Synthetic Biologist Reza Kalhor Receives $250,000 President's Innovation Award
Synthetic biologist Reza Kalhor received the $250,000 President’s Innovation Award at Johns Hopkins University, recognizing his work on genomic recording technologies that capture biological events in DNA. His approach enables scientists to trace how early‑life signals contribute to diseases such as cancer, aging‑related disorders, and developmental conditions. The award was presented during the 2026 Celebration of Innovation in Medicine, an event emphasizing the translation of discovery into health solutions. Kalhor joined other faculty honored for patents, entrepreneurship, and contributions to medical innovation.
Bloomberg Philanthropies and Johns Hopkins University Launch Mayors AI Forum at CityLab
Bloomberg Philanthropies and Johns Hopkins University announced the Mayors AI Forum at the Bloomberg CityLab 2026 summit in Madrid. The initiative gathers forward‑thinking mayors from cities such as Bogotá, Boston, London, and Tokyo to demonstrate responsible AI deployment in public...
Where People Get Their News Influences Their Beliefs About Vaccines
A Johns Hopkins study of 2,970 U.S. adults finds that regular consumers of “new right” media—such as Breitbart, Newsmax and Zero Hedge—are more than twice as likely to be vaccine‑hesitant. The survey, conducted in 2025 amid a record measles surge of...
Chemical Engineer Ive Hermans Joins Johns Hopkins Faculty
Ive Hermans, a leading chemical engineer known for breakthrough catalytic systems, has joined Johns Hopkins University as the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Chemical Transformations. His research, which includes replacing toxic tin with bismuth in polyester production, aims to make...
A Student's Path to Publishing
Alessa Carbo, a junior computer‑science student at Johns Hopkins, co‑authored a paper on AI‑powered translation of sign‑language videos that was accepted at the 2025 EMNLP conference. The work, developed during the Frederick Jelinek Summer Workshop, uses a custom vision‑language model...
Survey: U.S. Adults Agree Health Care Is a Right and Eliminating Health Inequities Is a Priority
A new Institute for Policy Solutions survey of 1,578 U.S. adults finds a strong majority view health care as a right and support eliminating health inequities. Seventy‑one percent say access is a right, while 70 percent want the nation to...
Decoding the Blood-Brain Barrier
Johns Hopkins professor Peter Searson’s lab is building stem‑cell‑derived, tissue‑engineered blood‑brain barrier (BBB) models to study how diseases such as Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, obesity and traumatic brain injury compromise the brain’s vascular shield. Funded primarily by the NIH, the effort...
Primitive Star Offers Rare Window Into the Dawn of Our Universe
Astronomers have identified SDSS J0715‑7334, the most metal‑poor star ever found, containing less than 0.005% of the Sun’s metal content. Located about 80,000 light‑years from Earth near the Large Magellanic Cloud, the star’s composition mirrors the material left by the first...
Observational Astronomer William Balmer Awarded 51 Pegasi B Fellowship
Observational astronomer William Balmer, a Johns Hopkins PhD candidate, has been awarded the Heising‑Simons Foundation 51 Pegasi b Fellowship, providing up to $450,000 over three years to pursue direct imaging of exoplanets at Northwestern University. Balmer’s work, highlighted by the first direct...
Clark Scholars Bring Donated Books to Jamaica
Hurricane Melissa devastated Jamaica in October 2025, destroying 59 library branches and 32,000 books. Johns Hopkins' Clark Scholars Program responded by flying 100 donated books to the island, with 19 undergraduates participating in a leadership‑focused trip. The Jamaica Library Service...
Hopkins Symphony Orchestra Debuts New Piece About Frederick Douglass
The Hopkins Symphony Orchestra will debut the newly commissioned "Douglass Portrait" on April 18, pairing it with Aaron Copland’s historic "Lincoln Portrait." Composed by retired Army captain J. Kimo Williams, the work narrates Frederick Douglass’s life through music and spoken word. Conductor Jed Gaylin...
MRNA Pioneer Katalin Karikó to Give Johns Hopkins Commencement Address
Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó will deliver the commencement address at Johns Hopkins on May 21. Karikó, whose mRNA work underpins the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID‑19 vaccines, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters. Her career, marked by early setbacks and decades‑long...
Med Student Ursula Gately Connects the Climate to the Clinic
Second‑year Johns Hopkins medical student Ursula Gately will speak at the Hop Talks event on April 7, highlighting how planetary health can be turned into concrete community‑health actions. Gately draws on her personal experience with valley‑fever and her work with the...
Neuroscientist Ilya Monosov Joins Johns Hopkins
Ilya Monosov, a leading neuroscientist, has joined Johns Hopkins as the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Curiosity and Intelligence. His research deciphers how neural circuits drive decision‑making, curiosity, and information‑seeking, and how these processes break down in disorders such as OCD...
Building Better Batteries and Much More: Johns Hopkins Grows Energy Innovation Ecosystem
Johns Hopkins University’s Office of Climate and Sustainability unveiled its 2025 Sustainability Progress Report, showcasing a suite of research breakthroughs and operational gains. Faculty teams led by Susanna Thon and Sara Thoi are pioneering photobatteries and spray‑paintable quantum‑dot solar cells...