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The Whiting School has organized a "Celebration of Excellence" to honor Murray B. Sachs and M. Gordon "Reds" Wolman, two widely respected faculty members who recently were elected into the National Academy of Engineering. The symposium, which is free and open to the Homewood campus community, begins at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 15, in Shriver Auditorium. The event will feature two guest speakers. Michael Merzenich, a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco, will discuss "The Auditory Neuroscience of Murray B. Sachs." John C. Schmidt, associate professor in the Department of Geography and Earth Resources at Utah State University, will speak on "Rivers and People: Sustaining the Relationship." Immediately after the symposium, a reception will be held in the Clipper Room. "While the celebration is in honor of the election of two of our faculty into the National Academy of Engineering, it is particularly fitting that we honor Reds Wolman and Murray Sachs," said Ilene Busch-Vishniac, dean of the Whiting School. "Both Reds and Murray epitomize that which is best about the Whiting School. They are marvelous scholars whose research has had a major impact worldwide, and they are warm and gracious colleagues who have worked tirelessly to make Hopkins a great institution for students and faculty alike." Murray Sachs is the Bessie Darling Massey Professor of Biomedical Engineering, director of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, director of the Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Institute and professor of neuroscience and of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery at the School of Medicine. He is also a member of the principal professional staff of the Applied Physics Laboratory. He obtained a bachelor of science degree in 1962 and a doctorate in electrical engineering in 1966 from MIT.
Sachs' primary research interest is the neural processing of speech. His work has included neurophysiological and modeling studies of neural encoding in the inner ear and processing of the neural code by populations of neurons in the central nervous system. He has received the von Bekesy Silver Medal of the Acoustical Society of America, the Award of Merit of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology and the 2003 Life Achievement Award of the American Auditory Society for his contributions to auditory neuroscience. A former Jacob Javitz Neuroscience Investigator, he is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, founding fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. Reds Wolman, who has taught at Johns Hopkins since 1962, is the B. Howell Griswold Jr. Professor of Geography and International Affairs in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, with a joint appointment in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences. He received his bachelor's degree in 1949 from Johns Hopkins and his doctorate in 1953 from Harvard.
His research has focused on human activities and their interactions with the natural processes impacting the Earth's surface, specifically the control of quantity and quality of streamflow and the behavior of rivers. His studies of environmental processes have involved him in environmental policy work for water, land and energy resources. Wolman has been recognized through many awards including the Cullum Geography Medal of the American Geography Society, Rachel Carson Award, Chesapeake Appreciation, Ian Campbell Medal of the American Geology Institute, Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America and Horton Medal of the American Geophysical Union. Past president of the Geological Society of America, Wolman was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1988 and to the American Philosophical Society in 1999.
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