Tackling the ‘Impossible’

Spring 2023

Last year, the Whiting School and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory partnered to create SURPASS, an initiative aimed at developing groundbreaking solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems. In this first year, the program received 47 initial whitepaper submissions, seven of which were chosen as finalists. Of those, four were selected to receive funding.

The four winning proposals are:

• BEAST: Between Earth and Space, the Next Strategic Flight Regime, with principal investigators Kevin Hemker (Whiting School) and Melissa Terlaje (APL)

• CEREBRO: Enabling the Next Step of Human Evolution, with principal investigators Amy Foster (Whiting School) and Nicholas G. Pavlopoulos (APL)

• Organoid Intelligence: Synthetic Biological AI, with principal investigators Thomas Hartung (Whiting School/Bloomberg School of Public Health) and Erik C. Johnson (APL)

• Photoacoustic Retinal Prosthesis, with principal investigators Emad Boctor (Whiting School) and Seth Billings (APL)

SURPASS program organizers say these proposals have the potential to lead to larger translational efforts with external funding upwards of $100 million. The Whiting School is providing funding of approximately $3.75 million to be shared across the four selected projects over an 18-month period.

— Linda Mclean and Justyna Surowiec

Transformational Investment in Data Science and AI

In August, Johns Hopkins announced a major investment in data science and the exploration of artificial intelligence.bThe heart of this endeavor will be a Whiting School of Engineering–based interdisciplinary data science and translation institute that will significantly strengthen the university’s capabilities to harness emerging applications, opportunities, and challenges presented by the explosion of available data and the rapid rise of accessible AI.

Faculty Honors

Two members of the Johns Hopkins Engineering faculty, Jennifer Elisseeff and Alex Szalay, have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, recognizing their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

A Third Term for Dean Schlesinger

Ed Schlesinger, who has served as dean of the Whiting School of Engineering since 2014, has been appointed to a third term as the school’s Benjamin T. Rome dean, through June 30, 2028.