For the Record: Cheers

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.

 

Applied Physics Laboratory

Nancy Linton, a systems engineer who specializes in jamming enemy communications, has won the 2008 Black Engineer of the Year Award for Outstanding Technical Contribution in Government. The awards are sponsored by Career Communications Group, the Council of Engineering Deans of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Lockheed Martin Corp. and USBE and Information Technology magazine. Linton accepted the award in February at the 22nd Black Engineer of the Year Awards Conference, where Kwame Osei-Wusu of the Space Department was recognized as a Modern Day Technology Leader and Gwen Boyd of the Central Laboratory Office received a Most Important Blacks in Technology Award.

 

Bayview Medical Center

Yelena Frankel, wound fellow in the Department of Dermatology, has received the Everett C. Fox Award and a cash prize from the American Academy of Dermatology for her research presentation "Diagnosing Chronic Wound Infection: Comparison of Routine Cultures, Quantitative Microbiology and Molecular Techniques." Out of nearly 200 entries and 20 oral presentations, Frankel's paper won second place at the Residents and Fellows Symposium at the AAD national meeting.

David Kern, professor and director of the Division of General Internal Medicine, has received the 2008 Theodore E. Woodward Award from the Maryland Chapter of the American College of Physicians. The award recognizes a physician who has made important contributions to medical education and research. Kern has been instrumental in developing Hopkins' GIM residency program, the faculty development program for clinician-educators, the medical education track of the GIM fellowship program and the Osler Center for Clinical Excellence.

The American Stroke Association has given its Get With the Guidelines-Stroke Gold Performance Achievement Award to Johns Hopkins Bayview for its success in implementing higher standards of stroke care. The award recognizes the medical center's record of adherence to key measures for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients for 24 or more consecutive months. Rafael Llinas, associate professor in Neurology, is director of the center.

 

Bloomberg School of Public Health

Marie Diener-West, professor in the Department of Biostatistics, has been named chair of the Master of Public Health degree program. She will assume the position on May 31, replacing Ron Brookmeyer, who announced in December his plans to step down. Diener-West, who received her doctorate from the school, was named the inaugural Helen Abbey-Margaret Merrell Professor of Biostatistics Education in 2004 and is a four-time recipient of the Golden Apple Award, which is given annually by students to outstanding teachers.

Doctoral candidates Bryan James, Epidemiology, and Bruce Swihart and Marco Carone, both in Biostatistics, are winners of the 2008 Louis I. and Thomas D. Dublin Award honoring student research at the interface of biostatistics and epidemiology.

 

Center for Talented Youth

Linda E. Brody, director of the Julian Stanley Study of Exceptional Talent, has received the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation's 2008 Special Grant in the Chemical Sciences. The $40,000 award will support Brody's project called Focusing on the Chemical Sciences on Cogito.org, a Web site and Online Community for Gifted Pre-College Math and Science Students. Brody is one of 26 Special Grant award recipients.

'Imagine' magazine has garnered the Parents' Choice Foundation's highest hon-or, the Gold Award, for the fifth year in a row. Intended for gifted 12- to 18-year-olds, Imagine has five annual issues covering topics that range from academic competitions and summer programs to college advice and career profiles with luminaries such as journalist Cynthia McFadden and Cassini-Huygens scientist Jonathan Lunine. Many articles are written by writers the same age as the readers. Melissa Hartman is editor.

 

Johns Hopkins Health System

Patricia Brown, president of Johns Hopkins Health Care, has been appointed to the board of the Maryland Chapter of the American Diabetes Association. A former assistant attorney general of Maryland and past president of the Maryland State Bar Association's Health Care Law Section Council, Brown joined the Johns Hopkins Health System in 1994.

 

Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

Gregory F. Ball, professor in Psychological and Brain Sciences, has been named dean of research and graduate education, effective July 1. He will succeed Ed Lattman, who has been named CEO and scientific director of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. Director of the undergraduate neuroscience program and the David S. Olton Behavioral Biology program, Ball also holds joint appointments in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Division of Reproductive Biology, at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and in the Department of Neuroscience at the School of Medicine. His research concerns the interrelation of hormones, the brain and reproductive behavior. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Ornithologists' Union and is president-elect of the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology.

 

Multidisciplinary

The Diversity Leadership Council has selected eight recipients of its 2008 Diversity Recognition Award, which will be presented in a ceremony at noon on May 1 in Homewood's Glass Pavilion. The award recognizes the exceptional contributions of faculty, staff and students in advancing and celebrating diversity and inclusiveness at Johns Hopkins.The recipients are Tina Cheng, School of Medicine; Kevin Clark, Peabody Institute; Barbara Cook, Johns Hopkins Community Physicians; Melissa Dattalo, School of Medicine; Ella Durant, Bayview Medical Center; Stephanie Huang, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences; Carol Libonati, School of Nursing; and Brenton Pennicooke, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

 

School of Education

Yolanda Abel, instructor in the Department of Teacher Preparation, has been named recipient of the Judith Ruchkin Research Award from the Maryland Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development for her doctoral dissertation, "African-American Fathers' Involvement in Their Children's School-based Lives." She will receive her award at the MASCD's Spring Forum on May 27. The award is given annually for outstanding quantitative and qualitative research in one of six categories, including faculty research and dissertations. Abel earned her doctorate from the school in December. Since 2000, she has been advising new teacher candidates entering elementary and early childhood education.

 

School of Medicine

Frank Giardiello, professor of medicine, oncology and pathology and director of the Colon Cancer Risk Assessment Clinic, has received the 2008 Distinguished Educator Award from the American Gastroenterological Association.

Marlis Gonzales-Fernandez has been appointed medical director of the Johns Hopkins Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Outpatient Clinic at JHH. An instructor in PM&R and epidemiology in the School of Medicine, she has special interest in swallowing disorders, stroke and amputee rehabilitation. She also is mentor to the Johns Hopkins Latino Pre-medical Honor Society.

Edbert Hsu, assistant professor, Emergency Medicine, has received the American Medical Association Foundation's 2008 Leadership Award. Hsu, an expert in disaster medicine, has helped develop emergency medicine and disaster preparedness programs throughout the world and has led statewide efforts to enhance hospital pharmaceutical preparedness for public health emergencies. He is the director of training and serves on the leadership group of the university's Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response. Currently he is a co-investigator with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center for the Study of Preparedness and Catastrophic Event Response, and an associate editor for the AMA journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. He works closely with the National Disaster Life Support Educational Consortium.

Hendree Jones, associate professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, has been selected as the 2008 recipient of the Joseph Cochin Young Investigator Award given by the College on Problems of Drug Dependence at the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the Temple University School of Medicine.

Daniel P. Judge, assistant professor in Cardiology, has been selected to receive a Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research Award for "Pathogenesis and Therapy of ARVD, a Common Cause of Sudden Cardiac Death in Young Athletes." The Hartwell competition funds early-stage, innovative and cutting-edge biomedical research to benefit children. Judge will receive research support of $100,000 a year for three years.

 

School of Nursing

Cheryl Dennison, assistant professor, Health Systems and Outcomes, was selected as a 2008� 2010 John A. Hartford Foundation Claire M. Fagin Fellow. As part of the Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Program, the fellowship awards $120,000 over the next two years.

Fannie Gaston-Johansson, professor, Acute and Chronic Care, has received a subcontract to study African-American women with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy. Through this pilot study, supported by the Winston-Salem State University's newly established Exploratory Research Center of Excellence, Gaston-Johansson seeks to learn more about the prevalence and severity of pain and other cancer-related symptoms, coping strategies and quality of life.

Sara Rocheford, a doctoral student, has been selected to participate in the Johnson & Johnson Community Health Care Scholars Program from 2008 to 2010. Rocheford will work for the Chronic Health Improvement Project of the Margaret J. Weston Community Health Center in Clearwater, S.C.

The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing earned sixth position in the "Top Research Universities Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index," published by The Chronicle of Higher Education. The criteria for this top-10 ranking are based on the productivity of each PhD faculty member: books published, journal publications, citations of journal articles, federal grant dollars awarded and honors and awards.

 

Whiting School of Engineering

Hannah Carter, a graduate student in the Institute for Computational Medicine, has been awarded a 2008 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship for breast cancer research. Carter will build a computational model to identify weak links in the PI3K/AKT pathway that can serve as drug targets in the prevention of breast cancer progression and metastasis and investigate the mechanisms behind cancer drug resistance. The fellowship will cover tuition, fees and a stipend for three years.

Laura Doyle, a graduate student in the Institute for Computational Medicine, has been awarded a 2008 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship for heart failure research. Doyle is currently implementing a model of the Rabbit myocyte with the goal of improving on its calcium handling. This model will be used in conjunction with wet lab data from collaborators to explore the role of altered metabolic pathways in heart failure. The fellowship will cover tuition, fees and a stipend for three years.

Dean Nick Jones will receive the 2008 Robert H. Scanlan Medal from the Engineering Mechanics Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The medal is awarded annually to recognize distinguished achievement in engineering mechanics based upon scholarly contributions to both theory and practice in the areas of structural mechanics, wind engineering and aerodynamics. Jones is being recognized for his contributions in the fields of aerodynamics of bridges and full-scale monitoring of structures and their application to real-world problems. The award honors the late Robert Scanlan, a wind engineering expert who served on the faculties of Princeton and Johns Hopkins, where he and Jones were close colleagues. Jones will accept his award at the ASCE's International Conference in Minneapolis.

Benjamin Hobbs has been named the Theodore M. & Kay W. Schad Professor in Environmental Management. Ted Schad, who graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1939 with a degree in civil engineering, is considered one of the 20th century's leaders in federal water resources planning. Before he died in 2005, he established the chair in memory of his first wife, Kathleen White Schad, as an expression of his hope that his efforts to effect policies and procedures leading to sound, scientifically based management of the environment would continue at Johns Hopkins. The professorship also honors his long friendship with Abel Wolman, a world pioneer in water treatment and waste disposal and one of Schad's teachers. Hobbs' research focuses on the analysis and economics of environmental and energy systems and energy supply. He also chairs the universitywide Task Force on Climate Change. An inaugural ceremony for the Schad Chair will be held later this spring.

Rachel Karchin, assistant professor, Institute for Computational Medicine, has been awarded a Susan B. Komen Investigator Initiated Research Grant that will provide three years of support to stimulate exploration of new ideas and novel approaches in breast cancer research and clinical practice leading to reductions in breast cancer incidence and mortality within the next decade. Her team will be studying somatic mutations in the PI3 kinase gene, which are involved in 30 percent of breast cancers. Collaborators on the project are Saraswati Sukumar and Ben Ho Park, both of the Johns Hopkins Breast Cancer Center.

Natalia Trayanova, professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and a core member of the Institute for Computational Medicine, has been selected as a fellow of the Heart Rhythm Society. Fellow status, the most distinguished level of the society, recognizes members who have realized significant professional achievement, provided exceptional service and are prominent in the field of cardiac arrhythmia research and treatment. Trayanova will be honored at the upcoming annual meeting, Heart Rhythm 2008, May 14 to 17 in San Francisco.

 
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