Johns Hopkins Gazette | September 15, 2008
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The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University September 15, 2008 | Vol. 38 No. 3
 

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.

 

Bayview Medical Center

Shari Lawson has joined the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology as an assistant professor. Lawson received her medical degree from Johns Hopkins and completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was most recently an attending physician at Susquehanna Obstetrics, Gynecology and Nurse Midwifery in Bel Air, Md.

Thomas Marshall, manager of adult mental health programs, was named Mental Health Professional of the Year by the National Association for Mental Illness-Metropolitan Baltimore. He was recognized for his assistance with the creation and management of Creative Alternatives, a part of the community psychiatry program that combines mental health treatment, rehabilitative services and assistance with daily living. Since its founding in 1992, it has helped long-term, inpatient psychiatric patients re-enter the community.

Maura Reinblatt has joined the Division of Plastic Surgery as an assistant professor. Reinblatt received her medical degree from McGill University and completed her residency in general surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital of Harvard Medical School and a two-year surgical oncology research fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Reinblatt recently finished a second residency in plastic surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles.

 

Bloomberg School of Public Health

Mathuram Santosham, professor of international health and pediatrics, received the American Tamil Medical Association Lifetime Achievement Award last month in Dallas. This annual award, presented at the national ATMA conference, was given to Santosham in recognition of his outstanding contributions and a lifetime of service over his career to child health, vaccine development and the development of oral rehydration therapy.

Scott Zeger, the Frank Hurley and Catharine Dorrier Professor of Biostatistics and university vice provost, was named the 2008 Wilks Memorial Award recipient by the American Statistical Association at the annual Joint Statistical Meeting in Denver. The award is given to a statistician who has made a significant contribution to the advancement of scientific or technical knowledge, developed an ingenious application of existing knowledge or successfully fostered cooperative scientific efforts in matters of public interest or national defense. Zeger was recognized for his significant contributions to public health, including his work in environmental epidemiology, quantifying the health effects of smoking and air pollution, and co-development, with colleague Kung-Yee Liang, of Generalized Estimating Equations. Zeger also has been recognized as one of the most cited mathematical scientists of the past decade.

 

Johns Hopkins International

William Beach, administrator of the Johns Hopkins-managed Anadolu Medical Center in Istanbul, Turkey, has been selected for the roster of candidates for a Fulbright Specialists grant from the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs for the U.S. State Department and the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. Placement on the roster makes Beach eligible for selection by an overseas academic institution that requests the assistance of a specialist with his expertise.

Charles Cummings, executive medical director and vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine International and University Distinguished Service Professor, Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, was the guest of honor at the seventh International Congress of Head and Neck Surgery. The 5,000- member organization held its quadrennial congress in San Francisco last July.

 

Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

Robert H. Kargon, the Willis K. Shepard Professor of the History of Science, will receive an honorary doctor of science degree from Great Britain's University of Westminster at its commencement ceremony on Dec. 1. The degree recognizes his services to the fields of science and technology.

Jessica Turral, a senior psychology major, was one of five undergraduates out of 1,000 applicants from campuses around the country to win $10,000 from the Liberty Mutual Responsible Scholars program in recognition of their involvement with a service or volunteer program that had a widespread impact on campus or in the community. Turral was recognized for creating an annual prom gown collection on the Johns Hopkins campus with the assistance of members from Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and Latinas Promoviendo Comunidad/Lambda Pi Chi sorority. She collected more than 80 gowns for low-income Baltimore City high school girls and organized a separate event where Johns Hopkins students acted as personal shoppers to hundreds of Baltimore city students.

 

School of Medicine

Nita Ahuja, assistant professor of surgery and oncology, has received a $340,000 grant for colon cancer research from the Littlefield 2000 Trust and the American Association for Cancer Research. Ahuja and her research team hope to develop new staging and possible new therapy for colorectal cancer patients using DNA methylation changes that silence tumor suppressor genes. Colon cancer is the third most common malignancy diagnosed and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.

L. Ebony Boulware, assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology, won a bronze Telly Award for a video on the Talking About Living Kidney Donation study that she and Neil Powe, University Distinguished Service Professor, are conducting with a consortium of Johns Hopkins faculty and staff and the National Kidney Foundation of Maryland. The Telly Awards, now in their 29th year, honor local and regional television, Web commercials and nontheatrical film and video productions. The TALK video was honored in the health and wellness category.

Steve Cho, assistant professor in the Division of Nuclear Medicine of the Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, is one of 19 scientists to earn a 2008 Young Investigator Award from the Prostate Cancer Foundation. The award, designed to encourage careers in prostate disease research, carries a stipend of $75,000 a year for three years, with matching amounts from an investigator's institution. Cho received the award for his proposal to develop a new prostate-specific membrane antigen test, using positron emission tomography scans for improved detection of changes in prostate tumor size during experimental treatment. According to the foundation, its young investigator awards are inspired by Donald S. Coffey, prostate cancer research director at Johns Hopkins for 40 years. Coffey has mentored more than 50 scientists and physician- scientists and trained more than 30 of today's leading prostate cancer researchers.

Paul Christo, assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine and director of the Multidisciplinary Pain Fellowship and Pain Treatment Center, has been named a fellow of the Mayday Fund, created in 1992 to sponsor clinical and academic research in pain treatment and enhance advocacy on behalf of chronic pain sufferers.

Jed Fahey, faculty research associate in the departments of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences and International Health, has received an annual $40,000 grant for the next two years from the Prevent Cancer Foundation. The grant will fund Fahey's research into anti-carcinogenic plant compounds known as glucosinolates.

Arlene Forastiere, professor of oncology, otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, radiation oncology and molecular sciences, has received a citation from the president of the American Head and Neck Society in honor of her major contributions to the treatment of head and neck cancer. An internationally recognized expert in head and neck oncology, she was cited for the development of combined modality therapy and establishing standards of care for the management of advanced head and neck cancer.

Rozalina Grubina, a fourth-year medical student, has received a $10,000 Physicians of Tomorrow scholarship from the American Medical Association Foundation. Grubina is one of only 15 recipients of the award nationwide. Criteria include the student's financial status, academic standing and volunteer community service demonstrating commitment to the medical profession.

Heitham Hassoun, assistant professor of surgery, has received the Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award from the American Vascular Association and the American College of Surgeons. Presented cooperatively with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, the $50,000 award will support Hassoun's research into new and more effective therapies for pathophysiological kidney-lung interactions during kidney ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Subhashini Jagu, a fellow in the Department of Pathology, has received an annual $40,000 grant for two years from the Prevent Cancer Foundation to support her research into the development of a cost-effective vaccine to prevent HPV infection, a cause of cervical and other cancers, from multiple oncogenic types. Current cervical cancer vaccines are prohibitively expensive for poor women in Asia, the third world and elsewhere, and target only two of the estimated 15 oncogenic HPV types known to cause cervical cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women.

Sewon Kang, an expert on skin aging, has been named director of the Department of Dermatology. He joins Johns Hopkins from the University of Michigan, where he was the Arthur C. Curtis Professor in Translational Research and director of its clinical pharmacology unit and its program for clinical research in dermatology. He also has been director of the medical students' education programs in dermatology and was chief of the University of Michigan Health System's dermatology inpatient consultation service. He has received millions of dollars in grants from the National Institutes of Health, obtained many research honors and awards and been cited repeatedly for teaching excellence. A graduate of Williams College, he received both his MPH and MD degrees from Michigan.

Wayne Koch, professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery and director of the Head and Neck Cancer Center, has become president of the American Head and Neck Society. The society is the single largest organization in North America for the advancement of research and education in head and neck oncology.

Neil Powe, professor of medicine and director of the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research, has been named University Distinguished Service Professor. Also a professor of epidemiology and health policy and management in the Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of its clinical epidemiology program, Powe has trained hundreds of fellow clinical researchers and medical students over the past 20 years and been committed to promoting diversity in medical research. An expert in chronic kidney disease, his work has touched millions of patients.

Lillie Shockney, assistant professor of surgery, obstetrics and gynecology and administrative director of the Breast Center, has been appointed University Distinguished Service Assistant Professor of Breast Cancer.

Levi Watkins Jr., associate dean for postdoctoral affairs and professor of cardiac surgery, has been named the 2008 Distinguished Alumnus of Vanderbilt University. The first African-American to enroll in and graduate from the Vanderbilt Medical School, and now a member of the university's board of trustees, he will be honored at a dinner on Oct. 22 at the school's Student Life Center.

 

School of Nursing

Nancy E. Glass, associate professor in Community Public Health Nursing, has been awarded a second Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. The award, made in the same funding cycle as her previous $2.9 million award, funds her studies in intimate partner violence, a problem that annually results in as many as 1,200 deaths and 3 million injuries among women in the United States. This five-year, $1.75 million grant will enable Glass and her co-investigators from Oregon Health & Science University to evaluate the effectiveness of protected leave laws for victims of intimate partner violence in Oregon and a Johns HopkinsÐdeveloped workplace training program to educate employees and employers about the law.

Kathleen White, associate professor, has been named the first director of the new Doctor of Nursing Practice program. White, who previously served as the program's interim director, currently heads the master's program, coordinating both the MSN health systems management track and the MSN-MBA dual degree option. She will continue to lead the master's program until her successor is identified.

 

Whiting School of Engineering

Eugene Shchukin, RESC professor emeritus in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, has been awarded the Gold Medal from the Russian Academy of Education. He was recognized for his achievements in science, and specifically for his textbooks on colloid and surface science, now published in five languages.

Lian Shen, assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, has been invited to deliver MIT's 2008 TF Ogilvie Young Investigator Lecture. The lecture, established in 1996 to honor MIT's former head of Mechanical Engineering, is an annual tribute to an individual's accomplishments and recognition of his or her promise for future leadership.

 
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