Newest Members of the National Academy of Sciences
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.
Elisseeff is a professor of biomedical engineering and interim head of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the Morton Goldberg Professor of Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Medicine, and director of JHU’s Translational Tissue Engineering Center. She was previously elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine and is the first Johns Hopkins faculty member to be elected to all three National Academies. (Read more about Elisseeff)
Szalay is a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Distinguished Professor with appointments in Computer Science and Physics and Astronomy and is the director of the Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Science. He previously was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Rewarding Early Promise
Two Whiting School assistant professors received National Science Foundation Early CAREER Awards, which recognize early stage scholars with high levels of promise and excellence.
Scot Miller, Environmental Health and Engineering, received funding for his project, “Methane Emissions from the US and Canada—Novel Insights from an Expanding Observation Network.”
Mathias Unberath, Computer Science, received funding for his project, “Digital Twins of Surgical Environments for Situational Awareness and Immersive Simulation.” Unberath also is a recipient of Google’s Research Scholar Program, which funds world-class research conducted by early career professors at institutions around the world. His project is “Assuring Image-Based Surgical Autonomy with Human-in-the-Loop Designs.”
Accelerating Sustainability
Yayuan Liu, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and researcher at the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute, has been honored by MIT Technology Review as one of its 35 Innovators Under 35. Liu is developing carbon-capture methods that are accessible and climate-friendly, not relying on heat.
Discovery For Defense
Rebecca Schulman, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, Kent Gordon Croft Investment Management Faculty Scholar, and fellow at the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute, was named a 2023 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow by the U.S. Department of Defense. The five-year, $3 million individual award, given to 10 people annually, aims to facilitate the progression of fundamental research, encourage collaboration between researchers and national defense experts, and enable investigators to pursue breakthrough discoveries in their fields.
Neuroscience Innovator
Sri Sarma, associate professor of biomedical engineering and vice dean for graduate education and lifelong learning, received an NIH Outstanding Investigator Award, which provides up to eight years of funding to researchers who are making meaningful contributions to neuroscience. Sarma’s goal is to establish novel EEG biomarkers and computational tools that will enable rapid and accurate diagnosis of epilepsy followed by a rapid path to an effective treatment. Her lab is well positioned to address current obstacles in the workflow of diagnosing and treating epilepsy.