Smith Takes Over EP

Fall 2010

On October 1, Dexter G. Smith began as the Whiting School’s associate dean for Engineering for Professionals (EP). Smith succeeds Allan Bjerkaas.

Smith has been affiliated with Johns Hopkins since 1995, most recently as a member of the Applied Physics Laboratory’s (APL) principal professional staff and EP’s program chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering. At APL, Smith was a member of the executive management team and the biomedicine business area executive. He played a key role in organizing, staffing, and writing the largest Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract ever awarded to the Laboratory: Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009.

He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a full member of the scientific research society Sigma XI, and a licensed professional engineer in Maryland. In addition, he is a certified flight instructor and an instrumentrated commercial pilot.

Presto! Mutated Gene Libraries

When medical researchers are designing new biological therapies to treat diseases such as cancer, they often have to test hundreds of thousands of DNA mutations in a gene to pick a single winning combination that produces a desired protein to fight an ailment. The problem? These gene libraries, which can include a million different mutations…

Restoring Health and Alleviating Pain

Neilesh Patel ’03 will never forget the day he cooked and served spaghetti at a homeless shelter at age 8, or the smile on the face of one of the menhe served. “That feeling really sparked my interest in public service,” says Patel, who majored in biomedical engineering at the Whiting School with a concentration…

Faculty Awards

David Gracias, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was named the inaugural Russell Croft Faculty Scholar. This award recognizes a faculty member who demonstrates exceptional achievement and promise in his or her area of expertise. Gracias was recognized for his groundbreaking work in the fields of micro- and nanoengineering, and self-assembly….