News Release

Donald Steinwachs

Donald Steinwachs, a 34-year veteran of the Johns Hopkins University faculty and a longtime department chair and participant in university-wide initiatives, will serve as the interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, President William R. Brody announced.

Steinwachs has begun already to work with outgoing Provost Steven Knapp and will take over the university's second-ranking administrative position on Aug. 1, when Knapp becomes president of The George Washington University, Brody said.

"I look forward to working with Dr. Steinwachs," Brody said. "I always have valued his advice; I know that he will fulfill this interim role with all the sharpness of mind, skill, grace and good humor that he has brought to every position he has held in his long, distinguished career at Johns Hopkins."

Steinwachs is a former chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He also directs its Health Services Research and Development Center and holds joint appointments in the schools of Medicine and Nursing. He teaches undergraduates in the public health studies major at the Homewood campus.

He earned his Ph.D. in operations research from what is now the Whiting School of Engineering in 1973 and joined the Johns Hopkins faculty that year.

"I sometimes kiddingly say that I was born here," Steinwachs said. "It's an outstanding and unique institution and it has been a great honor and privilege to be a part of it for so many years."

"The faculty is outstanding," he said, "and one of the unique things that I've found is that they are highly collaborative and willing to work together to come up with new ideas on both research and education and to implement them."

Steinwachs has been involved with the administration of the university not only as department chair but also as a member of the university-wide Faculty Budget Advisory Committee for 20 years; he has served as chair of that committee. He co-chaired a 2004 review of the university's employee benefits.

Elected in 1993 a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, Steinwachs has studied medical effectiveness and outcomes for individuals with specific medical, surgical and psychiatric conditions. His current research focuses on health care quality; it has included a project evaluating a Web-based tool for use in the care of schizophrenic patients and another evaluating the Hospital at Home program for elderly patients. He is a member of the Department of Health and Human Services' National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics and chairs its Population Subcommittee.

Steinwachs, a resident of Lutherville, Md., is a 1968 graduate of the University of Arizona and earned a master's in systems engineering there in 1970.

Brody said he hopes to announce the appointment of Knapp's successor before the end of the summer, although Steinwachs — who has said he is not a candidate — will likely serve for a number of months until the new provost can take office.

Note: A photograph of Steinwachs is available. Contact Dennis O'Shea at dro@jhu.edu or 443-287-9960.