Edward Bouwer, professor and chair of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, has been named the Abel Wolman Professor of Environmental Engineering, succeeding Charlie O’Melia. Bouwer has been the chair of DOGEE since July 2007. He is a co-author of The Illusion of Certainty: Health Benefits and Risks (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 2007), which explains the principles of calculating basic epidemiologic risk estimates.

Bouwer’s named chair honors Professor Abel Wolman, one of the most highly respected leaders in the field of sanitary engineering,
and a member of the faculty for more than 50 years, from 1937 until his death in 1989.

Peter Searson, professor of materials science and Engineering and the director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology, has been named the inaugural Joseph R. and Lynn C. Reynolds Professor in the Whiting School.

Searson joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in 1990, having received his PhD in 1982 from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.

Joseph Reynolds, who earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins in 1969, is the founder and CEO of RTI Consulting LLP. He founded FTI Consulting Inc., is a university trustee, and is the current chair of the National Advisory Council.

Professor Howard Katz has been named chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, succeeding Robert Cammarata, who served as the department’s chair since 2003. He has been Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories till fall 2004 an worked on organic and polymer materials for electronic and optical devices.

Ben Hobbs, professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, has been appointed the inaugural Theodore M. & Kay W. Schad Professor in Environmental Management. Hobbs is also chairing the university-wide Task Force on Climate Change, a group formed by President William R. Brody that will help guide the development of the university’s new climate change policy.

The late Ted Schad, who graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1939 with a degree in civil engineering, is considered one of the 20th century’s leaders in federal water resources planning.

Schad, who died in 2005, established this chair in memory of his first wife, Kathleen White Schad. The professorship also honors his long friendship with Abel Wolman, a world pioneer in water treatment and waste disposal and one of Schad’s teachers.

Professor Jin Kang has been named chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, succeeding Gerard Meyer, who served as the department’s chair since 1999.