The Johns Hopkins Gazette: December 16, 2002
December 16, 2002
VOL. 32, NO. 15

  

In Brief

Johns Hopkins Gazette Online Edition

Bush nominates Johns Hopkins trustee as Treasury secretary

On Dec, 9, President Bush nominated John W. Snow, a member of the university's board of trustees, as secretary of the Treasury. Snow is chairman and CEO of CSX Corp.

In addition to his doctorate in economics from the University of Virginia and his law degree from George Washington University, Snow holds a master of liberal arts degree from Johns Hopkins. His term on the university board ends 2005.


Up to 50 students can pursue PURA projects in 2003

Last year, one winner of a Provost's Undergraduate Research Award used his funding to record street sounds and turn them into techno-pop. Another bred mutant fruit flies looking for a gene responsible for thwarting the bug's development. Yet another sifted through 60-year-old newspaper clippings in his quest to compare film noir and the urban paintings of Edward Hopper.

This year, another 50 undergraduates in the schools of Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Nursing and in the Peabody Conservatory will have the opportunity to conduct original research, guided by a faculty sponsor, through the PURA program. The maximum amount of the 2003 awards is $3,000, which can be used to defray costs associated with the project, such as expendable supplies and related travel.

Students from all disciplines are encouraged to submit proposals; sponsors must be full-time faculty but can be from any division of the university. Applications are now available from the office of Theodore Poehler, vice provost for research, at 265 Garland Hall, Homewood campus, or by phone at 410-516-8671.

Applications are due by noon on March 7, 2003, for summer projects and by noon on April 4, 2003, for fall semester proposals. For more information, go to http://www.jhu.edu/pura.


Students awarded high honors in national MBA competition

Building on what has become a tradition, students from Johns Hopkins Business scored a strong showing in the 2002 National Black MBA Association case competition. Finishing in the top six, the Hopkins group bested teams from such schools as Yale, Duke, Wharton and MIT.

Johns Hopkins, whose MBA program is housed in SPSBE's Graduate Division of Business and Management, has sent a team to the competition for the last nine years and has brought home one first place and three second-place finishes.

Sponsored by DaimlerChrysler Corp., the competition challenges business students to research a business issue or problem, and then present their analysis and recommendations to a panel of judges. The NBMBAA began the competition to recognize and encourage the professional development of outstanding minority MBA candidates. The event was held this year in Nashville, Tenn.

This year's successful team--Jerry Dawson, Brian Kelly, Carmen Maxwell and Jessica Montoya--delivered an eight-point recovery strategy for an automotive manufacturer that was mired in a two-year slump and had a $91 million shortfall.

The team was coached by William Keating Jr., a practitioner faculty member.

The top three finishers were Michigan State, UCLA and the University of Michigan. The Johns Hopkins contingent represented the only East Coast institution to reach the national final round.


SOM professor to serve on national ergonomics committee

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has named Edward J. Bernacki, associate professor and director of Occupational Medicine, to the new National Advisory Committee on Ergonomics, which has been chartered initially for two years.

The 15-member committee will advise the assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health on a number of issues related to OSHA's four-pronged approach to reducing ergonomic-related injuries in the workplace--guidelines, research, outreach and assistance, and enforcement.

At Johns Hopkins, Bernacki is also executive director of Health, Safety and Environment and chair of the hospital and university safety committee. He is the current president of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.


APL licenses technology to counter bioterrorism

The Applied Physics Laboratory has licensed its pathogen neutralization technology to Maryland start-up company Biodefense Research Group Inc. APL's device fits into building heating and air conditioning systems, where it uses ozone and ultraviolet light to kill close to 100 percent of the bacteria, viruses and spores a terrorist might drop into a building vent.

BRGI plans to install the system in government and commercial buildings, including hospitals.


'Gazette' will resume weekly publication on Jan. 6

Due to the upcoming holidays, The Gazette will not be published on Dec. 23 or Dec. 30. The weekly schedule will resume on Jan. 6, 2003.

News breaking during those two weeks will be posted online by the Office of Communications and Public Affairs at today@jhu.edu, which can be accessed through the Johns Hopkins home page, http://www.jhu.edu.

The deadline for calendar and classifieds submissions for the Jan. 6 issue is noon on Monday, Dec. 30.


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