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.

Arts and Sciences

Brown L. Murr has been appointed professor emeritus in the Department of Chemistry.

Dean W. Robinson has been appointed professor emeritus in the Department of Chemistry.

Medicine

Richard F. Ambinder has been promoted to professor of oncology, with secondary appointments in the departments of Pathology and Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences.

John G. Bartlett, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, has been elected president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America for 1999. The appointment was announced in November at the IDSA meeting in Denver.

Lewis C. Becker has been appointed to the Robert L. Levy Chair in Cardiology.

James F. Casella, associate professor of pediatrics and of oncology, has been named director of Pediatric Hematology at the Children's Center. Casella, who is currently investigating the cellular and molecular basis of pediatric blood-borne diseases, directs the only center in Maryland that provides one-stop, all-inclusive care for children and adults with hemophilia. He also is studying new drugs to treat sickle cell crises.

Edmund Y. S. Chao, Riley Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering. The NAE, a private institution formed in 1964 as a sister organization to the National Academy of Sciences, provides independent advice to the federal government on questions of engineering and technology and serves as a national forum for a full range of engineering issues. Chao was cited for his development of rigorous biomechanical models for functional analysis of human limbs and limb-salvage procedures in cancer patients.

Bart Chernow, vice dean for research and technology and corporate relations, has been awarded a mastership in the American College of Physicians--American Society of Internal Medicine. He will be inducted in April 1999 at the organization's 80th annual meeting.

Philip A. Cole has been appointed head of the Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences and first E. K. Marshall and Thomas H. Maren Professor, an endowed chair named for two renowned Hopkins pharmacologists. Cole was an M.D./Ph.D. student at Hopkins in the Medical Scientist Training Program and then trained in the Department of Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and served as a Howard Hughes postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School. He returns to Hopkins from Rockefeller University, where since 1996 he had headed his own laboratory.

Jeffrey L. Corden has been promoted to professor of molecular biology and genetics.

Hal Dietz has been named chairman of the professional advisory board at the National Marfan Foundation. Dietz was on one of the teams of investigators who discovered the gene for the disorder and was part of a select group of researchers who developed revised diagnostic criteria for it.

Edward E. Lawson, a neonatologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who specializes in neurodevelopment and breathing disorders in newborns, will join the Department of Pediatrics in February as chairman of the Division of Neonatology. Lawson expects to expand the network of clinical research in mother/infant care. He also will serve as vice chairman for Children's Center operations.

Michael A. Levine, professor of medicine, has been named director of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism at the Children's Center. He also will direct the Ilyssa Center for Molecular Endocrinology in Pediatrics, a new Children's Center service that is expected to improve the care of diabetic children through basic research. In addition, Levine directs the Johns Hopkins Bone and Mineral Center, a regional center for adults and children with bone disease associated with medications, kidney stones, osteoporosis and renal disease.

Eduardo Marban, professor of medicine and physiology, has been appointed to the Michel Mirowski Professorship in Cardiology.

Victor McKusick, University Professor of Medical Genetics, will be honored at a dinner Feb. 25 by the Huntington's Disease Society of America. Proceeds from the dinner will fund a Center of Excellence for Family Services and Research at Hopkins. The center will provide medical care, counseling, referrals and education for Huntington's disease patients and their families, as well as cutting-edge research. The Victor A. McKusick Fellowship, a component of the center, will support a clinical fellow.

William G. Merz has been promoted professor of pathology, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Dermatology.

Joel H. Saltz has been promoted to professor of pathology.

Robert F. Siliciano has been promoted to professor of medicine.

As part of its Alumni Relations and Communications Awards Program, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education District II has awarded writer Anne Bennett Swingle, of the JHMI Office of Communications and Public Affairs, a gold medal for "Final Moments," a story about Hopkins' palliative care initiative that appeared in Hopkins Medical News (fall 1998) and was condensed in the November 1998 issue of Dome.

Health System

Harriet Lane Clinic nurse Kathleen Alascia has been appointed to the Board of Nursing by Governor Parris Glendening. The state's governing body for licensed practical nurses, registered nurses and advanced practice nurses, the board writes nursing practice acts and sets curricula for nursing schools.

Kathy Cunningham has joined the Department of Patient and Visitor Services as supervisor of volunteer services. Cunningham has served as director of volunteers at several institutions, most recently at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Towson.

Michael Exler has joined the legal department as senior counsel for managed care. Exler comes to Hopkins from the Allegheny Health, Education and Research Foundation in Philadelphia. He will advise clients on matters related to managed care contracting.

Lisa Rowen is the new director of nursing in surgery. Rowen was at Mercy Medical Center, where she served as vice president for surgical services and chief nursing officer. Previously, Rowen held a clinical position at Hopkins in the Department of Surgery and practiced on Marburg 3.

Sandie E. Weisfeld is the new senior director of contract administration with the Medical Services Corporation, overseeing contract development, provider relations, enrollment and marketing. She joins Hopkins from Doctor's Health, where she was director of contract implementation.

Multidisciplinary

Fifty team members represented Hopkins in the post-season, gold division of the Bankers/Insurance Tennis League, leading the Hopkins Alpha Team to a second-place overall finish.

Organizers and team captains were Brad Bolster and Scott Walsh, doctoral students in Biomedical Engineering; Kevin Lin, a recent Hopkins graduate; and Harold Shinitzky, of the Pediatric Adolescent Clinic. Overall women's champions were Bayview anesthesiologist Sheila Rao and Susan De Muth, Fund for Johns Hopkins Medicine. Ann Caston and the School of Public Health's Maria Lin finished in third place. The Men's I Team of Andy Hseih, a recent Hopkins graduate, and Eric Slade, assistant professor of health economics in the School of Public Health, finished in second place; Scott Walsh and Devesh Srivastava, of the Department of Ophthalmology, finished third. The Men's II Team of Kevin Lin and MRI researcher Peter Barker finished in second place; Bayview's chairman of neurosurgery, Alex Olivi, and Gino Vista, a neuroscience technologist, finished third. The mixed doubles team of neuroscience research associate Ana Maria Oyarce and Harold Shinitzky finished in second place.

Peabody

The Philips Music Group at Polygram Records is launching Great Pianists of the 20th Century, a premier series of 200 CDs featuring recordings by 74 of the world's most famous pianists from all the major recording companies. Included are recordings by Leon Fleisher of works by Mozart, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Ravel and Weber. Compiled to celebrate the millennium, this is the largest single project ever undertaken by a record company and the first-ever multilabel partnership. Sponsored by Steinway & Sons, the 100 volumes in the series will be released over the next 13 months, with the Fleisher volumes scheduled for January.

Percussion faculty member Jonathan Haas, who is also principal timpanist with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, traveled with that orchestra to Hanoi in November 1998. The Orpheus was the first American orchestra to perform in Vietnam since the end of the Vietnamese War. Its concert at the Hanoi Opera House was attended by many North Vietnamese dignitaries, including General Vo Nguyen Giap.

Gustav Meier, the recently appointed director of the school's conducting program, will receive on Jan. 10 in Los Angeles the prestigious Max Rudolf Award for 1999, given by the American Guild of Conductors.

Public Health

David Paige, professor, Population and Family Health Sciences, has been honored with the March of Dimes' 1998 Agnes Higgins Award for Distinguished Achievement in Maternal-Fetal Nutrition. Paige was cited for his pioneering research on lactose intolerance, his crucial role in establishing the national WIC Program and his significant contributions in the areas of maternal-fetal nutrition, low birth weight and intrauterine growth retardation.

Philip K. Russell has beeen appointed professor emeritus in the Department of International Health.

Masood A. Shaikh, a doctoral student in Mental Hygiene, has been selected as a 1998-99 scholar to the Northeast Regional Public Health Leadership Institute, a joint venture of the school; the University of Albany, State University of New York, in affiliation with Albany Medical College; the New York State Department of Health; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Alfred Sommer, dean of the school, has been elected to serve as president of the Association of Schools of Public Health, a 28-member national consortium, for a two-year period beginning Jan. 1. The association's priorities for the next two years will include redefining professional education; working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to establish a coherent, effective and much-needed prevention research initiative; and assisting the Environmental Protection Agency to establish productive and urgently needed research centers to better delineate environmental health hazards.

SAIS

Don Oberdorfer, Distinguished Journalist in Residence, received the 10th annual Asia-Pacific Book Prize given by the Asian Affairs Research Council of Tokyo for the best book in Japanese on Asia during the past year. Oberdorfer received the award Nov. 19 during a ceremony in Tokyo for the Japanese translation of his recent book, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History, which relates the complex interaction between North Korea and South Korea and the major outside powers during the past 25 years.

The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History was originally published in 1997 by Addison-Wesley in Boston, and has also been published in London and Seoul. Earlier, the book was awarded a Citation for Excellence by the Overseas Press Club in New York. A paperback edition will be published in February 1999 by Basic Books in New York. Before coming to SAIS, Oberdorfer was a journalist for 38 years, 25 of them with The Washington Post, where he served as White House, Northeast Asia and diplomatic correspondent. He has twice won the National Press Club's Edwin M. Hood Award for diplomatic correspondence.