The 137th academic year at The Johns Hopkins University has come to a close, and with that ending, new beginnings will be launched at a university-wide commencement ceremony on Thursday, May 23.
Recent news from The Johns Hopkins University
This section contains regularly updated highlights of the news from around The Johns Hopkins University. Links to the complete news reports from the nine schools, the Applied Physics Laboratory and other centers and institutes are to the left, as are links to help news media contact the Johns Hopkins communications offices.
New ‘Out of This World’ Space Stethoscope Valuable Here on Earth, Too
A team of students at the Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering has designed for NASA a new stethoscope that delivers accurate heart- and body-sounds to medics who are trying to assess astronauts’ health on long missions in noisy spacecraft.
Undergrads Adapt Video Game Unit to Help Save Kids Trapped In Overheated Cars
It’s a parent’s worst nightmare: a young child is accidentally left in a locked car on a warm and sunny day. The closed windows turn the car into a greenhouse, and the child dies of heatstroke. In a key first step toward preventing such tragedies, three undergraduate engineering students at Johns Hopkins have turned technology from a popular video game player into a detector for children left behind in dangerously overheated vehicles.
WEEKEND MEDIA ADVISORY: Robots That Dance—and Find ‘Tumors’
More than a dozen student teams from the Baltimore area will bring small autonomous robots to compete in various events during the competition, organized by Johns Hopkins graduate students from the university’s Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics. Contest events include slalom racing, mystery maze navigation, “tumor” detection, robot dancing and innovative use.
Johns Hopkins University and Waverly Elementary/Middle School to Host Health Fair
The Johns Hopkins University and Waverly Elementary/Middle School have partnered to teach young students about the benefits of healthy eating and regular exercise through a program called Food as Medicine. A special program event, the Safari of Health Fair, will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, April 26 at the school on 701 E. 34th St. Baltimore, MD 21218.
Three Johns Hopkins Students Receive Prestigious Goldwater Scholarships
Three undergraduate researchers at The Johns Hopkins University are among the 271 students recently awarded Goldwater Scholarships for the 2013-2014 academic year. The one- and two-year funding the three Johns Hopkins students receive will help further their investigations in molecular dynamics, the biomedical science of disease, and developing a computational tool to help surgeons treat epilepsy.
Turning Algae into Clean Energy and Fish Food; Helping Africans to Irrigate Crops
Could algae that feast on wastewater produce clean bio-fuels and a healthful supply of fish food? Can impoverished African community gardeners learn to use and maintain a simple centuries-old, non-electric water pump to grow more vegetables? Two Johns Hopkins student teams are working hard to move these “green” ideas off the drawing board and into the real world. Both teams will showcase their progress at the 2013 National Sustainable Design Expo, scheduled April 18 and 19, in Washington, D.C. The event, which will be open to the public on the National Mall, is sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Carey Business School’s ‘Innovation for Humanity’ Course Wins Sustainability Award from Johns Hopkins
The Innovation for Humanity course of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School’s Global MBA program is being honored in the inaugural Green Blue Jay Awards presented by the Johns Hopkins University Office of Sustainability.
Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa to speak at Johns Hopkins’ Commencement Ceremony
Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, a renowned neuroscientist and neurosurgeon at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, will be the featured speaker at the university’s Thursday, May 23, commencement ceremony. He will address graduates from all Johns Hopkins schools at the morning university-wide event at the Homewood campus at which their degrees are officially conferred.
MEDIA ADVISORY: Student Teams to Compete for Johns Hopkins Business Plan Prize Money on April 12
Johns Hopkins Business Plan Competition presentations and judging will take place from 1:30 to 5 p.m. on Friday, April 12. Twenty-four finalist teams will present their business plans to judges in three categories: medical technologies and life sciences, general business and social enterprise. Each team is composed of two to 10 undergraduates, graduate students or post-doctoral fellows who have devised a product or service they propose to sell. The finalist teams come from seven Johns Hopkins University divisions.
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY SPRING FAIR 2013: APRIL 12, 13 and 14
Spring Fair returns to the Homewood campus Friday, April 12 through Sunday, April 14.
Low-Cost ‘Cooling Cure’ Could Avert Brain Damage in Oxygen-Starved Babies
When babies are deprived of oxygen before birth, brain damage and disorders such as cerebral palsy can occur. Extended cooling can prevent brain injuries, but this treatment is not always available in developing nations where advanced medical care is scarce. To address this need, Johns Hopkins undergraduates have devised a low-tech $40 unit to provide protective cooling in the absence of modern hospital equipment that can cost $12,000.
Foreign Affairs Symposium at The Johns Hopkins University
The annual student-run Foreign Affairs Symposium at The Johns Hopkins University is returning to the Homewood campus this month, with several prominent speakers scheduled to appear during the spring semester under the theme, “From the Front Line to the Bottom Line.” Retired Gen. Stanley McChyrstal, who most recently served as commander of the International Security Assistance Force and commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan, will open the lecture series on Wednesday, Feb. 27.
Johns Hopkins senior Tiras Lin wins Churchill Scholarship
Tiras Lin, a Johns Hopkins University senior from San Rafael, Calif., has been selected as a Churchill Scholar by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States.
Student Engineers at Johns Hopkins Cook Up Devices for Better Cooking
Recipes can be rather imprecise: a dab of butter, a pinch of salt. But Johns Hopkins engineering students recently learned that maintaining rigid control of cooking temperatures, with less than 1 degree of wiggle-room, can lead to much tastier meals. Oddly enough, their cooking experiments occurred in an undergraduate course called Robot Sensors and Actuators.
Johns Hopkins University senior Eleanor Gardner is Bermuda’s Rhodes Scholar
Eleanor Gardner, a senior at The Johns Hopkins University, has been named Bermuda’s Rhodes Scholar for 2013. The Rhodes Scholarship is considered one of the most prestigious academic honors, offering all-expenses-paid study for two, and possibly three, years at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is given to approximately 80 young adults each year in the English-speaking world, including only one scholar each year from Bermuda.
MEDIA ADVISORY: Only Mousetraps and Rubber Bands Will Power Student Devices in ‘Cable Car’ Contest
In this competition involving freshman engineers’ inventions, batteries are NOT required – or even allowed. For a class assignment, 67 students from an introductory mechanical engineering course have built aerial vehicles that must move across elevated cables and drop a “payload” onto a bull’s-eye target five feet below. The challenge: these cable cars can possess no motors or batteries. All movement must come from mousetraps and rubber bands.
Johns Hopkins alumnus named Mitchell Scholar
Mark Brennan, of Highland Park, N.J., was recently selected to the 2014 class of George J. Mitchell Scholars. Brennan is one of 12 college seniors and recent graduates chosen for their academic distinction, leadership and service. Recipients spend a year at institutions of higher learning in Ireland and Northern Ireland engaged in post-graduate work.
‘Future of Suture’ Device Wins $12,500 Inventors Prize for Johns Hopkins Students
For devising a disposable suturing tool to guide the placement of stitches and guard against the accidental puncture of internal organs, an undergraduate biomedical engineering team from Johns Hopkins won the $12,500 first-prize Tuesday in the 2012 Collegiate Inventors Competition.
