We are pleased to share with you the news that Dr.Sharon Gerecht, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and the Kent Gordon Croft Investment Management Faculty Scholar, has been appointed the Edward J. Schaefer Professor in Engineering. The Schaefer Professorship, previously held by Professor Emeritus S. Rao Kosaraju, was endowed through the generosity of Mrs. Hildegarde H. and Mr. Edward J. Schaefer ’23 to support outstanding Whiting School faculty members.
Dr. Gerecht,who is leading an internationally renowned lab in directing the fate of stem cells and engineering biomaterials to control vascular microenvironments, is no stranger to impressive achievements.
Dr. Gerecht is the director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology, and is a global expert in vascular and stem cell biology and engineering. Her pioneering research in vascular and stem cell biology and engineering includes her use of engineering principles as a means to understand and harness the vascular fate of stem cell decisions in therapeutics. Her lab was the first to develop biomaterials to guide tissue formation through activation of cellular pathways to form functional blood vessels. Sharon’s approach of tissue informing biomaterial design has been adopted by investigators across her field. In October 2019, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
After joining Johns Hopkins University as an assistant professor in 2007, Dr. Gerecht rose through the ranks here at the Whiting School—where she built an outstanding career—to now hold this endowed professorship. Being a holder of the endowed chair is a particularly poignant milestone to achieve since she believes she may be the first woman in the Whiting School to be awarded an endowed chair who rose through the ranks in the department.
We are so proud of Sharon as a “home-grown” faculty member who has risen through the ranks at Hopkins in the ChemBE department.
Congratulatons, Dr. Gerecht!
Click here to learn more about Mr. Schaefer ’23