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.

 

SOM names student affairs team

Thomas W. Koenig has been named associate dean for student affairs. An assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences since 1996, Koenig teaches seminars and preclinical courses, runs the psychiatry clinical clerkship and has instructed both residents and medical students during clinical service in the Pain Treatment Center inpatient unit, the General Hospital Psychiatry Consultation Service and the Hispanic Clinic Community Psychiatry Program.

Koenig received his bachelor's degree from Wabash College in Indiana in 1985 and his medical degree from Johns Hopkins in 1989. He completed an internship in internal medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin before returning to Johns Hopkins in 1991 for his residency in psychiatry. From 1993 to 1994, he served as chief resident in psychiatry, and he became an attending physician at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1994.

Redonda G. Miller and Michael A. Barone will become new assistant deans for student affairs.

Miller, an expert in women's health, medical education and physician/industry relations, received her bachelor's degree from Ohio State University in 1988. She completed medical school, an internship and her residency at Johns Hopkins and joined the faculty as assistant professor of medicine in 1997. She has been associate program director for the Osler Residency Program since 1997.

Barone has been assistant professor of pediatrics since 2000. That same year, he was appointed director of medical student education in pediatrics and, since 1998, he also has been director of medical education for the Department of Pediatrics at St. Agnes Hospital. He received his bachelor's degree from Bucknell in 1987 and his medical degree from Northwestern in 1991. He completed his internship and residency, both in pediatrics, at Johns Hopkins and was chief resident in pediatrics in 1995-96.

 

Applied Physics Laboratory

Gwen Boyd, executive assistant to the chief of staff in the Director's Office, was featured in the May issue of Ebony as one of the "100-plus Most Influential Black Americans" for her leadership role as national president of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. The organization is the largest predominantly black sorority in the world, with more than 250,000 members contributing to educational, cultural, political and social service.

Robin Vaughan, an aerospace engineer, has been named Engineer of the Year by the Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Vaughan was cited for her work as guidance and control lead engineer for the MESSENGER spacecraft, which will be launched this summer to conduct the first orbital study of Mercury.

 

Bayview Medical Center

Mark Bohlman, associate professor in the School of Medicine and chief radiologist at Bayview, has been inducted as a fellow into the American College of Radiology.

 

Bloomberg School of Public Health

George Dimopoulos, assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, received the 2004 Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholars Award on Global Infectious Disease. He will receive $50,000 annually for up to three years. The award supports new investigators of outstanding promise in the basic biological and clinical sciences relevant to research on molecular and cellular mechanisms of parasitic and infectious diseases that are caused by viral, bacterial, fungal, protozoal or helminthic pathogens of major global public health concern. Dimopoulos' lab will study the innate immune system of the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae and how it interacts with and controls Plasmodia infection in the mosquito.

Diane E. Griffin, chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, has been elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology. Griffin was recognized by the organization for her achievements in studying alphaviruses, which are pathogenic to mammals and birds.

 

Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

Robert Moffitt, professor of economics, has been appointed chief editor of the American Economic Review. The journal of the American Economic Association, the publication has about 24,000 subscribers, including members and libraries.

 

School of Medicine

Henry Brem, the Harvey Cushing Professor of Neurosurgery and chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery, has received the Alumni Achievement Award from New York University's College of Arts, Sciences and Engineering Alumni Association for his work on the gliadel wafer, a biodegradable polymer surgically implanted into the tumor site that slowly releases chemotherapy treatment.

Curt Civin, the Herman and Walter Samuelson Professor, has been awarded the National Foundation for Cancer Research's highest distinction for his pioneering stem cell research. The $250,000 five-year grant will allow the oncologist to expand his studies on how stem cells function to help improve bone marrow transplants for cancer patients.

Barbara J. de Lateur, professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, is the 2004 recipient of the Frank H. Krusen Award from the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. The gold medal is awarded for work in patient care, research, education, literary contributions and community service in the field.

Charles Drake, assistant professor of oncology, was one of five physicians worldwide to receive a Damon Runyon-Lilly Clinical Investigator Award. The five-year $1.2 million award from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation was established to encourage young physicians to dedicate their careers to clinical research and accelerate cancer research.

Carol W. Greider, the Daniel Nathans Professor and Director of the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, has been elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology.

Richard Reilly, assistant professor of oncology, is among five young investigators in the nation to receive grants totaling $2.5 million over three years from the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy. Reilly's gene therapy project involves developing a vaccine to protect against breast cancer.

Ken Rose, professor of functional anatomy and evolution, has received a Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Hamburg, Germany. The awards are granted to scientists and scholars outside Germany for their lifetime academic achievements.

Bert Vogelstein, the Clayton Professor of Oncology, was one of five leading cancer researchers — a Briton, a Spaniard and three Americans — who jointly received a prestigious Spanish prize for science last month. The eight Prince of Asturias prizes — named after Spanish Crown Prince Felipe — also honor achievements in the fields of letters, social sciences, communications and humanities, international cooperation, arts, harmony and sports. Vogelstein is one of the main researchers in the identification and classification of genes whose alteration causes colon cancer.

Vered Stearns and William Matsui, assistant professors of oncology, have been awarded grants totaling more than $630,000 by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Stearns was given the Advanced Clinical Research Award for her plans to study new chemotherapy agents for early breast cancer. Matsui received the Career Development Award for his discovery of the cell that is likely responsible for a bone marrow cancer.

The National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression has awarded to nine JHU scientists grants totaling more than $500,000 to study causes and treatments for mental illness. The researchers are Christopher Ross, Susan Holmes, Francis Mondimore, Jennifer Payne, Akira Sawa, Shanthini Sockanathan, Virginia Willour, Sarah Ying and Peter Zandi.

 

School of Professional Studies in Business and Education

Rob Mitchell, an instructor of reading in the teacher preparation program, was recently cited by the Washington Post Educational Foundation as an Outstanding Teacher in recognition of his skills teaching first grade at Pointers Run Elementary School.

 

University Administration

The Johns Hopkins Federal Credit Union took home the most honors this year from the Maryland Credit Union League's annual meeting and convention. Most important among its six awards was the Louise Herring Award for Philosophy in Action, which recognizes extraordinary commitment to the "people helping people" credit union philosophy. JHFCU was given this award because of member satisfaction and because of efforts it has made to elevate member service to a higher level, such as extending its business hours. The other five awards, all marketing related, were for best newsletter (third year in a row), advertising print, direct mail piece, billboard campaign and — in the miscellaneous potpourri category — Member Services catalog.

 

Whiting School of Engineering

Ralph Etienne-Cummings, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and colleagues have been selected for the EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing Best Paper Award, for "A Vision Chip for Color Segmentation and Pattern Matching." An award ceremony will take place in September at the EUSIPCO 2004 Conference.

Gregory Eyink, professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, has been elected as a fellow of the American Physical Society. He was cited for his work in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, in particular on the foundation of transport laws in chaotic dynamical systems, on field-theoretic methods in statistical hydrodynamics and on singularities and dissipative anomalies in fluid turbulence.

Frederick Jelinek, the Julian S. Smith Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been awarded the first Antonio Zampolli Prize for Outstanding Contributions to the Advancement of Language Resources and Language Technology Evaluation within Human Language Technologies, from the European Language Resources Association. This award was presented at the fourth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation held in May in Lisbon, Portugal.

Joseph Katz, the Whiting School Professor of Mechanical Engineering, will receive the 2004 Fluid Engineering Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Katz is recognized for his contribution to "the development and implementation of innovative quantitative flow visualization techniques, and for the use of these techniques in advancing ... understanding of complex phenomena in cavitation inception, turbulent shear flows, turbomachinery flows and ocean small-scales dynamics."

Charles O'Melia, the Abel Wolman Professor of Environmental Engineering, has received the 2004 Achievement in Environmental Engineering Education Award from the Environmental and Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The award was presented at the World Water & Environmental Resources Congress in Salt Lake City.

Rene Vidal, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and science faculty member with the Center for Imaging Science, was awarded the 2004 David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize. Vidal earned the prize for his "work addressing the problems of simultaneously estimating multiple models from data, without knowing which data come from which model. [He] is commended for his many significant publications on the subject, as well as reviews calling his submission a 'breakthrough paper.'"

 
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