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.
GO TO APRIL 21, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
GO TO THE GAZETTE
FRONT PAGE.
|