and Management, is the author of Medicine in Maryland: The Practice and the Profession, 1799-1999, published this month by the Johns Hopkins University Press. The comprehensive history was a bicentennial project under the auspices of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland.

University Administration

A student aid video produced by the Office of Development has received a grand gold medal in Electronic Media Presentations in a competition sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. The award includes a $1,000 prize sponsored by the Ford Motor Company Fund, which will be split between Hopkins and the other grand gold winner, Art Center College of Design.