The Gazette

o ur 4 1 ST ye ar

en er g y up d at e

star p o w e r

Covering Homewood, East Baltimore, Peabody,

2,900 solar panels are now

NASA selects proposal led by

SAIS, APL and other campuses throughout the

up and running in three Johns

JHU astrophysicist as part of

Baltimore-Washington area and abroad, since 1971.

Hopkins locations, page 4

instrument upgrade, page 5

April 30, 2012

The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University

E N G I N E E R I N G

Volume 41 No. 32

R E S E A R C H

Focusing on discovery

Innovating to safeguard troops

By Phil Sneiderman

Homewood

Continued on page 3

2

will kitk / homewoodphoto.jhu.edu

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he Johns Hopkins University has won an award worth up to $90 million from the U.S. Army to tap the expertise of the nation’s top academic researchers to help the Army develop new lightweight materials to better protect soldiers and vehicles.

Toward this goal, $90 million Johns Hopkins is forming a new institute where researchinstitute ers will try to understand precisely will study what happens when impacts on materi‘extreme als result in “extreme dynamic environevents’ ments.”

The Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute will focus, in particular, on what happens to protective materials at the moment of intense impact, when a large amount of energy enters a small space in a very short period of time.

“The vision of the institute is to tackle the science issues associated with extreme events and, in this case, to work with the Army to better protect our troops,” said K.T. Ramesh, the Alonzo G. Decker, Jr. Professor of Science and Engineering in the university’s Whiting School of Engineering, founding director of the institute and a professor of mechanical engineering.

“This is how I think about our effort with the Army,” Ramesh said. “Captain America needs a new shield, and we’re going to work with the Army to build it.”

Ramesh said that the new institute’s researchers will delve into the basic science—down to the atomic level— of what happens to metals, ceramics, polymers and other materials that are subjected to an extreme impact. “What affects the material is the huge amount of energy landing all at once,” Ramesh said. “You can’t develop a new protective material until you can understand what happens to it in extreme environments. Yet we must be able to design

With his four-year Woodrow Wilson fellowship, Jacob Appet produced the feature-length film ‘Westbaum in High School.’

He wrote the screenplay, recruited his actor friends, operated the camera and edited the footage.

Woodrow Wilson fellows complete their multiyear journeys

By Greg Rienzi

The Gazette

M

ajor League Baseball managers, habitual purveyors of cliches, like to declare after a loss that a season is a marathon, not a sprint.

Bottom line, no matter how gloomy the present, there is plenty of time to turn this around and achieve the main goal.

Research can follow a similar trajectory.

You have good days and bad, moments of triumph and challenges that test the will to see the project through.

Woodrow Wilson fellows can attest to this. Sometimes a hypothesis needs to be scrapped and reworked, or a dead end turns into a new beginning. And Continued on page 6

E V E N T

Tech transfer conference held at Carey School B y P at r i c k E r c o l a n o

Carey Business School

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hil Phan and Wes Blakeslee were chatting last fall about the unprecedented success in technology transfer that Johns Hopkins and several other universities have experienced in recent years.

Phan, interim dean of the university’s Carey Business School, asked Blakeslee, executive director of JHU’s Technology Transfer

In Brief

Winning classroom technology; neighborhood walking tours; ‘Stoop Storytelling’ in E. Balto.

12

Office, for an explanation. What’s caused this remarkable growth?

The Carey dean’s curiosity would lead to a conference held April 19 at the business school’s Harbor East campus. Titled “Making a Quantum Leap in Technology Transfer,” the daylong event attracted about 60 researchers and tech transfer officials from universities across the United States.

The main conclusion, and the answer to Phan’s question, was this: Universitybased offices of tech transfer (the process

by which discoveries born of research are guided toward the commercial marketplace) accomplish far more when they behave like well-run businesses.

“If you run a tech transfer office as a venture capitalist might, you’ll see these quantum leaps,” Phan said in an interview after the conference. “Look at what venture capitalists do. They take a very hard-nosed business approach to a new idea, evaluating Continued on page 4

10 Job Opportunities Design Day 2012; ‘Henry Walters’ Legacy’; 10 Notices 11 Classifieds men’s lax vs. Army; copyright workshop C A L E N DAR

2 30,15, 2012 2 THE THE GAZETTE GAZETTE •• April August 2011 I N B R I E F

‘Stoop’ storytellers share personal tales of life at Johns Hopkins

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he Stoop Storytelling Series returns to the East Baltimore campus on Friday, May 4, when seven storytellers will get seven minutes each to share true, personal tales about close calls, humbling experiences, great victories and crushing defeats—in short, anything that shines a light on what life is like at the renowned medical institution.

Among the confirmed storytellers are Robert Montgomery, director of the Comprehensive Transplant Center; Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, associate professor of neurological surgery and oncology, neuroscience, and cellular and molecular medicine; and Chris Craft, co-director of the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit.

“Hopkins: A World Inside a City, II” is presented by the Office of Cultural Affairs.

The event begins at 6:30 p.m. in Turner Auditorium with music by Caleb Stine and food available from Clementine restaurant, followed at 7 by the show, for which three storytellers will be selected from the audience. Advance tickets are recommended; $15, $10 with Johns Hopkins ID (two maximum). Tickets at the door are $20, $15 with Johns Hopkins ID (two maximum). Go to stoopstorytelling.com or call 800-838-3006.

New classroom technology to be showcased at MSE Library

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inners of the 2011–12 Technology Fellows competition will demonstrate their innovations from 1 to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, May 8, on Q-Level of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at Homewood. All the winning faculty-student teams will be available to demonstrate how they used their $5,000 mini-grants to enhance undergraduate instruction. Projects cover a wide range of disciplines from the Krieger and Whiting schools and Peabody Institute.

This year’s initiatives include a breast cancer image library, an online course version of Italian Elements I and II, a resource for public health students that provides hands-on experience with spatial analysis tools, an online tutorial for MATLAB (a software package used by biomedical engineering students), a Java-based e-library for natural language processing and a computer music studio walkthrough and tutorial.

All faculty who attend will receive a 2GB flash drive, and students will receive gift certificates for Cafe Q. Now in its 11th year, the Technology Fellows program was created by the Sheridan Libraries’ Center for Educational Resources

Editor Lois Perschetz Writer Greg Rienzi Production Lynna Bright Copy Editor Ann Stiller Photography Homewood Photography A d v e rt i s i n g The Gazelle Group B u s i n e ss Dianne MacLeod C i r c u l at i o n Lynette Floyd Webmaster Lauren Custer

to assist Johns Hopkins faculty in the development of digital course resources. Funded by the Office of the President and the Smart Family Foundation, the program awards $5,000 grants to faculty/student teams for projects that integrate technology into instructional programs. CER technology experts and librarians collaborate with the teams on projects that encourage active learning, facilitate access to course materials and enhance pedagogy.

For more information, contact Cheryl Wagner at cwagner@jhu.edu or 410-5167181, or go to cer.jhu.edu.

SAIS to host conference on the new African democracy

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AIS will hold a two-day conference, The New African Democracy: Information Technology and Political Participation, on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 1 and 2.

Hosted by the school’s African Studies Program, the conference will explore how information and communications technologies are helping to advance political participation and social movements in Africa. Ebrahim Rasool, South African ambassador to the United States, will give the keynote address, at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. For the agenda, go to sais-jhu.edu/academics/regional-studies/ africa/events/techconference.htm.

The conference will be held in the Nitze Building’s Kenney Auditorium. Non-SAIS affiliates should RSVP to jcarste1@jhu.edu.

A live webcast will be available at sais-jhu .edu/pressroom/live.html.

Highlandtown, Patterson Park walking tour set for May 3

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he Johns Hopkins Live Near Your Work Program, in partnership with the Southeast Community Development Corp., is heading out this week to Highlandtown and Patterson Park, two neighborhoods near the East Baltimore campus.

From 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 3, employees can visit homes, meet residents and get a personal look at the daily life of these communities. They’ll also learn how to qualify for low-interest Healthy Neighborhoods loans and other home-buying incentives, including Johns Hopkins Live Near Your Work grants.

Those who attend any 2012 walking tour event will receive an additional $1,000 toward the down payment/closing costs of a home in the A, B or C target areas. (Buyer must settle on or before June 30, 2013.)

To register, go to hrnt.jhu.edu/service/ fasapregistration or call 443-997-7000. For information about upcoming walking tours and other events, go to hopkinsworklife.org/ lnyw.

Contributing Writers Applied Physics Laboratory Michael Buckley, Paulette Campbell Bloomberg School of Public Health Tim Parsons, Natalie Wood-Wright Carey Business School Andrew Blumberg, Patrick Ercolano Homewood Lisa De Nike, Amy Lunday, Dennis O’Shea, Tracey A. Reeves, Phil Sneiderman Johns Hopkins Medicine Christen Brownlee, Stephanie Desmon, Neil A. Grauer, Audrey Huang, John Lazarou, David March, Vanessa McMains, Ekaterina Pesheva, Vanessa Wasta, Maryalice Yakutchik Peabody Institute Richard Selden SAIS Felisa Neuringer Klubes School of Education James Campbell, Theresa Norton School of Nursing Kelly Brooks-Staub University Libraries and Museums Brian Shields, Heather Egan Stalfort

The Gazette is published weekly September through May and biweekly June through August for the Johns Hopkins University community by the Office of Communications, Suite 540, 901 S. Bond St., Baltimore, MD 21231, in cooperation with all university divisions. Subscriptions are $26 per year.

Deadline for calendar items, notices and classifieds (free to JHU faculty, staff and students) is noon Monday, one week prior to publication date.

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April 30, 2012 • THE GAZETTE

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Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab names 2011 best inventions Applied Physics Laboratory

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will kirk / homewoodphoto.jhu.edu

n ultra-compact motor controller used to revolutionize movement in a state-of-the-art prosthetic arm and an innovative algorithm for improving the performance of undersea sensors are the winners of APL’s Invention of the Year and Government Purpose Innovation awards for 2011.

This year’s winners were selected from 259 inventions that were disclosed at APL in the past calendar year. They were filed by more than 460 APL inventors and collaborators. The Invention of the Year winner was chosen by an outside review panel of 52 representatives from industry, the high-tech sector and patent law. For the second consecutive year, APL’s Government Purpose Innovation Award recognized an invention

that has the potential to make a major impact in the defense community, and the nation.

The winners were named at the 13th annual Invention of the Year Award Reception held April 23 on the APL campus in Laurel, Md. Attendees included Ralph Semmel, director of APL; state Del. Guy Guzzone; and Courtney Samuels, representing Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland.

Jerry Krill, assistant director for science and technology at APL, and Norma Lee Todd, supervisor of the Lab’s Office of Technology Transfer, addressed the inventors and guests and presented trophies and cash awards to the winners.

Invention of the Year went to Harry Eaton and Douglas Wenstrand for the Ultra-Compact Multitasking Motor Controller. This extremely small computational engine—approximately the size of a dime—governs multiple microminiature motors that precisely coordinate movement and feedback in APL’s state-of-the-art prosthetic arm, which has 26 degrees of free-

K.T. Ramesh is founding director of the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute.

Innovating Continued from page 1 new materials if we want to protect ourselves from yet-unforeseen threats.”

To launch this effort, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory on April 16 agreed to provide up to $90 million to a consortium of scientists from American universities, national laboratories and private industry, all affiliated with the new Johns Hopkins institute, to collaborate closely on this research with Army scientists. Among the key partner institutions are Caltech, the University of Delaware and Rutgers University. The program is planned for a five-year initial study, and if successful, it may be renewed for an additional five years.

“Johns Hopkins is proud to carry out this work on behalf of the U.S. Army,” said Lloyd B. Minor, the university’s provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.

“Bringing together experts from many disciplines, the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute will greatly enhance our understanding

of protective materials, ultimately leading to better ways to protect our troops.”

John M. Miller, director of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, said, “Designing new, transformational materials for our soldiers is the aim of our Enterprise for Multiscale Research of Materials. Our two recent awards, in Materials in Extreme Dynamic Environments to the Johns Hopkins University consortium and in Multiscale Multidisciplinary Modeling of Electronic Materials to the University of Utah, will work together to provide a strong foundation for ARL’s Enterprise for Multiscale Research of Materials. [These awards] also [show] the Army’s commitment to the national Materials Genome Initiative.”

For Johns Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering, the monetary award is among the largest in the school’s history. The Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute will conduct basic research across the disciplines of mechanical engineering, materials science, civil engineering, aerospace engineering and physics.

“The award not only recognizes K.T. Ramesh’s outstanding leadership and vision but the terrific breadth and depth of exper-

dom that include independent movement of each finger.

A third of the size of most other controllers, the Ultra-Compact Multitasking Motor Controller includes a processor that directs a single small motor and interfaces with onboard sensors and other traditional controllers. It has been designed to work differently with each hand motor (there are 10 throughout APL’s most recent version of the prosthetic arm) depending on that location’s movement characteristics.

The Government Purpose Innovation Award recognizes Joshua Broadwater, Craig Carmen and Ashley Llorens for the Constrained Probability of False Alarm Classification, or CPFAC. Recognizing targets in clutter-rich environments is a critical challenge for target detection and classification systems. In sonar applications, shipping traffic, biologics and even shipwrecks contribute to the clutter picture. CPFAC is an APL-designed large margin classifier that maximizes the detection of targets for a given false alarm rate. As a result, it pro-

vides improved performance in the highly cluttered undersea acoustic environment, making it particularly useful to the Navy.

APL’s approach has a broad application for a variety of target detection and classification problems.

“Inventions are a key indicator of how innovative an organization is,” Krill said.

“The number of APL intellectual property disclosures reached an all-time high last year—an 84 percent increase—which is a tribute to our staff’s focus on innovation. Many of these inventions came from our new Ignition Grants program, where staff can propose new innovations and vote on who gets seedling grants.”

Added Todd, “The Invention of the Year and Government Purpose awards are designed to recognize some of the best new ideas emerging from the Lab, and to commend APL scientists and engineers who developed them. All of the award nominees have the potential to make a tremendous impact in the marketplace or on national security.”

tise provided by our interdisciplinary Johns Hopkins research team and our partner institutions,” said Nicholas P. Jones, the Benjamin T. Rome Dean of the Whiting School. “Receiving it provides us with the means to advance basic science to tackle some of today’s toughest security problems.

We are honored to be recognized for our ability to make a difference in this area.”

The institute will also include a strong educational and training component. Students, postdoctoral fellows and scientists from the Army and other universities will help conduct the research. Lectures, workshops, symposia, research reviews and online mechanisms will be used to exchange ideas and best practices. The institute’s intent is to teach the world how to think about materials in extreme environments, particularly those associated with impact events.

Lightweight protection materials that are just as effective as the heavier ones available today would be very valuable, but designing such materials is a major challenge. The institute’s researchers plan to use lab experiments and computer models to gain a better understanding of how materials behave when subjected to a high-velocity impact.

With results from this lab research, the team hopes to develop and test new lightweight materials that offer enhanced protection.

Ramesh stressed that the institute’s emphasis is on conducting fundamental research, not making specific materials. He said that the goal is “to produce a way of thinking that will allow the design of light-

weight protective material systems that can be used for extreme dynamic conditions.”

The institute’s new ways of thinking would also be useful in planning for catastrophic events, Ramesh said. If a stray asteroid was heading toward Earth, for example, institute researchers could help choose the best strategies that could divert or break up the asteroid.

The institute’s approaches would also help predict the size of dust particles emitted by volcanic eruptions such as the one in Iceland that recently halted air travel. The dust data could have helped officials figure out when it was safe to fly. A similar approach would have been useful in assessing the risks from explosions such as those at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan last year.

“Our vision is twofold,” Ramesh said. “The institute looks far into the future to build the basic science needed to address future threats before they become evident, while at the same time developing and providing the science and engineering tools needed to address the dynamic problems of today. We seek to improve the human condition in an increasingly insecure world by providing government, industry and national institutions with science-based tools for designing protection and mitigating risk.”

The new institute’s labs, offices and collaborative rooms will occupy roughly a third of Malone Hall, a 56,000-square-foot research facility that is being built on the Homewood campus. Until its completion in 2014, the institute will operate in existing facilities on campus. G

will kirk / homewoodphoto.jhu.edu

By Gina Ellrich

Professor’s documentary debuts in Baltimore May 6

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film produced and co-directed by Bernadette Wegenstein, director of the Center for Advanced Media Study in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, will have its Baltimore premiere at the Maryland Film Festival on Sunday, May 6.

The documentary, See You Soon Again, tells the story of two Baltimore-area Holocaust survivors, Leo Bretholz and Bluma Shapiro, whose mission is to share their

experience with local schoolchildren. The film was inspired by the memoir Leap into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe by Bretholz and Michael Olesker.

Wegenstein, a research professor and media theorist in German and Romance Languages and Literatures, will introduce the film at 11:30 a.m. in the Brown Center at MICA. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door or online at missiontix .com/events/product/14376.

Four Johns Hopkins schools participated in Baltimore City’s second annual Pre-K at Play day. Thirty-five 4-year-old students from Samuel F.B. Morse Elementary School in southwest Baltimore participated April 26 in a variety of activities with volunteers from the Peabody Institute, Whiting School of Engineering and schools of Education and Nursing. The activities included music and dancing, mixing chemicals and water to make slime, hand-cleaning exercises and learning basic computer skills. To begin the day, the guitar-playing School of Education Dean David Andrews, above, led a sing-a-long with the children, starting with “Eensy Weensy Spider.”

—Jim Campbell

4 30,15, 2012 4 THE THE GAZETTE GAZETTE •• April August 2011

Update: University flips the ‘on’ switch of large solar project B y A m y L u n d ay

Homewood

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s part of its ongoing efforts to shrink its carbon footprint, The Johns Hopkins University has installed more than 2,900 solar panels on seven buildings in three locations: the Homewood and East Baltimore campuses and Johns Hopkins at Eastern.

The solar panels are expected to produce 997,400 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year while reducing the university’s output of greenhouse gases by 1.2 million pounds annually. Over the course of one year, the system will produce as much electricity as would be consumed by 34 average homes.

Led by members of the university’s Sustainability Network, including staff from the School of Medicine, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Homewood Facilities and the Office of Sustainability, the initiative is a partnership with leading solar energy development companies

Eastlight Renewable Ventures and RGS Energy.

This partnership allows the university to lease out the roof space for the panels in exchange for the capital financing and installation of the system. Johns Hopkins in turn buys the output from the panels at a cost that is slightly less than current BGE prices. The university is still a BGE customer, however; all its buildings are connected to the local utility company, relying on it for its nighttime power needs, and on cloudy days when there is no solar energy to collect. Conversely, if Johns Hopkins’ solar panels generate a surplus of energy, it is returned to the BGE power grid for distribution to other customers.

On the Homewood campus, the panels are installed on the rooftops of the Newton H. White Athletic Center and the Mattin Center. On the East Baltimore campus, the buildings outfitted with the panels are the School of Nursing’s Anne M. Pinkard Building; 2024 E. Monument St.; the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s main building, at 615 N. Wolfe Street; and Hampton House, 614 N. Broadway. The building with the

most panels is the athletic center, followed

by Johns Hopkins at Eastern. A computer system monitors the network of panels, and the real-time output of electricity can be viewed at deckmonitoring.com/john_ hopkins_university.

The panels were engineered and installed by regional contractors, adding approximately $2 million in wages to the local economy. The project also contributes to Baltimore City’s sustainability goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2015, according to its sustainability plan, adopted in 2009.

The solar panels are among several endeavors under way at Johns Hopkins as part of a broad multifaceted Implementation Plan for Advancing Sustainability and Climate Stewardship, launched in May 2010.

The plan encompasses research, education and community outreach in addition to greenhouse gas reduction. The idea is to incorporate efficiency, new technologies, behavioral change and renewable energy resources into as many aspects of daily university life as possible, according to Davis

Bookhart, director of the Office of Sustainability.

The plan includes a campaign to encourage students, faculty and staff to reduce energy consumption at work and at home.

For example, the Green Campus Program encourages building occupants to explore opportunities to reduce energy and resource consumption at the departmental and individual levels.

Sustainability coordinator Leana Houser, who oversees the program, says her philosophy is that at Johns Hopkins, “every job is a green job.”

“Every day, each of us has the opportunity to make smart and sustainable decisions that reduce the environmental impact of our work,” Houser said.

Johns Hopkins was recently included in the Princeton Review Guide to 322 Green Colleges: 2012 Edition, which profiles higher education institutions in the United States and Canada that demonstrate a strong commitment to sustainability in their academic offerings, campus infrastructure, activities and career preparation.

Some melanomas use cloaking protein to hide from immune cells B y V a n e ss a W a s t a

Johns Hopkins Medicine

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cientists at Johns Hopkins and Yale have found that melanoma cells use a cloaking protein to hide from immune cells poised to attack the cancer. Nearly 40 percent of their sampling of melanoma tissues contained the B7-H1 protein, also

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called PD-L1, and scientists say it could be used as a target for new therapies.

For the study, described in the March 28 issue of Science Translational Medicine, the research team analyzed 150 samples of benign melanocytic lesions, and primary and metastatic melanomas, looking for expression of B7-H1 above a threshold of 5 percent. Of the samples, collected from patients at Johns Hopkins, 57 (38 percent) were positive for the B7-H1 cloaking protein.

Previous research by Yale scientist and B7-H1 discoverer Leiping Chen, formerly of Johns Hopkins, established that some melanoma cells express B7-H1, which renders the cells invisible to T-cells. These T-cells release interferon gamma, a potent signal to trigger cancer cell killing. But it turns out that interferon gamma also prompts melanoma cells to make more B7-H1, further cloaking the melanoma cells from the immune system.

“It’s a self-defeating process that may explain why immune cells penetrating melanomas can’t kill them,” said Janis Taube, an assistant professor of dermatology and pathology at Johns Hopkins. “The immune cells are standing ready to attack, but the

melanoma cells are holding them at bay by using the B7-H1 protein,” she said.

Notably, in the current research, the approximately 40 percent of patients with metastatic melanomas harboring B7-H1 expression had moderately better survival than those without, probably, the researchers say, because B7-H1 expression indicates that the patient’s immune system is beginning to respond to the tumor.

“Since T-cells trigger melanoma cells to produce B7-H1, we believe that finding significant expression levels of the protein is an indicator that the immune system has been activated,” Taube said.

Nearly half the patients with metastatic melanoma had received some form of immunotherapy aimed at boosting the immune system’s ability to fight cancer. Taube says that this may have tipped the balance in favor of the immune system despite the cloaking effect.

“When melanoma cells express B7-H1 and immune cells arrive at the site, an immunotherapy that blocks B7-H1 expression can turn off this cloaking protein so that immune cells can deliver a fatal blow,” she said.

Because most normal tissues generally do not express B7-H1, therapies that block the protein could be specific to the melanoma cells, and expression of the protein could be used as a biomarker for patients who may respond to the therapies, the researchers say.

Taube also says that the results could apply to other types of B7-H1-expressing tumors.

In addition to Taube and Chen, scientists contributing to the research were Robert A. Anders, Geoffrey D. Young, Haiying Xu, Rajni Sharma, Tracee L. McMiller, Shuming Chen, Alison P. Klein, Drew M. Pardoll, and Suzanne L. Topalian, all of Johns Hopkins.

The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Melanoma Research Alliance, Barney Family Foundation, Michael Rolfe Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research and Dermatology Foundation.

Topalian is a consultant to Bristol-Myers Squibb and Topalian, Taube, Anders and Xu receive research support from Bristol-Myers Squibb. The terms of these arrangements are being managed by The Johns Hopkins University in accordance with its conflictof-interest policies.

Transfer

The Carey Business School, which requires MBA students to take a Discovery to Market course, has envisioned a natural role for itself as “a thought leader in the area of technology transfer,” Phan said. “We partner with the Hopkins Tech Transfer Office in bringing the market analysis and the market-facing part of the innovation process.”

It wasn’t so long ago, said Blakeslee, when technology transfer ranked low on the list of the university’s priorities.

“Hopkins did not see it as a big part of its mission,” he said in a post-conference interview. “But I think we’re over that now.

We understand that there are appropriate times and appropriate ways to work with industry. We see that there’s a benefit to doing so, because if we really want to have the most impact by getting products out to help people, we have to work with industry.”

Both Blakeslee and Phan hasten to point out that this doesn’t mean changing the university’s research-focused culture. “The good tech transfer offices avoid doing that,” Phan said. “They know that bench scientists are bench scientists, and that’s their greatest value. It’s better to identify those researchers who have the interest and the tendency to pursue commercialization of their discoveries. The idea is to work with those individuals and facilitate their efforts.”

“As is true at all universities, the percent of Johns Hopkins faculty members who get

involved in tech transfer is relatively small,” Blakeslee said. “Not everybody participates.

Those who want to can get very involved; some have even started companies. Those who don’t want to be actively involved need not take significant time from their other activities, as the Tech Transfer Office makes the tech transfer process very easy.”

“Making a Quantum Leap” marked the second time that the Carey Business School has hosted a conference on tech transfer.

An event two years ago focused on how to finance projects. Phan said that other conferences are likely to be held “as the phenomenon evolves. When the need arises to address another important aspect of tech transfer, then we’ll do it. It has to be issue-driven.”

Along with the Carey Business School and the Johns Hopkins Office of Technology Transfer, the conference’s sponsors were the School of Business at the University of Albany, Baltimore-based law firms Whiteford, Taylor & Preston and Gordon Feinblatt, and the research, development and technical services firm RTI International.

The nine academic papers presented at the conference by researchers from the University of Texas, the University of North Carolina, Northwestern University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the National Institutes of Health and other institutions will be considered for publication by the Journal of Technology Transfer. G

Continued from page 1 it and determining whether it has any market value. They have to do this in an environment of high uncertainty, so having good evaluation processes in place is important.”

Or, as Blakeslee noted on a slide during his presentation at the conference, “KNOW THE NUMBERS.” Tech transfer offices, he said, have taken major strides in the past five years toward precise data gathering and financial management. The upshot? More-efficient offices that have a deeper sense of how to move scientific findings quickly from the lab to the commercial pipeline.

JHU’s Tech Transfer Office has been among the quantum leapers, with whopping gains since 2006 in invention disclosures (up 68 percent), U.S. patents issued (up 49 percent) and startup companies launched (from four in 2006 to 19 last year). A disclosure is a formal declaration of a discovery filed by the researcher with the host institution.

The tech transfer office of the University of Pennsylvania, another conference participant, saw similar gains. From 2008 to 2011, Penn roughly tripled its startups and commercialization agreements.

April 30, 2012 • THE GAZETTE

5

A S T R O N O M Y

NASA picks JHU–led investigation upgrade for flying observatory

By Lisa De Nike

Homewood

JIM ROSS / NASA

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proposal led by a Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist has been selected by NASA as part of a science instrument upgrade to the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, known as SOFIA. The instrument, the High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera, will provide sensitive, versatile and powerful imaging capability to the SOFIA user community.

The Johns Hopkins–led investigation is one of two that will allow SOFIA, with the enhanced HAWC, to measure the structure and strength of magnetic fields in diverse objects throughout the universe, such as star-forming clouds and galaxies. This will help astronomers better understand how stars, planets and galaxies form and evolve.

Johannes Staguhn, a research scientist in the Center for Astrophysical Sciences in Johns Hopkins’ Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, will lead a team to provide sensitive large-format detector arrays to increase HAWC’s capability and observing efficiency, allowing a broader range of scientific investigations.

Other instrument team members include NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

“The role of magnetic fields in the process of star formation and the associated formation of planets is still far from being understood,” Staguhn said. “The instrument upgrade will provide for the first time the capability for the SOFIA observatory to measure magnetic fields on large scales in molecular clouds.”

These observations, he said, will be more

With the large door over its telescope wide open, NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy 747SP aircraft soars over Southern California’s high desert during flight tests.

detailed than those that have been possible with any other existing observatory. Molecular clouds are the “cradle” for new stars and planets that form out of cloud material that collapses into new solar systems, and magnetic fields are believed to play a major role in this process.

“The HAWC detector upgrade, together with optics that are sensitive to the polarization of the observed light, and will be provided by the second proposal that has been selected, will enable the measurement of these magnetic fields and their interplay with the molecular cloud,” Staguhn said. “These observations will provide new and essential insights into the processes that are involved in the creation of new worlds.”

SOFIA is a highly modified Boeing 747SP aircraft that carries a telescope with a 106-inch-diameter reflecting mirror that conducts astronomy research not possible with ground-based telescopes. By operating in the stratosphere at altitudes up to 45,000 feet, SOFIA can make observations above the obscuring water vapor in Earth’s lower atmosphere.

John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said, “SOFIA has the ability to become a worldclass airborne observatory that complements the Hubble, Spitzer and Herschel space telescopes. This upgrade will greatly broaden SOFIA’s capabilities.”

In August, the agency released an

announcement of opportunity for SOFIA second-generation instrument investigations and received 11 proposals. Those selected were judged to have the best science value and feasible development plans.

The other proposal selected is the Highresolution Airborne Wideband Camera Polarization, or HAWC-Pol, to be led by C. Darren Dowell of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. This investigation upgrades the HAWC instrument to include the capability to make polarimetric observations at far-infrared wavelengths.

Dowell will be the principal investigator for the full HAWC upgrade effort. The investigation’s main goals are to measure the magnetic field in the interstellar medium, star-forming regions and the center of the Milky Way. A joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, SOFIA is based and managed at NASA’s Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif. NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., manages the science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association, headquartered in Columbia, Md., and the German SOFIA Institute at the University of Stuttgart.

Related websites Johns Hopkins Center for Astrophysical Sciences:

physics-astronomy.jhu.edu/groups/ astro SOFIA program:

nasa.gov/sofia

Student Book Collecting Contest winners announced

By Brian Shields

Sheridan Libraries

T

he Sheridan Libraries has announced the winners of this year’s Betty and Edgar Sweren Student Book Collecting Contest. The annual competition, which is sponsored by the Friends of the Libraries and was endowed in 2007 by longtime Friends Betty and Edgar Sweren, recognizes the love of

books and the art of shaping a thoughtful and focused book collection.

The contest is open to all Johns Hopkins University students, and entrants must submit a bibliography of up to 50 items and an essay describing the collection. “Each fall we put out a request to all Hopkins students, inviting them to share their book collections with us,” said Winston Tabb, Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums. “And each spring, without fail, we uncover the most extraordinary collections and some of the most fascinating

people at the university. Congratulations to all our winners.”

In the undergraduate division, first place and the $1,000 cash prize went to senior Sandhira Wijayaratne, a double major in public health studies and sociology, for his collection Moralistic Humanitarianism and Africa. Second prize and $500 went to Audrey Swanenberg, a senior majoring in sociology, for The Green Thumb Collection: A Future Farmer’s Book Collection for Practical Knowledge.

There was a tie for first place in the gradu-

ate division, with Jennie Kay Hann and Kevin Baggot Roberts, both of the English Department, winning $1,000 each for their respective collections, Books About Books: A Meta-Collection and Cheap Thrills: Sex in American Publishing, 1924– 1970. Hannah Joy Friedman, of the History of Art Department, won second place and $500 for Classic American ‘Funnies.’

Selections from the winning entries are on display on M-level of Homewood’s Milton S. Eisenhower Library through July 1.

Peabody collaborates with Concert Artists, Lyric for May 5 performance

courtesy of matt blake

C

The Johns Hopkins Baja SAE team returned to the Homewood campus April 24, tired, muddy and thrilled with its showing in the intercollegiate competition in Auburn, Ala. The day before, the engineering undergraduates, led by senior Matt Blake, placed ninth overall (out of 102 teams) and third in the Design Report and Maneuverability categories—the best results ever for JHU in this international contest. The team designed and built the 10-horsepower buggy (shown here in the competition), which is equipped to race across rough terrain, catch air and chug through deep water.

—Abby Lattes

oncerts Artists of Baltimore, the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University and the Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric will unveil their inaugural collaboration on Saturday, May 5, when the three Baltimore institutions present Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. The 8 p.m. concert will be conducted by Edward Polochick, artistic director of Concert Artists of Baltimore and a Peabody faculty member.

The evening will take audience members from the sacred—Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, with each movement a musical celebration—to the profane—Orff’s Carmina Burana, a smash hit around the world.

The performance will include more than 300 artists from the Peabody Concert Orchestra, Concert Artists of Baltimore Orchestra and Symphonic Chorale, Peabody-Hopkins Chorus and Peabody Singers, directed by Polochick; and the Pea-

body Children’s Chorus, directed by Doreen Falby. The soloists for the concert are Peabody alumni Jennifer Holbrook, soprano; Peter Lee, tenor and countertenor; and Kevin Wetzel, baritone.

Ticket prices are $38 and $28, including admission to a reception following the performance. Tickets are available by going to lyricoperahouse.com or calling 410-9001150.

The evening is made possible by Concert Artists of Baltimore’s generous sponsors Robert Mazaika and The Herbert Bearman Foundation, and by media sponsors WBJC FM and The Beacon newspapers.

Read The Gazette online gazette.jhu.edu

6 30,15, 2012 6 THE THE GAZETTE GAZETTE •• April August 2011

Woodrow Continued from page 1 what if the main subject of your research declines to be interviewed? Short answer, you move on to something, or someone, else.

Since 1999, Woodrow Wilson fellowships have allowed undergraduates in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences the opportunity to pursue an independent research project over the course of their college career. Fourteen seniors on Friday, May 4, will discuss the results of their research at a poster session to be held from 3 to 5 p.m. in Homewood’s Glass Pavilion.

Woodrow Wilson projects on display at the Friday poster session will include an examination of a 12th-century manuscript

of the King Arthur legend, a comparative study of childhood obesity and prevention in the United States and Europe, a performance tour of Bach cello suites and a look into the merits of a universal health care system.

The annual Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program allows students to delve into unconstrained research during their time at Johns Hopkins, mentored by a faculty member. Each Wilson fellow receives a grant of $10,000 to be distributed over four years to support research expenses, including costs associated with travel, equipment and use of archives.

The fellowships are given to incoming freshmen of outstanding merit and promise and also to rising sophomores, who receive $7,500 for three years. For high school seniors, a Woodrow Wilson brochure is included in the application packets mailed

Teen angst on film Name: Jacob Appet Age: 21 Hometown: Fairfield, N.J. Major: Writing Seminars Faculty mentor: Tristan Davies, senior

lecturer in the Writing Seminars

Project title: Westbaum in High School

H

igh school can get messy.

Never mind academics; perceived higher stakes regularly play out. Outcast boy chases girl. Girl rejects boy. School bully takes a roundhouse swing at some unfortunate soul who wanders too close.

For his Woodrow Wilson–funded feature-length film, longtime movie buff Jacob Appet (photo, page 1) wanted to capture high school in all its melodramatic, hor-

mone-driven, hyper-emotional and acneobsessed glory.

Westbaum in High School follows the exploits of title character Thomas Westbaum, a jazz-loving intellectual who struggles to retain his optimism in a darkly absurd senior year. Thomas’ best friend suffers from severe depression. Thomas himself falls in love quicker than you can say Katy Perry.

And a bully creates a Facebook event that challenges Thomas to a fight, to avenge a lucky punch the main character lands on him earlier in the film.

Appet says he drew on some personal experiences when writing the screenplay.

Like his on-screen hero, Appet was an “outsider” at his Fort Lauderdale, Fla., high school and challenged to a fight via Facebook, but the dare fizzled out, and the fisticuffs never happened.

The accessibilityminded tourist Name: Risa Rifkind Age: 21 Hometown: New York Major: political science Faculty mentor: Renee Marlin-Bennett,

professor of political science

Project title: “Metropolitan Accessibility”

R

courtesy of risa rifkind

isa Rifkind brought a unique perspective to her Woodrow Wilson project—a 4-foot one to be precise.

Rifkind, a little person,

describes her height and eye level as that of a 5-year-old. Some simple tasks and abilities that others take for granted have challenged Rifkind her entire life. She cites not being able to reach the sink in some public restrooms, watch a movie in some theaters without the use of a child’s booster seat or navigate her 110-pound electric scooter over a two-inch step.

For her project, Rifkind wanted to examine public transportation and tourist attraction accessibility in various metropolitan cities around the world.

She researched and fine-tuned her proj-

Risa Rifkind at the Acropolis, one of the spots the 4-foot-tall senior visited as part of her research into the accessibility of tourist destinations around the world.

out by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, and a selection of fellows is made by a faculty committee. Current freshmen, however, must submit a two-to-three-page proposal, a resume, a second-semester transcript and a letter of recommendation from a JHU faculty member who would become the student’s mentor.

The award is named after the former U.S. president, who received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins. The program was developed for the School of Arts and Sciences by Herbert Kessler, then dean of the school and now a professor of art history; Steven David, vice dean for undergraduate education; and university trustee J. Barclay Knapp, who funded the fellowships through the school’s James B. Knapp Deanship, named for his late father. Recipients have gone on to win Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright and Truman scholarships.

“As America’s first research university,

Johns Hopkins has a special commitment toward creating knowledge,” David says.

“That commitment includes our undergraduate students, and there is no better illustration of its value than the Woodrow Wilson program, as seen in these superb projects.”

The individual research endeavors are designed by the fellows, and each student has the choice of focusing on a single long-term project, exploring several aspects of a particular discipline or working on various short-term undertakings in an array of fields. Students can opt to pursue research in their own major or, if they wish, branch off into a totally unrelated discipline.

Here are snapshots of four Woodrow Wilson fellows and their own tales of discovery. G For more information, go to krieger.jhu.edu/ woodrowwilson.

The film, Appet says, allowed him to play out experiences somewhat true to life but ratcheted up to a comic level.

“I’m interested in memory and how the passage of time impacts it. Some aspects of the film’s plot are a little more extreme than they would be in real life but still feel right for this fictional universe,” he says. “For me, high school is four years ago and not in my direct memory, but those events seep into the film itself. But this time I get to play with and change things based on those real experiences.”

Appet used the university’s Homewood campus as his primary film location.

Levering Food Court doubled as a high school cafeteria. Dunning Hall was used for scenes set in the school’s hallways and classrooms.

For the cast, Appet mostly called on friends from the Witness Theater, JHU’s student theater group that writes and performs its original work. He also lured in extras by promising them food, provided by Woodrow

Wilson funds.

After his initial plan for a documentary fell through, he wrote the screenplay for Westbaum the second semester of his junior year, and primary filming was done during a two-month period early in his senior year.

The film, currently in the final legs of postproduction, was edited at the university’s Digital Media Center, a service frequently used by Wilson fellows.

Appet says that the experience taught him valuable lessons in time management, film techniques, budgeting and self-exploration.

“High school is a great place to explore absurd comedy and darker serious themes,” he says. “There is just a heightened sense of drama in high school, but maybe there are things that we should be taking seriously, like depression and the value of hope.”

Westbaum in High School will have its debut screening at 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 12, in Gilman Hall, room 50.

ect during her freshman and sophomore years, and ultimately decided upon visiting London, Paris, Athens, Hong Kong, Seoul, Toronto and Chicago.

“Everyone said I was crazy to think I could do all that with limited funds, but I was able to budget my money wisely,” Rifkind says.

To save money, she stayed in modest accommodations and hit all her international destinations in one whirlwind threeweek period this past summer, as it was cheaper to fly from point to point once overseas than to return to the United States. The nonstop traveling was thrilling, she says, but had its drawbacks, such as an eight-hour layover on the way to Korea. She visited Toronto in July 2011 and got to Chicago in early April.

In each city, Rifkind endeavored to ride on every public transportation mode available, and to visit the top two or three tourist attractions.

In London, for example, she used the city’s rail and Tube systems, taxis and buses to get around when she was not on foot or on her scooter. She visited Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the London Eye, the giant Ferris wheel on the banks of the River Thames.

Although she managed to get around successfully, Rifkind found London’s bus system somewhat confusing, and she could use only a percentage of the Tube system.

The city, she says, did have a major bright spot in terms of accessibility, in that all the city’s taxis are mandated to have ramps.

“I’ve never seen that anywhere,” she says.

In Athens, Rifkind says, she benefited from the major renovations and upgrades the city underwent for the 2004 Summer Olympics and Paralympics to accommodate the spectators and athletes with disabilities.

She gave particularly rave reviews to the city’s new train system.

“It’s what every train system should be: simple, accessible, clean and easy to use,” she says. “It’s as good as it gets.”

How about ascending the Acropolis? No problems, Rifkind says. Elevators made every aspect of the site accessible.

Rifkind anticipated that Seoul would present difficulties for her, but she was pleasantly surprised by the progress made by the not-yet-10-year-old disability movement there.

“The city has come a long way,” she says.

Her toughest obstacle came when visiting Toronto. The Canadian city’s main means of public transportation is the streetcar system, which at the time Rifkind visited did not feature ramps for a person in a wheelchair or scooter to get on or off. The grooves in the street for the streetcars also presented a challenge for someone crossing the street in a wheelchair or on crutches. “In Toronto, I just scooted everywhere and took the train and taxi just once,” she says.

A recurring theme in her research was the impact that Olympic games had on the host city’s accessibility level. Rifkind says that during her visit to London, accessibilityminded upgrades were already in the works for the summer 2012 games.

“It seems like my research is coming at a point where everybody is changing everything, so who knows how soon before my findings will become outdated,” she says.

“But I hope that, for whatever reasons, accessibility measures are implemented in all cities. People with disabilities can achieve great things like everyone else, if given the chance and equal opportunity.”

Before she left for her trip, Rifkind had met with a friend of her family’s, a movie producer who encouraged her to make a documentary of her experience. With funding from private and independent donors, a videographer joined Rifkind on her trip and filmed the entire experience, including interviews with government officials. She is currently pursuing additional funding to support further filming this summer and get the movie professionally produced.

April 30, 2012 • THE GAZETTE

7

The 2012 Woodrow Wilson Fellows Jacob Theodore Appet, Writing Seminars “Westbaum in High School” Christopher S. Benner, English/Writing Seminars “The Reception and Interpretation of ‘The Great Gatsby’ in America and Abroad” Rachel Libby Burns, anthropology/public health studies “Not as Easy as ABC: 21st-Century HIV Prevention in Three American Cities” Evelyn Cho, public health studies “Childhood Obesity and Obesity

Prevention in Europe and the United States: A Comparative Analysis” Amy Marie Conwell, Writing Seminars/classics/English “Arthurian Historiography: The Once and Future Legend” Luke Anthony Ginocchio, physics and astronomy “Various Systems of Health Care in Europe” Lindsey Z. Hutzler, public health studies “The Rise of Ethics in the American Medical School Curriculum: A Closer Look at Three University Models”

Hannah Reade Joo, neuroscience “Melanopsin Cells Form Unique Intraretinol Axon Collaterals” Veronica R. Jordan-Davis, public health/Near Eastern studies “The Evolution of Displays and Depictions of Relationships and Intimacy in Ancient Egypt” Christopher Mirasola, international studies “Resolving Grievances in Rural China: Processes and Perspectives on Addressing Issues in the Countryside” Robert Br yan Powers, classics

“Bump: A Tabloid Story—a Play in Three Acts” Risa Jaz Rifkind, political science “Metropolitan Accessibility” Benjamin Swartz, history/cello performance at Peabody “Performance Practice of the Bach Cello Suites” Kristine Wagner, public health studies “Indigenous Medicine and Health After Oil Development in the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest: A Case Study of the Secoya”

Name: Christopher Benner Age: 21 Hometown: Oakland, Calif.

Major: English and The Writing Seminars Faculty mentors: Alice McDermott, the

Richard A. Macksey Professor for Distinguished Teaching in the Humanities; and Douglas Mao, professor of English Project title: “The Reception and Interpretation of The Great Gatsby in America and Abroad”

C

hristopher Benner has read The Great Gatsby so many times he’s lost count. On request, he can recite the opening pages and large chunks from throughout the novel, universally hailed as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece and a literary treasure.

The novel, first published in 1925, is set on Long Island’s North Shore and in New York City at the onset of the “roaring 20s,” when prosperity and Prohibition reigned.

The title character, Jay Gatsby, hails from an impoverished Midwest background but, largely through nefarious means, refashions himself into a metropolitan man of wealth in order to win the heart of a woman.

For his project, Benner wanted to explore how the strong ties between The Great Gatsby and American history influence the novel’s reputation among academics both in

the United States and abroad. Specifically, he wanted to analyze what influence political and cultural differences have on scholars’ readiness to accept a work as part of the literary canon.

To investigate, he conducted interviews with literary scholars from America, England, Germany, France and Switzerland to discuss how the novel is taught. To meet with many of these scholars, he attended the International F. Scott Fitzgerald Conference, held in Lyon, France, in July 2011.

He recorded and later transcribed his interviews, which became fodder for his Woodrow Wilson project and his senior thesis.

He found that, when taught abroad at the university level, the book is interpreted slightly differently, with a focus on American history and culture. He says this is particularly true in Britain and Germany, where it might be used as a window to Jazz Age America.

“Several of the European professors I interviewed mentioned how ‘exotic’ The Great Gatsby was for their students because it focused on a time and place so distinct from when and where their students live now,” Benner says.

U.S. professors, in contrast, often laid heavier emphasis on the style of the novel, or focused on its political and moral hues.

Benner says that one American scholar with whom he spoke talked about how the novel asks whether the rich have a moral

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

Perceptions of a literary masterwork

Christopher Benner with a well-worn copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Great Gatsby,’ a novel that he determined is taught differently in the United States and abroad.

obligation to use their wealth for good rather than selfishly and destructively.

Benner notes, however, that scholars uniformly leave few plot stones unturned, Gatsby being such a relatively short novel.

A question some might have for Benner would be, did he learn something new about his favorite novel? Benner says he may not think of the novel’s narrator, Nick Carraway, quite the same way again.

“There is some robust critical debate about whether Nick is a reliable narrator, but I never saw him as unreliable,” he says.

“I more or less believed what he told us.”

He also learned just how few American literary scholars are out there in Europe, and how The Great Gatsby is not nearly the iconic staple for students abroad as it is in the United States. It’s not even in the top-three American books taught in British secondary school, which would be Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye. “It interested me how variable literary reputation can be,” he says. “Culture and other aspects can influence how much a book is respected, read and taught.”

Name: Kristine Wagner Age: 21 Hometown: Chesapeake, Va. Major: public health studies Faculty mentor: Cindy Parker, assistant

professor in the Division of Occupational and Environmental Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health Project title: “Indigenous Medicine and Health After Oil Development in the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest: A Case Study of the Secoya”

K

ristine Wagner admits that she waffled a bit on her Woodrow Wilson topic. Wagner knew she wanted to focus on public health in a tropical setting, but where and what aspect?

“I was interested in so many things,” she says. “I wanted to pick a topic that would be worthy and important, so it was hard to settle on one. I was like, what if it’s not good enough?”

Then along came inspiration.

While researching South American rainforests in her junior year, Wagner learned about the oil contamination in Ecuador and the landmark lawsuit against Chevron that at the time was garnering lots of press. In February 2011, an Ecuadorian court fined the oil corporation $18 billion for pollution to the country’s Amazon region by Chevronowned Texaco between 1972 and 1992.

Plaintiffs claimed loss of crops and farm animals, as well as increased local cancer rates.

In her efforts to learn more on the subject, Wagner found a scientist in Ecuador working with mycoremediation, a developing scientific field using fungi to clean up contaminated soil. The scientist was the founder of a nonprofit that was hosting a service-learning course in Equador, which provided the structure she needed to carry out a project.

Her research focused on the Secoya indigenous community of the Ecuadorian Amazon and how its medical practices have Continued on page 9

courtesy of Kristine Wagner

Health in the rainforest

Public health studies major Kristine Wagner testing soil in Ecuador, where fungi are being used to clean up contamination.

8 30,15, 2012 8 THE THE GAZETTE GAZETTE •• April August 2011

April 30, 2012 • THE GAZETTE

Rainforest Continued from page 7 changed over time. She wanted to learn how oil industry development in the rainforest influenced Secoya medicine, and the current role of traditional versus Western medicine.

She traveled to Ecuador twice, for a sixweek span in 2011 with the service-learning group and then by herself in January 2012.

Through interviews with community leaders and scientists, she learned about the history of the oil industry and its impact on the health of the indigenous population and the economy of the region. She also did some small-scale mycoremediation experiments.

Oil drilling in the Ecuadorian rainforest

started in earnest in 1967. Since then, the development of the area has been extreme, Wagner says.

“Vast stretches of rainforest needed to be cleared for access roads to the drill sites,” she says. “Then colonists came looking for land and work, and they start building homes along these roads.” Where once was forest, whole towns formed. The influx of people also introduced Western medicine to the area. Clinics and hospitals were built, and the Secoya indigenous population over time shifted from traditional plant-based therapies and cures to modern medicine.

The increasing use and desire for Western medicine led the Secoya community to pressure the government and oil companies for its own community clinic, now staffed by a trained doctor and nurse, with others training to become midwives and lab technicians.

In the past, plants and an elaborate cer-

A P R I L

emony led by a community healer might be used to treat a person. Now, the person simply goes to a clinic.

While some people with whom she spoke expressed reservations about the introduction of Western medicine, the general population not only embraced the new clinic, it wanted more.

“I found that Western medicine has been adopted pretty readily and that the Secoya people fought hard to get the clinic that they have,” Wagner says. “They are continuing to advocate to get more health professionals down there, and more medicine.

They’d like to see it improve.”

The native people, she says, also don’t want the traditional medicine to die out.

“There is clearly a desire to have a mix of traditional and Western medicine,” she says. “Pills might work for some sicknesses, they feel, but plants work better for others.

3 0

–

M A Y

Calendar Influence of School Connectedness on the Relationship Between Victimization and Suicidal and Aggressive Behaviors Among Sexual Minority Youth” with Jeffrey Duong, SPH, and “Bullying Behaviors in School-Aged Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders” with Ben Zablotsky, SPH. B14B Hampton House. EB Wed.,

May

2,

1:30

“Hutchinson-Guilford Progeria Syndrome and Normal Aging: New Insights Into Old Questions,” a Cell Biology seminar with Kan Cao, University of Maryland. Suite 2-200, 1830 Bldg. EB

Thurs., May 3, noon.

Continued from page 12

p.m.

“Mechanics and Biochemistry of Bacterial Cell Division,” a Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry seminar with Eric Cytrynbaum, University of British Columbia. 701 WBSB. EB Wed., May 2, 3 p.m. “The Genetics of Autism and Self-Injury: Lessons for Schizophrenia,” a Johns Hopkins Schizophrenia Center seminar with Jonathan Pevsner, SoM. Sponsored by Psychiatry. 1-191 Meyer. EB Wed., May 2, 3 p.m. “Smart Energy Globalization: Implementing Innovative Solutions,” a Geography and Environmental Engineering and E2SHI seminar with David Jhirad, SAIS. Clipper Room, Shriver Hall. HW

“Sending Signals From Inside the Membrane: Mechanism of Rhomboid Proteolysis,” a Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences seminar with Sin Urban, SoM. West Lecture Hall (ground floor), WBSB. EB Wed., May 2, 4 p.m.

“Calibration of Statistical Evidence Using Principles of Thermodynamics,” a Biostatistics seminar with Veronica Vieland, Battelle Center for Mathematical Medicine/ Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital/Ohio State University. W2030 SPH. EB

Wed., May 2, 4 p.m.

Thurs., May 3, noon. “Diversification of Immune Effector Responses to Infection,” a Molecular Microbiology and Immunology/Infectious Diseases seminar with George Yap, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/New Jersey Medical School. W1020 SPH. EB

“Turbulent Dynamos in Astrophysics: Problems and Prospects,” a CEAFM seminar with Kandaswamy Subramanian, IUCAA, Pune, India. 50 Gilman. HW

Fri., May 4, 11 a.m.

“Growing Small: Bone Histology, Early Ontogeny and Insular Dwarfism in Mammoths (and Other Elephants),” a Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution seminar with V. Louise Roth, Duke University. Suite 2-300, 1830 Bldg.

Fri., May 4, 1 p.m.

May 3, noon. The Bromery Seminar—“Reductions in Riverine Dissolved Organic Carbon Export During the Last Decade: From a Remote Sensing Approach” wih Ramon Lopez, APL. Sponsored by Earth and Planetary Sciences. Olin Auditorium. HW

Thurs.,

EB

“Understanding Young Women’s Sexual Relationships, Perceived Power and HIV Risk in Northern Namibia,” a Population, Family and Reproductive Health thesis defense seminar with Katherine Vassos. E4611 SPH. EB Fri., May 4, 1:30 p.m.

Thurs., May 3, noon. “100 Years

of Research at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (Melbourne, Australia), With Emphasis on Regulation of Blood Cell Production and Function,” a Biology special seminar with Doug Hilton, director, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. 100 Mudd.

HW

Thurs., May 3, 1 p.m. “Synaptic Ras Signaling,” a Neuroscience research seminar with Julius Zhu, University of Virginia. West Lecture Hall (ground floor), WBSB. EB Thurs.,

May

3,

1:30

p.m.

“Comparison Inequalities and Fastest-Mixing Markov Chains,” an Applied Mathematics and Statistics seminar with Jim Fill, WSE. 304 Whitehead. HW Thurs., May 3, 3 p.m. “The Secrets of Swimming in Sand,” a Mechanical Engineering seminar with Daniel Goldman, Georgia Tech. 1 Remsen. HW Thurs., May 3, 4 p.m. “Using Systems Approaches to Dissect Central Bacterial Cellular Processes,” a Biology seminar with Carol Gross, University of California, San Francisco. 100 Mudd.

HW

“Occupational Health and Safety Practices of Vietnamese American Nail Salon Workers,” an Environmental Health Sciences thesis defense seminar with Lori Edwards.

W7023 SPH. EB

Fri., May 4, 9 a.m.

“WorkRelated Fall Prevention: Results of a Systematic Review,” an Occupational and Environmental Health seminar with Michelle Chervak, U.S. Army Public Health Command/Army Institute of Public Health, Aberdeen Proving Ground. W2030 SPH. EB

Mon., May 7, noon.

Mon.,

May

7,

12:10

p.m.

“Microfinance Intervention to Improve Health, Economic Stability and Reintegration of Survivors of Gender-Based Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” a Graduate Seminar in Injury Research and Policy with Nancy Glass, SoN. Co-sponsored by the Center for Injury Research and Policy, the Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence and the Center for Gun Policy and Research. 250 Hampton House.

EB

“Telomeres and Virulence in the Yeast Pathogen Candida glabrata,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Brendan Cormack, SoM. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW

Mon., May 7, 12:15 p.m.

Mon., May 7, 4 p.m. “Using Systems Approaches to Dissect Central Bacterial Cellular Processes,” a Biology seminar with Carol

My guess is that they will push for more health programs and funding as a result of the Chevron lawsuit [which the company is now appealing].”

As for how her research experience went, Wagner says that she is glad she took her time in the beginning. The perfect project eventually found her.

Woodrow Wilson Poster Session

F

ourteen seniors will discuss their independent research projects at a poster session to be held from 3 to 5 p.m. on Friday, May 4, in Homewood’s Glass Pavilion. The entire Johns Hopkins community is invited to attend.

7

Gross, University of California, San Francisco. 100 Mudd. HW Mon., May 7, 4 p.m. The David Bodian Seminar—“Populations of ON and OFF Thalamic Inputs Underlying the Functional Architecture of Primary Visual Cortex” with Jose-Manuel Alonso, State University of New York College of Optometry. Sponsored by the Krieger Mind/Brain Institute. 338 Krieger. HW

S PE C I A L E V E N T S

Mon., April 30, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. East Baltimore Hous-

ing and Neighborhood Fair, an opportunity to learn about housing options, community resources and future plans for East Baltimore neighborhoods, with representatives from the Live Near Your Work program, East Baltimore residential developers, the East Baltimore Community School, EBDI and other local associations.

Turner Concourse. EB Tues., May 1, 4 p.m. Dedication of the Robert Henry Levi and Ryda Hecht Levi Professor of Bioethics and Public Policy and installation of Jeffrey Kahn. Sponsored by the Berman Institute of Bioethics. W1214 SPH. EB Tues., May 1, 7 p.m. “Henry Walters’ Legacy: Illustrating Medicine” by Gary Lees, director, Art as Applied to Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Reception follows at 8 p.m. Sponsored by the Walters Women’s Committee. $25 general admission, $20 for WAM members, $10 for students with ID. Tickets are available at wamwc.org or by calling 410-547-9000, ext. 305. Walters Art Museum (use the Centre St. entrance).

“Hopkins: A World Inside a City, II,” seven storytellers each get seven minutes to share personal tales of what life is truly like at JHMI. (See In Brief, p. 2.) Clementine restaurant will vend food before the show, and Caleb Stine will provide live music beginning at 6:30 p.m. Confirmed storytellers are Robert Montgomery, Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, Chris Kraft and Naomi Cross. Three storytellers will be selected from the audience. Advance tickets are $15 or $10 with Hopkins ID; tickets at the door will be $20 or $15 with Hopkins ID. Advance tickets are recommended; purchase

Fri., May 4, 7 p.m.

9

at stoopstorytelling.com/shows/ 111 or by calling 800-838-3006.

Part of the Stoop Storytelling Series sponsored by the Office of Cultural Affairs. Turner Auditorium.

EB Mon., May 7, 8 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. Design Day 2012, presenta-

tions and posters of latest medical innovations by student design teams, followed by awards and recognition. Sponsored by the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design. Armstrong Auditorium. EB

S POR T S May 5, 2 p.m. Men’s Lacrosse (Homecoming), vs.

Army. Homewood Field. HW

Sat.,

S Y M PO S I A Fri., May 4, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Cancer: The Big Picture, the Institute for NanoBioTechnology’s sixth annual symposium explores the diagnosis and treatment of cancer from novel approaches using epidemiology, physical sciences, genetics and cell biology; with various speakers (9 a.m. to noon). Poster session begins at 1:30 p.m. Owens Auditorium, CRB. EB Mon., May 7, 10 a.m. to 4 : 3 0 p . m . Scientific and Ani-

mal Welfare Innovations in Drug Development and Safety Assessment—CAAT Pharmaceutical Information Day with Brian Berridge, GlaxoSmithKline; Marilyn Brown, Charles River Laboratories; Wayne Buck, Abbott Laboratories; Myrtle Davis, National Cancer Institute; Oliver Flint, BristolMyers Squibb; Douglas Keller, Sanofi; Ray Kemper, Roche; William Pennie, Pfizer; Manisha Sonee, Johnson & Johnson; and Okey Ukairo, Hepregen; with a special lecture in W1214 SPH by Jesse Goodman, USFDA. For a complete agenda and to register, go to caat .jhsph.edu/programs/workshops/ pharmainfotoday.html. E2030 SPH. EB WOR K S H OP S

“Copyright and Fair Use,” an MSE Library workshop. Participants will receive a helpful toolkit.

M-Level, Electronic Resource Center, MSE Library. HW

Wed., May 2, 4:30 p.m.

10 30,15, 2012 10 THE THE GAZETTE GAZETTE •• April August 2011 H U M A N

B U L L E T I N

R E S O U R C E S

B O A R D

Notices

Hot Jobs

No notices were submitted for publication this week.

Listed below are some of the university’s newest openings for in-demand jobs that we most urgently need to fill.

In addition to considering these opportunities, candidates are invited to search a complete listing of openings and apply for positions online at jobs.jhu.edu.

Homewood Office of Human Resources Wyman Park Building, Suite W600 410-516-7196 IT@JH has a number of immediate openings for positions located on the Mount Washington campus. For more information and to apply, go to jobs.jhu.edu.

ERP Business Analyst ERP Business Analyst ERP Business Analyst Senior Systems Engineer Senior Systems Engineer Senior Systems Engineer Software Engineer Software Engineer

Katharina LOHMANN

49220 49223 51375 51060 51384 51920 51889 51966

School of Medicine Office of Human Resources 98 N. Broadway, Suite 300, 410-955-2990 The Department of Emergency Medicine is expanding its physician assistant staff and is thus seeking full-time PAs. These positions are available immediately for emergency medicine– trained, certified PAs seeking to build a career at a world-renowned academic center where they will work in The Johns Hopkins Hospital’s new state-of-the-art Emergency Department, opening this month in the new clinical building that will house the Cardiovascular and Critical Care Adult services. For detailed job descriptions and to apply, go to jobs.jhu.edu.

49941 50912

Physician Assistant Physician Assistant

Schools of Public Health and Nursing Office of Human Resources 2021 E. Monument St., 410-955-3006 The Bloomberg School of Public Health is offering a number of opportunities for individuals who possess strong analytical, organizational and communication skills. For detailed job descriptions and to apply, go to jobs.jhu.edu.

49102 50518 51411 51690 51855 52128 52283 52305 58164

Programmer Analyst Senior Programmer Analyst Senior Program Officer Research Technologist Research Data Analyst Research Program Manager Communications Associate Senior Research Program Supervisor Research Program Assistant

Johns Hopkins University is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, marital status, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, other legally protected characteristics or any other occupationally irrelevant criteria.

Woodcliffe Manor Apartments

S PA C I O U S

G A R D E N A PA RT M E N T L I V I N G I N

R O L A N D PA R K

• Large airy rooms • Hardwood Floors • Private balcony or terrace • Beautiful garden setting • Private parking available • University Parkway at West 39th St. 2 & 3 bedroom apartments located in a private park setting. Adjacent to Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus and minutes from downtown Baltimore.

410-243-1216

105 West 39th St. • Baltimore, MD 21210 Managed by The Broadview at Roland Park BroadviewApartments.com

On Wednesday, May 2, the Peabody Improvisation and Multimedia Ensemble will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Conservatory’s Jazz Studies Department with an evening of music by saxophonist and flutist Gary Thomas, above, the Richard and Elizabeth Case Endowed Professor in Jazz. The concert, at 7:30 p.m. in Peabody’s East Hall, will feature faculty and alumni guests, including film composer Jacob Yoffee, who will perform on saxophone and receive the Johns Hopkins Outstanding Recent Graduate Award. Yoffee earned his bachelor’s degree in composition in 2002 and his Graduate Performance Diploma in jazz saxophone in 2004.

Study: Shedding belly fat helps improve blood vessel function

O

verweight people who shed pounds, especially belly fat, can improve the function of their blood vessels no matter whether they are on a low-carb or low-fat diet, according to a study presented

by Johns Hopkins researchers March 13 at an American Heart Association scientific meeting focused on cardiovascular disease prevention.

In the six-month weight-loss study, Johns Hopkins researchers found that the more belly fat the participants lost, the better their arteries were able to expand when needed, allowing more blood to flow more freely. The researchers also found that participants in the study who were on a lowcarb diet lost about 10 pounds more on average than those who were on a low-fat diet. Being overweight increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, especially if the fat is accumulated in the belly above the waist.

“After six months, those who were on the low-carb diet lost an average of 28.9 pounds versus 18.7 pounds among those on the low-fat diet,” said lead investigator Kerry J. Stewart, a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of Clinical and Research Exercise Physiology at the Johns Hopkins Heart and Vascular Institute.

Stewart and his colleagues studied 60 men and women who weighed an average of 215 pounds at the start of the program. Half the participants went on a low-carb diet, while the others followed a low-fat diet. All took part in moderate exercise, and their diets provided a similar amount of calories each day.

In order to evaluate the health of the participants’ blood vessels before and after the weight-loss programs, the researchers conducted a blood-flow test by constricting circulation in the upper arm with a blood pressure cuff for five minutes. With this type of test, when the cuff is released, a healthier artery will expand more, allowing more blood to flow through the artery. The researchers mea-

sured how much blood reached the fingertips before, during and after the constriction of the artery. Stewart says that this test can give an indication of the overall health of the vascular system throughout the body. The researchers found that the more belly fat a person had lost, the greater the blood flow to the finger, signaling better function of the artery.

“Our study demonstrated that the amount of improvement in the vessels was directly linked to how much central, or belly, fat the individuals lost, regardless of which diet they were on,” Stewart said. “This is important since there have been concerns that a low-carb diet, which means eating more fat, may have a harmful effect on cardiovascular health. These results showed no harmful effects from the low-carb diet.”

In the low-carb diet used in the study, up to 30 percent of calories came from carbohydrates such as bread, pasta and certain fruits, while 40 percent was from fat consumed from meat, dairy products and nuts. In contrast, the low-fat diet consisted of no more than 30 percent of calories from fat and 55 percent from carbs.

Stewart notes that participants on the low-carb diet lost, on average, more weight, and at a faster pace, a result that also has been seen in several other studies. He says that eating higher amounts of carbohydrates can slow down the rate of body fat loss while on a weight-reduction diet.

The findings were consistent with early results presented by Stewart in June at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine. That initial report was based on results after participants in the study had lost their first 10 pounds. These longerterm results show that weight loss, along with exercise, is important for improving vascular health, and suggests that following a low-carb diet rather than the conventionally recommended low-fat diet for weight loss is not a concern in terms of vascular health.

—Ellen Beth Levitt

April 30, 2012 • THE GAZETTE

Classifieds APARTMENTS/HOUSES FOR RENT Albemarle Square/Little Italy, 2BR, 2.5BA TH, newer construction, stainless steel appls, hdwd flrs, garage, no pets. $1,900/mo. albemarlestreet@hotmail.com.

Bayview, furn’d 1BR, 1BA apt w/spacious living rm, dining rm, kitchen, laundry, hdwd flrs, AC, lg deck, high-speed Internet. $480/mo + utils.

443-386-9146 or yifanfrances@yahoo.com.

Catonsville, medical office in multi-physician bldg, approx 1,000 sq ft, 2nd flr view of forest, opposite Charlestown Retirement Center. $1,675/mo + utils. 410-321-8889.

Charles Village, furn’d 1BR, 1BA apt, avail May 2-12, flexible, great for visitors. $270/wk or $50/day. kralowsky@gmail.com.

Charles Village, newly renov’d 2- or 3BR apt, 2BAs, 1,500 sq ft, laundry and prkng. 410383-2876 or atoll4u@gmail.com.

Deep Creek Lake/Wisp, cozy 2BR cabin w/full kitchen; call for wkly/wknd rentals. 410-6389417 or jzpics@yahoo.com (for pics).

Ednor Gardens, clean, modern 3BR, 2BA house, nr JHU/JHMI, avail Aug 1. $1,400/mo. mLj260@nyu.edu.

Hampden (613 W 36th St), lovely 2BR TH on the Avenue, steps from the park, club rm, laundry rm, patio w/awning, avail late May. 410-868-3423.

Hampden, lovely 3BR duplex, 2,000 sq ft, 2 full BAs, spacious eat-in kitchen, dw, W/D, lots of free street prkng, 1-yr lease, sec dep req’d. Mina, 410-592-2670.

Hampden/Remington, 2BR, 1BA TH apt, CAC, free Internet, hdwd flrs, 10-min walk to JHMI shuttle. $850/mo. hampdenforrent@ gmail.com.

Lutherville/Timonium, 3BR, 2.5BA TH, new paint/crpt/laminate flr/dw/refrigerator, deck, yd, conv access to 695/I-83, no pets. 410-8284583 or moqiu@comcast.net.

Monument St, sublet 2BR brownstone for June and July, across the street from the Leakin Hall entrance to Peabody Conservatory. $1,250/mo. kekker413@gmail.com.

Mt Vernon, huge 2BR, 2.5BA apt w/loft, avail June, W/D in apt, fully equipped kitchen w/ oven, microwave, dw, disposal, MTA bus/light rail stop in front, 5-min walk to JHU shuttle

Great Mt Vernon Condo ‐ 3 Story

M A R K E T P L A C E

or Charm City Circulator (purple line) stop at Washington Monument. $1,662.50/mo. 785550-0929 or pianistsong@hotmail.com.

Ocean City, MD (137th St), 3BR, 2BA condo, lg in-ground pool, steps from beach, off-street prkng (2 spaces), short walk to restaurants/ entertainment. 410-544-2814.

Rehoboth Beach, 3BR TH, 15-min walk to beach, dog-friendly, weekly rentals, JHU discounts for summer 2012. galeeena@yahoo.com.

Towson/Parkville, well-kept 3-story TH in Loch Raven Village, 3BRs, 1BA, plenty of free prkng, avail end of May/June. 443-791-1513 or cms1107@gmail.com.

Lg 1BR apt, across from park, 2 flrs, W/D, AC, yd w/prkng pad, 10-min drive to JHH/ Homewood campus. $625/mo + utils + sec dep (1 month’s rent). Paula, 410-868-2815 or paulakowale@gmail.com.

Very spacious 3- and 4BR apts nr Homewood campus, avail for summer/fall occupancy. $1,350/mo or $1,485/mo. 443-253-2113 or pulimood@aol.com.

Fells Point, great 2BR, 2BA condo w/prkng, newly refinished hdwd flrs, fp, deck, freshly painted, more. $200,000. bethdmarshall@ gmail.com.

Fells Point, 3-story RH in historic district, lg priv yd, many recent renovations. Dorothy, 443-750-7750.

Gardenville, 3BR, 1.25BA RH in a quiet neighborhood, 15 mins to JHH, new kitchen and BA, CAC, hdwd flrs, fenced, maintenance-free yd w/carport, club bsmt w/cedar closet. $120,000. 443-610-0236 or tziporachai@juno.com.

Greektown (opposite Bayview), 2BR, 2BA EOG, 1,400 sq ft, lg bright rms, newly renov’d, granite, upstairs laundry + nursery/office or third BR. $165,000. 410-935-8060.

ROOMMATES WANTED Rm in furn’d Halethorpe house, W/D, backyd, nr state park, nr MARC train/695/95. $600/ mo + utils, high-speed Internet, cable TV. 410409-0692 or lizo99@hotmail.com.

Sublet rm in Mt Vernon apt during internship, share w/young F grad student, shared BA, W/D in apt, no pets/no smokers, must be clean and friendly, avail June 1 (negotiable), secure apt complex w/gym and outdoor pool. 443-6913986 or jansminejo@gmail.com.

pus, 4 bus lines. Annie, 410-733-7345.

A lovely hilltop setting on Hickory Avenue in Hampden!

2 BD units from $760

with Balcony - $790 Shown by appointment

410.764.7776

www.brooksmanagementcompany.com

Share quiet Federal Hill RH w/2 JHU TFA teachers, 1-yr lease, spacious furn’d living rm, stainless steel appls in kitchen, hdwd flrs, garage.

HICKORY HEIGHTS $750/mo. kan.leslie@gmail.com (details, pics).

A lovely hilltop setting on Hickory Avenue

2 BDhouse units from $760 BR in lovelyin Hampden! single-family in Ruxton, with Balcony - $790 shared BA, kitchen, laundry privileges. $400/ Shown by appointment mo.

443-322-6569 (before 10pm).

410.764.7776 www.brooksmanagementcompany.com Sublet: Place in furn’d double rm at 2914 N Calvert, W/D, full kitchen. $350/mo. cjacob22@gmail.com.

Executive Assistant (work from home) Assist Executive Management in Luxury Elevator Building preparing research reports, project planning and documentation. inwriting Charles Village! Spacious 2BA, fullMust size W/D. Free off We will provide2BD, training. be detail street pkg. AllFT newor appliances! oriented and organized.

PT $1300 -Some $1425.00! position, with fixed schedule.

Shown appointment onsitebywork will be required. Please 410.764.7776 submit cover letter and resume to jobs@isotree.com www.brooksmanagementcompany.com

cast Internet, CAC, laundry avail. $480/mo + utils. 443-386-8471 or fanauh2o@yahoo .com.

F nonsmoking bedspacer wanted for contemporary condo in Washington Hill, adjacent to Church Professional Bldg, walk to JHH/ shuttle. $450/mo + utils. 717-739-8233 or retzcare@yahoo.com.

Rm avail in Ambassador Apts from the end of May, share w/27-yr-olds (grad student and technician), proof of income req’d by management; co-signers not allowed. $560/mo + utils (BGE and Comcast, about $30 per person per month), heat and water incl’d. arely_lop@ hotmail.com.

CARS FOR SALE ’03 Toyota Camry LE, 3.0 V6, power steering/ brakes/windows/driver’s seat, AC, remote keyless entry, cloth seats, new tires, orig owner, just serviced, in good mechanical shape. $6,000/best offer. 443-255-4712. ’04 Acura TL w/navigation, silver, 1 owner, garage-kept, all records incl’d, 105K mi. $12,000. edrotman@yahoo.com. ’96 Toyota Tercel, manual, 4-cyl, 2-dr, great on gas mileage (37mpg highway), Md insp’d, new timing belt, tires, front struts, more; very reliable first/commuter car, 161K mi. $2,400.

410-260-8899.

HOUSES FOR SALE

1400Sq ft, 2bd/2ba, recently renovated kitchen. Hardwoods throughout. Light and Rm in 2BR, 1.5BA apt in Greektown, 1 den/ airy. Walk to JHU shuttle. 1700/mo parking space included and W/D. Perfect for guest rm, W/D, dw, cable, Internet, public prkng, smoke-free, owner has dog, no other residents. cherylperson@yahoo.com, pets welcome, walk to Hopkins Bayview cam443.621.3138

HICKORY HEIGHTS

11

Rm in big Bayview area TH, share w/postdoc/ student, 50 ft to hospital, furn’d, free Com-

Luxury Elevator Building in Charles Village! Spacious 2BD, 2BA, full size W/D. Free off street pkg. All new appliances! $1300 - $1425.00!

Shown by appointment

410.764.7776

www.brooksmanagementcompany.com

ITEMS FOR SALE Sm dining rm set, vintage water skis, exterior French doors, full-length Dior silver fox coat, fitness chair, office supplies, masonry/wood sprayer, garden mesh, kitchen supplies, dishware, decorative items, man’s travel bag, Fossil watch boxes, Playboy mags. 443-824-2198 or saleschick2011@hotmail.com.

Lateral file cabinets (10), 5-drawer, 36" and 42", in excel cond. $200/ea. Frank, 410-7804944.

Portable canvas patio chair, Epson Stylus 760 color printer, sand beach chairs (2), Roland digital piano, 100W amplifier, keyboard case, oilfilled heaters (3), ergonomic kneeling posture chair. 410-455-5858 or iricse.its@verizon.net.

Kimball upright piano w/matching padded bench, in excel cond, buyer responsible for moving. $500/best offer. jiangniaid@yahoo.com.

Leather sleep sofa/futon, in good cond, lg size. $120. 410-889-1213 or judybyen@hotmail. com.

Bassett pillowtop queen mattress w/box and frame, like new, in orig plastic bags, $300/best offer; 3-shelf cherry bookcase, new in box, $20; 5-shelf cherry bookcase, new in box, $25. liushanxy@yahoo.com.

SERVICES/ITEMS OFFERED OR WANTED Found in Hampden: delightful M cat, white and orange marmalade, neutered, very affectionate, a people cat, but he is skin and bone and desperately needs a home, serious inquiries only. 410-235-2777 or eboettinger@ hotmail.com.

Help needed with a booth at an event in Washington DC, June 4-6, total compensation $600. 646-717-4789.

Looking for responsible housesitter for July and August, refs req’d. 443-413-2821.

Free concert at St Thomas Aquinas Church, 3pm on Sunday, May 13, 37th and Roland Ave, nr Homewood campus. 410-366-4488 or stamusicministry@gmail.com.

First-year Peabody master’s student, extremely clean and early to bed, looking for F roommate. 617-549-6249 or cellogiron@gmail.com.

Masterpiece Landscaping provides knowledgable on-site consultation, transplanting, bed prep, installation, sm tree/shrub shaping, licensed. Terry, 410-652-3446.

Certified personal and career coach committed to helping young professionals achieve their potential. 410-375-4042 or successful-thinking.net.

Affordable and professional landscaper/certified horticulturist available to maintain existing gardens, also designing, planting or masonry; free consultations. David, 410-683-7373 or grogan.family@hotmail.com.

Hauling/junk removal, next-day pickup possible, free phone estimate ($40 and up), 15% discount all Hopkins. John, 410-419-3902.

Grass cutting, weedwhacking, edging, leaf removal and exterior painting. George, 443762-3183.

Friday Night Swing Dance Club, open to public, great bands, no partners necessary.

410-663-0010 or www.fridaynightswing.com.

Tutor: all subjects/levels; remedial, gifted; help w/college counseling, speech and essay writing, editing, proofreading, more. 410-3379877 (after 8pm) or i1__@hotmail.com.

1974 Hatteras, 43', new twin diesels, generator, bow thruster, AC, radar, nice boat. $67,000. stephenbowman2000@yahoo.com.

Licensed landscaper avail for spring/summer lawn maintenance, mulching, yard cleanup, other services incl’d trash hauling.

Taylor Landscaping LLC. 410-812-6090 or romilacapers@comcast.net.

Fine quality furniture for sale by professor: leather club chair/recliner, glass coffee table, lg pine desk, many rugs. Best offers. 212-9608003 or shapi28@gmail.com.

Free: 90 Vogue patterns, size 10 or 12, 19752000, mostly used, free; also for artists, 1,000 to 2,000 corks, uncounted. 410-383-2128 or janicehbaker@verizon.net.

Serta double mattress, boxspring and frame, very good cond. $75. 443-804-1927.

Outdoor flea market nr Homewood/Hampden (37th and Roland Ave), 9am-3pm, May 5, $10 to rent a table. 410-366-4488.

Apple iBook G4 (2), A1133/A1055, 12"/14", 1.33 GHz, 512MB, 40GB/60GB, WiFi, MS Office 2004, combo drive, in very good cond. $110/ea or best offer. hopkinsbob@yahoo.com.

Padlocks and keys, Krups coffeepot (new), foam mattress cushions, Revlon paraffin bath, microwave oven, snow and garden shovels. forsalenow7@yahoo.com.

Experienced, warm, energetic FT nanny avail, fine w/light housekeeping, laundry or pets, fab references. 410-736-0253 or 443-902-1687.

Resident assistants wanted July 13-20 to supervise 60 high school students for oneweek camp at Homewood campus. Shanna, skh9701@gmail.com.

PLACING ADS Classified listings are a free service for current, full-time Hopkins faculty, staff and students only. Ads should adhere to these general guidelines: • One ad per person per week. A new request must be submitted for each issue.

• Ads are limited to 20 words, including phone, fax and e-mail.

• We cannot use Johns Hopkins business phone numbers or

e-mail addresses.

• Submissions will be condensed at the editor’s discretion.

• Deadline is at noon Monday, one week prior to the edition in which the ad is to be run.

• Real estate listings may be offered only by a Hopkins-affiliated seller not by Realtors or Agents.

(Boxed ads in this section are paid advertisements.)

Classified ads may be faxed to 443-287-9920; e-mailed in the body of a message (no attachments) to gazads@jhu.edu; or mailed to Gazette Classifieds, Suite 540, 901 S. Bond St., Baltimore, MD 21231. To purchase a boxed display ad, contact the Gazelle Group at 443-275-2687.

12 THE GAZETTE • April 30, 2012 A P R I L

3 0

–

M A Y

7

Calendar

Sings,” a concert by the Peabody Children’s Chorus, with music set to the words of Shakespeare, William Blake, Emily Dickinson, e.e. cummings, Charles Dickens, Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Dryden, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Pablo Neruda. Friedberg Hall. Peabody Sun., May 6, 5:30 p.m. The Shriver Hall Concert Series presents pianist Angela Hewitt. $38 general admission, $19 for nonJHU students; free for JHU students. Shriver Auditorium. HW Mon., May 7, 7:30 p.m. Peabody Opera Etudes, new operas composed for and with their casts.

Friedberg Hall. Peabody

Revolutions, Ch. 3: Decolonization’s Progeny: Restoration, Disaggregation and Recalibration,” a History seminar with Gabriel Paquette, KSAS. 308 Gilman.

HW Mon., April 30, 5 p.m. “Stable Homotopy 1-Types and Picard Groups,” a Topology seminar with Angelica Osorno, University of Chicago. Sponsored by Mathematics. 308 Krieger. HW Mon., April 30, 5 p.m. “Bounds on High Sobolev Norms for Nonlinear Schrodinger Equations,” an Analysis/PDE seminar with Vedran Sohinger, University of Pennsylvania. Sponsored by Mathematics. 302 Krieger. HW Tues., May 1, noon. “Life, Death

READ I N G S / B OO K T A L K S

Richard Burgin will read from his fiction.

Sponsored by The Writing Seminars. Reception follows. Mudd Auditorium. HW

PETER HUNDERT

Fri., May 4, 5 p.m.

Angela Hewitt, who has been hailed as ‘the pre-eminent Bach pianist of our time,’ returns to the Shriver Hall Concert Series for the season’s final performance. Hewitt will play three of Bach’s most significant and beloved works, as well as pieces by Rameau and Couperin. See Music.

COLLOQUIA

“CoreCollapse Supernovae: Astrophysical Laboratories for Stellar Evolution and Explosion,” an STScI colloquium with Luc Dessart, OAMP. Bahcall Auditorium, Muller Bldg. HW

Wed., May 2, 3:30 p.m.

“Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask),” a Biology colloquium with Mark Van Doren, KSAS. Mudd Auditorium. HW

Wed., May 2, 4:30 p.m.

Thurs., May 3, 3 p.m. “The Hottest, and Most Liquid, Liquid in the Universe,” a Physics and Astronomy colloquium with Krishna Rajagopal, MIT. Schafler Auditorium, Bloomberg Center. HW

“ ‘A Plea for the Lancet’: Bloodletting and Scientific Medicine Around the Turn of the 20th Century,” a History of Science, Medicine and Technology colloquium with Eli Anders, SoM. Seminar Room, 3rd floor, Welch Medical Library. EB

“Corporate Social Responsibility in the MENA Region: New Trends and Future Challenges,” a Protection Project at SAIS discussion with Amr El-Adawi, president, Beirut Arab University. For information or to RSVP, go to protectionproject.org. 500 Bernstein-Offit Bldg. SAIS “Oil: The Unnoticed Revolution—Is Global Oil Supply Outpacing Consumption,” a SAIS Energy, Resources and Environment Program Global Leaders Forum discussion with Leonardo Maugeri, Harvard University. For information or to RSVP, email saisereglobal@ jhu.edu. Rome Auditorium. SAIS

Fri., May 4, 12:30 p.m.

A Humanities Center special lecture series by Eli Friedlander,

Tel Aviv University. 208 Gilman.

HW

•

• C O N FERE N C E S

African Democracy: Information Technology and Political Participation, a SAIS African Studies Program conference, with a keynote address by Ebrahim Rasool, South African ambassador to the United States. A live webcast of the event will be available at sais-jhu.edu/pressroom/live .html. To RSVP, email jcarste1@ jhu.edu. Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Bldg. SAIS D I S C U S S I O N S / TALKS Mon., April 30, 12:30 p.m.

Fri., May 4, noon. “Dancing in the Dark: Chemosynthesis and Symbiosis at Deep Sea Vents” by Colleen Cavanaugh, Harvard University. Part of the Planets, Life and the Universe Astrobiology Lecture Series sponsored by the Space Telescope Science Institute. Light lunch provided. Bahcall Auditorium, Muller Bldg. HW

The William M. Shelley Memorial Lecture—“Viral and Molecular Insights in ENT Pathology” by Stacey Mills, University of Virginia. Sponsored by Pathology.

Hurd Hall. EB

Mon., May 7, 8:30 a.m.

L E C T URE S

Thurs., May 3, 3 p.m.

Tues., May 1, 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Wed., May 2, 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The New

timore,” an STScI public lecture

by Lucy Albert, STScI. Bahcall Auditorium, Muller Bldg. HW

•

Mon., April 30, 4 p.m.

“Problems of Content in Kant’s Aesthetics.”

“The Appearance of the Ideal of Philosophical Questioning in the Work of Art.”

Tues., May 1, 4 p.m.

“On Types, the Everyday and Fantasy in Benjamin.”

Wed., May 2, 4 p.m.

Mon.,

April

30,

4:30

p.m.

The Passano Lecture—“Heart Making and Heart Breaking: The Genetic Circuitry of Cardiac Development, Disease and Regeneration” by Eric Olson, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Sponsored by Molecular Biology and Genetics. East Lecture Hall, WBSB. EB Tues., May 1, 8 p.m. “The June 5, 2012, Transit of Venus and Astronomy in Greater Bal-

S E M I N AR S

“Informatics for Population Health: New Directions for Getting the Most From ‘Big Data’,” a Health Informatics/Information Science faculty candidate seminar with Taxiarchis Botsis, FDA. Sponsored by Health Policy and Management. 688 Hampton House. EB

Mon., April 30, noon.

Mon., April 30, noon. “Genomics of RNA Binding Protein Networks,” a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology seminar with Gene Yeo, University of California, San Diego. W1020 SPH. EB Mon.,

April

30,

12:10

p.m.

“Law Enforcement Strategies to Prevent Gun Violence,” a Graduate Seminar in Injury Research and Policy with Gerald Murphy and Molly Griswold Davidson, Police Executive Research Forum, Washington, D.C. Co-sponsored by the Center for Injury Research and Policy, the Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence and the Center for Gun Policy and Research. 250 Hampton House.

MUSIC

EB

Wed., May 2, 7:30 p.m. The Peabody Improvisation and Multimedia Ensemble perform in a concert marking the 10th anniversary of the Peabody Conservatory Jazz Studies program and featuring alumni saxophonists. (See story, p.

10.) The Peabody Alumni Association hosts a post-concert reception. East Hall. Peabody

Mon., April 30, 12:15 p.m. “The

The Peabody Concert Orchestra along with the Peabody-Hopkins Chorus, the Peabody Singers, the Peabody Children’s Chorus and the Concert Artists of Baltimore Orchestra and Symphonic Chorale will perform Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. (See story, p. 5.) Admission is $38 or $28.

Tickets may be purchased at lyricoperahouse.com or by calling 410-900-1150. Patricia and Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric, 140 West Mount Royal Avenue.

Sat., May 5, 8 p.m.

Sun., May 6, 3 p.m.

“The Poet

Evolutionary Origins of Oskar and the Role of Gene Co-option in Insect Germ Cell Specification,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Cassandra Extavour, Harvard University. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW

“Designing Vaccines: Differentiation and Function of Follicular Helper CD4 T Cells,” an Immunology Training Program seminar with Shane Crotty, La Jolla Institute of Allergy and Immunology. Tilghman Auditorium, Turner Concourse. EB

Mon., April 30, 1 p.m.

Mon.,

April

30,

1:30

p.m.

“Brain-Machine Interfaces and the Interplay Between Bio-Electronics, Neuroscience and Applied Probability,” a Biomedical Engineering seminar with Todd Coleman, University of California, San Diego.

110 Clark. HW (Videoconferenced to 709 Traylor. EB ) Mon., April 30, 4 p.m. “Imperial Portugal in the Age of Atlantic

and Resurrection at the Cellular Level,” a Biological Chemistry seminar with Denise Montell, SoM. 612 Physiology. EB

Tues.,

May

1,

12:10

p.m.

“Valuing the Unidentified: The Potential of Public Health Law,” a Health Policy and Management seminar with Wendy Parmet, Northeastern University School of Law. Co-sponsored by the Center for Law and the Public’s Health. 250 Hampton House. EB “Emerging Contaminants and Public Health: Evaluation of the Stability, Toxicity and Treatment of Engineered Nanoparticles in Drinking Water,” an Environmental Health Sciences thesis defense seminar with Talia Abbott Chalew. E9519 SPH. EB

Tues., May 1, 1 p.m.

Wed.,

May

2,

8:30

a.m.

“Patient-Reported Outcomes in Clinical Trials,” a Center for Clinical Trials seminar with Nancy Kline Leidy, United BioSource Corp. W2030 SPH. EB “Dissecting the Molecular Mechanism of Stem Cell Pluripotency and Reprogramming,” a Molecular Pathology seminar with Jianlong Wang, Mount Sinai Medical Center. Sponsored by Pathology. G-01 BRB. EB

Wed., May 2, noon.

Wed., May 2, noon. “Indirect Benefits of Rotavirus Vaccination in Bangladesh,” an International Health thesis defense seminar with Andrea Feller. W2015 SPH. EB Wed., May 2, 12:15 p.m. Mental Health Noon Seminar—“The

Continued on page 9

(Events are free and Calendar

open to the public Key

except where indicated.)

APL BRB CRB EB HW JHOC

Applied Physics Laboratory Broadway Research Building Cancer Research Building East Baltimore Homewood Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center KSAS Krieger School of Arts

and Sciences NEB New Engineering Building PCTB Preclinical Teaching Building SAIS School of Advanced

International Studies SoM School of Medicine SoN School of Nursing SPH School of Public Health WBSB Wood Basic Science Building WSE Whiting School of Engineering