July 18, 2011
Cheers — July 18, 2011
APL
Scott Murchie, MESSENGER co-investigator, has been awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest honor that NASA bestows to an individual working outside the government. The award is granted only to individuals whose singular accomplishments contributed substantially to the NASA mission. Murchie received the honor in recognition of his leadership of the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars investigation. CRISM, flying aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, is one of NASA’s high-technology instruments designed to seek traces of past and present water on the Martian surface. Murchie received the award June 30 during a ceremony at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
In addition, on July 19 Murchie will be accepting two NASA Public Service Group Achievement Awards on behalf of the MRO CRISM Team: one for developing and operating the CRISM instrument and processing and distributing the data, and one for analyzing the data and publishing the results, thus advancing the understanding of the Martian surface, its composition and its evolution. The awards will be presented at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Jennifer Feder Bobb, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Biostatistics, has been selected to receive a Statistics in Epidemiology Young Investigator Award at the upcoming Joint Statistical Meetings in Miami. The award is based on her manuscript “A Bayesian Model Averaging Approach for Estimating the Relative Risk of Mortality Associated with Heat Waves in 105 U.S. Cities,” written with mentors Roger Peng, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins, and Francesca Dominici, of Harvard. Bobb will receive her award Aug. 2 at the reception of the Statistics in Epidemiology Section of the American Statistical Association.
Jiehuan Sun is the recipient of the Kocherlakota Award, which honors outstanding performance by a master’s student on the Biostatistics first-year comprehensive exam.
Yifei Sun is the recipient of the GlaxoSmithKline Award, which honors outstanding performance by a doctoral student on the Biostatistics first-year comprehensive exam.
JHPIEGO
Leslie Mancuso, president and CEO of the Johns Hopkins global health affiliate, was named one of Ernst & Young’s 2011 Maryland Entrepreneurs of the Year, a prestigious award presented to only eight business executives, during a gala event held June 23 in Baltimore. Under Mancuso’s leadership, Jhpiego has grown from an organization with a $5 million budget and 125 employees to a leader of innovation in global health care with $130 million in revenues and more than 950 employees working in 50 countries. For nearly 40 years Jhpiego’s mission has remained the same—preventing the needless deaths of women and their families. Regional honorees are invited to the Entrepreneur of the Year National Awards event, which will be hosted by Jay Leno on Nov. 12 in Palm Springs, Calif.
JHU PRESS
Terry Ehling has been appointed associate director of Content Development and Publisher Relations for Project MUSE, beginning Aug. 1. Ehling will play a lead role in the launch of the University Press Content Consortium ebook initiative that will deliver on Project MUSE more than 15,000 ebooks from 65 university presses. Ehling was most recently the scholarly publishing strategist for Cornell University Press, where she was responsible for setting ebook strategy for a program that publishes 150 monographs per year. She served as executive director for Project Euclid at Cornell, a multipublisher electronic publishing initiative in mathematics, and also launched CogNet, an online scholarly community for the brain and the cognitive sciences, as director of the Digital Projects Lab at the MIT Press. Prior to founding the Digital Projects Lab, she was a senior acquisition editor at MIT, responsible for developing lists in computer science and economics.
KRIEGER SCHOOL OF ARTS AND
SCIENCES
John Ferry, a professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences, has received the Geological Society of America’s Distinguished Geologic Career Award for his exceptional and lengthy study of metamorphic geology.
Naomi Levin, an assistant professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences, has been awarded the Geological Society of America’s Subaru Outstanding Woman in Science Award, given each year to a woman whose doctoral research makes a major impact in the geosciences field.
Mohammad Modarres, who graduated cum laude in May with a bachelor’s degree in public health and anthropology, has been selected by Omicron Delta Kappa, the national collegiate leadership honorary society, as the 2011 recipient of the Gen. Russell E. Dougherty National Leader of the Year award, given to the student who has shown the greatest dedication to quality leadership and scholarship. At Johns Hopkins, Modarres was a nominee for Rhodes and Marshall scholarships, a Truman Scholar finalist and recipient of a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Scholarship. Active on campus and in the community, he served as program assistant for FIFA Football for Hope in Cape Town, Africa, and as an international fellow support associate for Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, in Washington, D.C. He also was founding director of The Peace Project and Voice of the Earth. He plans to pursue his master’s in development practice as a Mitchell Scholar at Trinity College in Dublin this fall.
Lt. Col. Steve Pomper, who was until May a professor of military science and director of the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Johns Hopkins, has received the Army’s highest noncombat-related decoration, the Legion of Merit Medal. The Legion of Merit is awarded to members of the Armed Forces of the United States or a friendly foreign nation who have distinguished themselves by exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.
Matthew Porterfield, a lecturer in Film and Media Studies, has won the sixth annual Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, a $25,000 fellowship given annually in conjunction with Artscape and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Porterfield is a filmmaker whose works include Putty Hill and Hamilton. His winning installation, which consists of 20-by-30-inch cellphone photos and a video montage, is on display at the BMA. The award was announced July 9 by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY CAMPUS
Kristina M. Obom, program director of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology, and Patrick J. Cummings, program director and director of the Center for Biotechnology Education, both in the Krieger School’s Advanced Academic Programs; and Gary Brooker, a biomedical engineering research professor in the Whiting School of Engineering, have received a Microbe Library 2011 Editor’s Choice Still Image Award for their work titled “Indirect Immunofluorescence for Detection of Measles Antibody.” The image shows a positive indirect fluorescent antibody serological test for measles virus immunoglobulin G antibody. The Microbe Library is an online collection of peer-reviewed teaching resources for undergraduate microbiology education supported by the American Society for Microbiology. Maria A. DeBernardi, formerly of Johns Hopkins, also was credited on the image.
PEABODY INSTITUTE
The world premiere of Michael Hersch’s a sheltered corner, commissioned for the 50th anniversary of the Eastern Music Festival, in Greensboro, N.C., will be performed at the festival by the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra, conducted by Gerard Schwarz, on July 16. Hersch chairs the Conservatory’s Composition Department. The composer’s brother Jamie will be the horn soloist.
Artist diploma candidate Lee Mills will be the third recipient of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra–Peabody Conducting Fellowship, starting in September. Mills will make his public BSO conducting debut on July 16 during Artscape, conducting works by Mozart and Vaughan Williams.
Faculty artist Amit Peled will be one of three featured solo cellists in a Grant Park Orchestra performance of Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 for Three Cellos and Orchestra, conducted by Penderecki. Performances will take place July 15 and 16 in Chicago’s Millennium Park, as part of the Grant Park Music Festival.
SAIS
Azar Nafisi, executive director of Cultural Conversations, Foreign Policy Institute visiting fellow and professorial lecturer, has received the Gabarron International Award of Thought and Humanities 2011. The award is given by the Cristobal Gabarron Foundation “to the individual, group or institution whose intellectual work, creative contribution or dedication to humanity has made a significant, exemplary and outstanding contribution to enriching the perspectives of knowledge, or in favor of human rights, brotherhood between peoples, the fight against injustice, in defense of individual freedom and against any form of oppression of individuals and peoples.” Nafisi’s 2003 book, Reading Lolita in Tehran—based on her experience teaching forbidden Western literature in her native city—has been translated into 33 languages and was on the New York Times bestseller list for 117 weeks. The award will be presented Oct. 7 in Valladolid, Spain.
Camille Pecastaing, senior associate professor in Middle East Studies, has been named the program’s interim director. He assumed the position on July 1, when Fouad Ajami left SAIS to focus on research and writing. Ajami will be a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and will serve as co-chair of the Hoover Working Group on Islamism and the International Order.
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Frederick Brancati, professor and director of the Division of General Internal Medicine, has received the American Diabetes Association’s Kelly West Award for 2011 in recognition of his “significant contributions to the field of diabetes epidemiology, including scientific publications and teaching experience.” Brancati received the award at the association’s 71st Scientific Session, held in June in San Diego.
Edward D. Miller, dean of the medical faculty and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, has been selected by Becker’s Hospital Review as one of 65 prominent Physician Leaders of Hospitals and Health Systems in America. The award is based on the physician leaders’ “arrays of experience in medicine and management” along with their strong clinical and financial backgrounds.
SHERIDAN LIBRARIES/JHU MUSEUMS
Sayeed Choudhury, Hodson Director of the Digital Research and Curation Center and associate dean of university libraries, has been elected to the Coordinating Committee of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance, an initiative of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. The mission of the NDSA is to establish, maintain and promote the capacity to preserve the nation’s digital resources for the benefit of present and future generations.
Carrie Bertling Disclafani, distance education librarian, has been appointed to Distance Learning Services’ Instruction Committee of the Association of College and Research Libraries. ACRL, a division of the American Library Association, is a professional association of academic librarians and other interested individuals dedicated to enhancing the ability of academic library and information professionals to serve the information needs of the higher education community and to improve learning, teaching and research.
UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION
Cecilia M. McCormick has been appointed chief of staff for the Office of the Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration. McCormick joins Johns Hopkins from Widener University, where she was most recently executive director of the Office of the President and assistant secretary to the board of trustees; she was previously dean and director of the Legal Education Institute at the School of Law and assistant dean of academic affairs at the School of Business. She also has held a faculty appointment at Villanova University and has been an assistant professor of business law and adjunct faculty member of the Widener School of Law.
WHITING SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
Jim Aumiller has been promoted to senior associate dean for finance and administration. Aumiller joined the school’s leadership team in 2007 after 19 years at Johns Hopkins. In addition to overseeing financial and infrastructure resources, leading improvements in administrative processes and personnel, and ensuring the strength of the Homewood Office of Technology Transfer, he oversees all of the school’s facilities and is heading the planning for Malone Hall and managing major renovations to the New Engineering Building.
Tony Dalrymple, the Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor of Civil Engineering, has been named to the 2011 class of Distinguished Fellows of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The honor is reserved for those individuals who “have attained eminence in some branch of engineering or in the arts and sciences related thereto, including the fields of engineering education and construction.” Since 1853, only 615 individuals have received this honor. Dalrymple was cited “for eminence as a coastal engineering researcher of international importance, particularly for research on waves, rip currents and littoral processes, for development of computer software that benefits the profession and for educating and mentoring engineers.”
Charles Meneveau, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is the recipient of the 2011 Julian C. Cole Award from the American Institute for Aeronautics’ Fluid Dynamics Technical Committee. At the AIAA conference in June, he presented the Cole Award Lecture, titled “Generalizing the Dynamic Subgrid-Scale Model: Modeling Turbulent Flows Over Fractals and Rough Surfaces.”
Rajat Mittal, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, recognizing his “outstanding engineering achievements.”