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Commencement 1999
Nominations for The Johns Hopkins University
Society of Scholars
1998-99
Kenneth I. Berns, M.D.,
Ph.D. |
Present Position |
Interim Vice President for Health Affairs
Dean
College of Medicine
University of Florida
PO Box 100014
Gainesville, FL 32611-9500 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1966-67
Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics
(formerly Department of Microbiology)
School of Medicine |
Nominator |
Thomas J. Kelly Jr., M,D., Ph.D |
Field of Interest |
Dr. Kenneth I. Berns received his A.B., M.D. and
Ph.D. degrees from Johns Hopkins. After a pediatrics internship
at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Berns served for three years in the U.S.
Public Health Service at the NIH. In 1970, he returned to Johns
Hopkins as an Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Pediatrics.
In 1976, he left Hopkins to become Professor and Chairman of
Immunology and Medical Microbiology and Professor of Pediatrics
at the University of Florida College of Medicine. From 1984-97 he
was R.A. Rees Pritchett Professor and Chairman of Microbiology at
Cornell University Medical College. He is currently the Interim
Vice President for Health Affairs and the Dean of the College of
Medicine at the University of Florida.
Dr. Berns has devoted most of his scientific
research career to the study of the molecular basis of
replication of the human parvovirus, adeno-associated virus
(AAV). He has been a major contributor to our knowledge
concerning the ability of AAV to establish latent infections in
human cells and to be reactivated by adenovirus infection. His
work was instrumental in providing the basis for the current
interest in the use of this virus as a vector for gene therapy.
He has served as president of the American Society for Virology
and the American Society of Microbiology and is a member of the
National Academy of Sciences. |
George A. Bray,
M.D. |
Present Position |
Executive Director and Professor
Pennington Biomedical Research Center
6400 Perkins Road
Baton Rouge, LA 70808 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1957-58
Department of Medicine
School of Medicine |
Nominator |
Simeon Margolis, Ph.D. |
Field of Interest |
Dr. Bray's interest in obesity began with a
question about the biological basis for inherited obesity. Using
as models genetically obese mice and rats available when he was a
fellow and faculty member at Tufts, he began a series of animal
studies that have continued for 35 years. He has examined the
effects of food restriction, dietary composition, insulin
resistance, and the administration of thyroid hormone,
cholecystokinin, and various anorectic drugs in rats obese due to
genetic factors or hypothalamic lesions. His laboratory studies
have also shown that dietary fat intake can be selectively
regulated either by a pancreatic peptide (enterostatin) or by
serotonin release in the brain. The results of these studies have
provided an understanding that one important cause of obesity is
defects in the feedback system that regulates food intake. He
then used the insights gained from these animal experiments to
study patients with obesity in the clinic. Findings regarding the
role of monoamines in controlling food intake have contributed to
his studies on the role of drugs that modulate neurotransmitters
as possible treatments for obesity. He is the lead author on the
multicenter study of subutramine, a drug that has just been
approved for the treatment of obesity in the US. |
Robert M. Chanock,
M.D. |
Present Position |
Chief
Laboratory of Infectious Diseases
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD 20817 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1956-57
Departments of Epidemiology
School of Hygiene and Public Health |
Nominator |
Diane E. Griffin, Ph.D. |
Field of Interest |
Dr. Robert Chanock has had a career committed to
the discovery of the etiology of many respiratory diseases and to
developing vaccines for virus diseases of children and adults. He
was responsible for the initial isolations of many respiratory
viruses, e.g. respiratory syncytial virus, parainfluenza virus,
corona viruses and a number of strains of rhinovirus. He also was
the first to isolate and characterize a new type of infectious
agent, mycoplasma. He defined most of what we know about the
virologic and epidemiologic characteristics and the clinical
spectrum of these infections. As chief of the Laboratory of
Infectious Diseases at the NIAID he currently leads the largest
U.S. program for developing new vaccines for important virus
diseases of humans. He has trained many of the leaders in human
virology. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in
1973. |
Michael J. Dunn,
M.D. |
Present Position |
Professor of Medicine
Dean & Executive Vice President
Medical College of Wisconsin
Office of the Dean
8701 Watertown Plank Road
Milwaukee, WI 53226 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1962-65
Department of Medicine
School of Medicine |
Nominator |
W. Gordon Walker, M.D. |
Field of Interest |
Dr. Dunn's early classic description of
experimental magnesium depletion in the human, and subsequent
studies of erythrocyte ion transport that clarified previously
disparate views of sodium transport across the red blood cell
membrane are recognized as outstanding research
contributions.
His most significant and sustained research on
the role of prostaglandins in modulating renal function has
provided new insights into the endocrine regulation of kidney
function in health and disease. His studies of the renal toxicity
of widely used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents, described
in scholarly contributions in this field have provided both
clinical guidance and new insights into the basic physiology of
the renal circulation.
Throughout he has carried a heavy
administrative load first as Director of the Renal Division and
Associate Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the
University of Vermont College of Medicine, followed by Hanna
Payne Professor of Medicine and Director of Nephrology plus
service as Associate Director and Acting Chairman of the
Department of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University of
Medicine. Currently he is Professor of Medicine and Dean and
Executive Vice President of the Medical College of
Wisconsin. |
Gerald Finerman,
M.D. |
Present Position |
Chairman
Department of Orthopaedics
University of California-Los Angeles
Room 76-134
P.O. Box 956902
Los Angeles, CA 90095-6902 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1966-69
Department of Orthopaedics
School of Medicine |
Nominator |
John P. Kostuik, M.D. |
Field of Interest |
Dr. Finerman was a resident in the last 60's at
Johns Hopkins and at that time set a high standard for his
forthcoming academic career. Dr. Finerman is currently Professor
and Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics at University of
California, Los Angeles. Dr. Finerman received his undergraduate
degree at the University of Pennsylvania and his M.D. at Johns
Hopkins. Following his residency he was appointed as an Assistant
Professor and was in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at
Johns Hopkins for two years. Together with Lee Riley, Jr., he
initiated the total hip service at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Finerman
joined the UCLA Orthopaedic Department faculty in 1971 where he
specializes in sports medicine joint replacement. He has been in
charge of the sports medicine program for the Department
intercollegiate athletics. He has been chief medical officer for
the UCLA village in the 1984 Olympic games. While a resident at
Hopkins he received a Kappa Delta Award for Orthopaedic Research
from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. He has
recently been awarded a large grant from the National Institutes
of Health to Evaluate Kinematics of the Cruciate Ligaments of the
Knee. He has more than 100 peer review publications and numerous
book chapters. He is a member of the American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgeons and the American Orthopaedic Association as
well as many subspeciality organizations. He was awarded an
American/British Canadian Fellowship, the highest achievement in
academic orthopaedics for young faculty. Dr. Finerman has
maintained a close relationship with Hopkins since his departure
and he has committed to the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at
Hopkins. |
Mark T. Keating,
M.D. |
Present Position |
Professor of Medicine
Human Genetics and HHMI Investigator
Eccles Institute of Human Genetics
University of Utah
78 North Laurel Street
Salt Lake City, UT 84103 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1980-83
Department of Medicine
School of Medicine |
Nominator |
Victor A. McKusick, M.D. |
Field of Interest |
Following three years of residency training on
the Osler Medical Service of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Mark
Keating worked for 6 years at the University of California San
Francisco. Since 1989, he has been a member of the faculty of the
University of Utah, where he is now professor of medicine and
human genetics and is an investigator of the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute.
Keating is a pioneer in molecular cardiology.
Starting in 1991 and using methods of map-based gene discovery,
he and his colleagues characterized the genes mutant in four
forms of the long QT syndrome, a cause of cardiac arrhythmia and
sudden death.
In 1993, Keating and his students showed that
the gene for elastin is mutated or deleted in cases of the aortic
malformation called supravalvar aortic stenosis. They went on to
show that the elastin gene and neighboring genes are deleted in
about 90% of patients with Williams syndrome, a developmental
abnormality that has supravalvar aortic stenosis as one feature.
Thus, the studies of Keating demonstrated that
elastin is essential to arterial morphogenesis. His studies of
the several forms of long QT syndrome revealed new information
about the function of potassium ion channels in the heart and
provided DNA diagnosis in family members at risk for sudden
death. |
David T. Kelly,
MBChB |
Present Position |
Scandrett Professor of Cardiology
Director
Hallstrom Institute of Cardiology
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
Missenden Road
Camperdown
NSW 2050
Australia |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1969-76
Department of Medicine
Division of Cardiology |
Nominator |
Richard S. Ross, M.D. |
Field of Interest |
David Kelly received medical and cardiology
training in New Zealand and help junior faculty posts in London
and Cape Town before coming to Johns Hopkins in 1969 where he was
served on the faculty until 1976. At present he is the Scandrett
Professor of Cardiology at the University of Sydney and Director
of the Hallstrom Institute of Cardiology at the Royal Prince
Alfred Hospital.
While at Hopkins during the 60's, Kelly was
involved in the development of radio nucleotide imaging of the
heart. When he returned to Australia he established the
Department of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Sydney (ref.
32,33, 34). He has been a pioneer in cardiovascular pharmacology
and in the use of vasodilators in myocardial infarction.
More recently, his interests have been directed
toward the epidemiology of coronary disease and he was invited to
give the Paul Dudley White International Lecture at the 1996
Annual Scientific Session of the American Heart Association (ref.
122).
Kelly has been President of the International
Society and the Federation of Cardiology and will be President of
the 14th World Congress of Cardiology to be held in Sydney in the
year 2002. |
Jon C. Liebman, Ph.D.
|
Present Position |
Professor Emeritus
Department of Civil Engineering
School of Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
3219 Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory
205 N. Mathews
Urbana, IL 61801 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1965-72
Department of Geography & Environmental Engineering (formerly
Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences)
School of Engineering |
Nominators |
Charles ReVelle, Ph.D. and M Gordon Wolman,
Ph.D. |
Field of Interest |
Professor Jon C. Liebman was educated at the
University of Colorado (Bachelor of Civil Engineering) and
Cornell University (Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy).
He began his academic career on the faculty at Johns Hopkins
University where he established one of the nation's first
research programs in Environmental Systems Engineering. During
his tenure at Hopkins, he was known as one of the University's
finest teachers of undergraduates to whom he provided Hopkins'
first course on scientific computing. He then served as faculty
member, Associate Head and Head of the Civil Engineering
Department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, one
of the largest and best Civil Engineering Departments in the
country.
Dr. Liebman's pioneering research has been in
the area of Environmental Systems Analysis, a field which blends
the tools of operations research with the practical problems of
environmental management. In particular, he has done
path-breaking research in applications of mathematical modeling
and optimization to the regional management of water quality; his
seminal dynamic programming work led to extensive follow-on
research on this important problem. He established the first
research program in the nation which focused on optimal methods
for solid waste management. With his numerous students, he
studies the complex mathematical problems associated with
collection, routing, transfer station siting, and landfill
siting, in order to determine cost efficient regional solid waste
disposal systems. He has also published extensively on optimal
sewer system design and on the design of water distribution
systems.
As one of the founders of the discipline of
Environmental Systems Engineering, Professor Liebman helped to
established one of the most significant approaches to decision
making and management in the broad spectrum encompassed by the
word "environment" environmental policy, and in virtually all
academic departments of civil and environmental engineering in
the country. |
Paul Meier,
Ph.D. |
Present Position |
Howard Levene Professor
Department of Statistics
Columbia University
616 Math Building
New York, NY 10027 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1952-57
Department of Biostatistics
School of Hygiene and Public Health |
Nominator |
Scott Zeger, Ph.D. |
Field of Interest |
In 1958, Dr. Paul Meier published a paper with
E.L. Kaplan in the Journal of the American Statistical
Association (the leading statistics journal) entitled
"Nonparametric Estimation from Incomplete Observations"
introducing the now-famous Kaplan-Meier estimate of the survival
function, which populates every major medical and public health
journal throughout the world. With the Cox proportional hazzards
model, the Kaplan-Meier estimate of a survival function is
perhaps the most commonly-used statistical method in clinical
research. Paul Meier started this seminal work as a graduate
student at Princeton University and completed it as a faculty
member in the Johns Hopkins Department of Biostatistics. With
this single paper, Dr. Meier established himself as the leading
biostatistics of his day. He went on to a distinguished career,
serving for more than 30 years as professor of statistics at the
University of Chicago. During this time, he became the leading
America expert in the design, conduct, and analysis of data from
clinical trials. Throughout his career, Dr. Meier has been a
trusted advisor to clinical researchers in academia, industry,
and government. Dr. Meier is widely recognized for his depth of
understanding, pursuit of challenging problems, and as never
having lost a good argument. |
Nicholas Muzyczka, M.D.
|
Present Position |
Professor
Department of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology
University of Florida Health Science
P.O. Box 100266
Gainesville, FL 32610 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1974-1977
Department of Biology & Genetics
(formerly Department of Microbiology)
School of Medicine |
Nominator |
Maurice J. Bessman, Ph.D. |
Field of Interest |
Professor Muzyczka's Ph.D. thesis from the
Department of Biology at Hopkins on bacterial viruses was seminal
to our understanding of the biochemical basis of spontaneous
mutations. Later, as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Daniel Nathan's
laboratory, he began his work with animal viruses that has made a
leader in the area of gene therapy, using Adeno-Associated Virus
as the vector for replacing defective genes. Professor Muzyczka
is one of those rare individuals able to bridge the gap between
basic and applied research, and his fundamental studies on viral
replication are instrumental in advancing the technology of gene
replacement in the treatment of human disease. |
Carol Wolf Runyan, M.P.H.,
Ph.D. |
Present Position |
Professor
Department of Health Behavior and Health Education Director
University of North Carolina Injury Prevention Research
Center
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
204 Chase Hall - CB# 7505
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7505 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1985-86
Department of Health Policy & Management
School of Hygiene and Public Health |
Nominator |
Susan P. Baker, M.P.H. |
Field of Interest |
Professor Carol Runyan is a nationally and
internationally renowned scholar whose achievements and
leadership in injury control have placed her at the forefront of
this critical field. Shortly after completing her Postdoctoral
Fellowship in Epidemiology at our School of Public Health in
1986, she was appointed Associated Director of the Injury
Prevention Research Center at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill (UNC). She is now the Director of that center,
overseeing a large group of faculty and students and a wide
variety of injury research projects. She serves on CDC's Advisory
Committee for Injury Prevention and on the Board of Directors of
the National Association of Injury Control Research Centers.
Dr. Runyan's research contributions have
included seminal research on adolescent injuries and occupational
injuries; these major studies were accomplished during a period
when both areas lacked good epidemiological work. Her papers on
injuries to women have called attention to the underrecognized
fact that injuries are the major cause of death among women for
the first several decades of life. Her research is now making
important contributions to the problems of violence against
women. |
Olive Shisana,
Ph.D. |
Present Position |
Executive Director
Family and Health Services
World Health Organization
20 Avenue APPIA
CH-1211
Geneva 27
Switzerland |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1981-84
Department of Health Policy and Management
(formerly Department of Behavior Sciences)
School of Hygiene and Public Health |
Nominators |
David D. Celentano, Sc.D., M.H.S. and Richard
Morrow, Ph.D. |
Field of Interest |
Dr. Olive Shisana is a courageous, effective and
tireless leader who has led the extraordinary transformation of
South Africa's apartheid separate and unequal hospital-based
health systems through to an integrated, equitable district-based
primary health care-oriented system. She is a highly articulate
speaker, passionate in her views and has a deep sense of
compassion for those in need.
Because of apartheid, repression and serve
political upheavals in South Africa, Olive fled from anticipated
arrest for her active anti-apartheid activities in the mid 1970s
to continue her education in the U.S. She obtained a Masters
degree from Loyola College in Baltimore and then a ScD from the
Department of Behavioral Sciences (social epidemiology focus;
David Celentano, advisor) at Johns Hopkins in 1984. After
graduating, she joined the Department of Human Services, District
of Columbia from 1986 to 1991, serving as Chief Statistical
Advisor and then Chief of Research and Statistics. As an African
National Congress (ANC) member who fled the country during the
mid-1970s, during a period of extreme hardship and persecution,
she maintained an active role in the struggle to reform South
Africa from the USA. With the revolutionary political shifts in
South Africa that would allow her considerable talent, energy and
expertise to be put to good use in rebuilding her homeland, she
returned in mid-1991 to join The South African Medical Research
Council (MRC).
While with the MRC she was seconded to the
University of the Western Cape to develop in parallel with the
University of the Transvaal, the first school of public health in
South Africa. She became Technical Advisor to the ANC on
Provincial Restructuring of the Administrations, Civil Service
Restructuring and Affirmative Action a long bureaucratic name
for one of the most important administrative bodies that was to
transform the nature of South Africa and was instrumental in
radically redrawing boundaries for the Provinces and Districts -
a highly contentious undertaking, but fundamental to the drive
for equitable social services.
When the new Government of National Unity took
over, she was appointed Director of the South African Department
of Health in 1995. Here she put to use her scholarly talents of
eloquent persuasion and document of facts in successfully
carrying through the full transformation of the previously
inequitable, highly fractionated, racially structured health
system in the face of unrelenting opposition by the still
powerful and still incumbent members of the previous health
establishment. With great perseverance she oversaw the most
difficult aspects of the massive reconstruction with great
success.
Largely because of her remarkably courageous
and uncompromising, but highly effective and compelling
management of the health system of South Africa, she was one of
the first person selected by Dr. Gro Brundtland, the new
Director-General of the WHO, to form her inner cabinet as
Executive Director of family and Health Services. Despite the
extreme intensity of work in reshaping the SA health system, she
continued with her scholarly reports and discussions. Attached
are copies of some academic papers including her vision for the
future South Africa. |
David B. Skinner,
Ph.D. |
Present Position |
President and CEO
The New York Presbyterian Hospital and New York Presbyterian
Health Care System
525 East 68th Street
New York, NY 10021 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1968-72
Department of Surgery
School of Medicine |
Nominator |
John L. Cameron, M.D. |
Field of Interest |
Dr. David Skinner is a general thoraic surgeon
whose first faculty appointment was at The Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor in the
Department of Surgery in 1968. During his tenure there he was
promoted first to Associate Professor and then to Professor. His
major interests were esophageal surgery, pulmonary surgery and
support of the failing heart. He left Hopkins after a five year
stay to become the Dallas B. Phemister Professor of Surgery and
Chairman of the Department at the University of Chicago. He
continued to make many important contributions in the field of
esophageal surgery, and when he left the University of Chicago in
1987 to become the President of New York Hospital, he was
recognized as one of the outstanding esophageal surgeons in the
world. His leadership at New York Hospital took them from a
period of losing a million dollars a week to a very successful
institution, that recently combined with Columbia Presbyterian
Hospital, with Dr. Skinner as the CEO of the combined New York
Presbyterian Hospital and New York Presbyterian Health System.
Dr. Skinner has clearly been one of the leaders in American
Surgery since the middle 1970's. |
Eric Jeffrey Topol,
M.D. |
Present Position |
Chairman, Department of Cardiology
Director, Joseph J. Jacob Center for Thrombosis and Vascular
Biology |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1982-1985
Department of Medicine
Division of Cardiology |
Nominator |
Kenneth L. Baughman, M.D. |
Field of Interest |
Dr. Eric Topol received his undergraduate degree
from University of Virginia with highest distinction with a major
in biomedicine. He received his medical doctorate with honors in
1979 from University of Rochester School of Medicine. Internal
medicine training was obtained at the University of California
San Francisco and completed in 1982. From 1982 to 1985 Dr. Topol
was a fellow in the Division of Cardiology at The Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine. He subsequently was recruited by
the University of Michigan School of Medicine where he rose to
the rank of Professor in 1991 and was the Director of the cardiac
Catheterization Laboratory. He was subsequently appointed the
Chairman of the Department of Cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic
Foundation, where he also directs the Joseph J. Jacobs Center for
Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.
Dr. Topol's curriculum vitae reflects the
magnitude of his impact in the area of Cardiovascular diseases.
He has authored or co-authors 528 original manuscripts, 15 books,
99 book chapters, 40 letters to the editor, 406 abstracts and 54
non-peer review articles. While a fellow at Hopkins, Dr. Topol
made original observations on the influence of bypass graft
surgery on stunned myocardium and the early use of thrombolytic
agents (TPA). Eric has not only directed a very successful
department of cardiology but has organized a world-wide network
of cardiovascular investigators who have completed a multitude of
randomized, prospective placebo-controlled trials which have
dramatically forwarded our knowledge of evidence-based
cardiology. |
Gayle Woodson,
M.D. |
Present Position |
Professor
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck surgery
University of Tennessee
1572 Central Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104 |
Postdoctoral Experience |
1976-78
Department of General Surgery
School of Medicine |
Nominator |
Charles W. Cummings, M.D. |
Field of Interest |
Dr. Woodson currently is a Professor in the
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the
University of Tennessee. She attended medical school at Baylor
and did her surgical internship and first year of resident
surgical training at Johns Hopkins, prior to returning to Baylor
in the otolaryngological head and neck surgical training program,
which she completed in 1981. She completed a fellowship in
laryngeal physiology at the Institute of Laryngology and Otology
in London, England and became certified by both the Royal College
of Surgeons of Canada and the American Board of Otolaryngology
subsequent to her training. She was an Assistant Professor at the
Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Otorhinolaryngology
until 1987 when she moved to the University of California at San
Diego, School of Medicine where she was fist an Assistant then
Associate Professor. She moved with her husband to the University
of Tennessee in 1993 where she is a Professor. Dr. Woodson serves
as a Director of the American Board of Otolaryngology, and is on
the residency review committee for otolaryngology. She has served
on the NIDCD Program Advisory Committee, and DRG Communicative
Sciences Study Section. Dr. Woodson is currently president of the
Society of University Otolaryngologists and the Advisory Council
for Otolaryngology for the American College of Surgeons and has
served on the Council of the American Society for Head and Neck
Surgery.
Dr. Woodson serves on 4 editorial boards of
peer reviewed journals and has authored 85 publications and book
chapters. It is my opinion and the opinion of many within the
specialty that Dr. Woodson is the most distinguished female
otolaryngologist in this country. |
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