Cheers is a monthly listing of honors and awards received by faculty, staff and students plus recent appointments and promotions. Contributions must be submitted in writing and be accompanied by a phone number.

Applied Physics Laboratory

Bill Laplante has been named associate head of the Submarine Technology Department.

Paula Palmer has been appointed assistant head of the Human Resources and Services Department.

Wayne Swann director of Technology Transfer, has been appointed chair of the Howard County Economic Development Authority's NeoTech Incubator advisory committee. A member of the committee since 1999, he will serve an initial term of one year.

Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

John P. Toscano an associate professor of chemistry, is one of 104 young scientists and economists selected to receive Sloan Research Fellowships. The 46-year-old program recognizes highly qualified scientists in the early stages of their careers on the basis of their exceptional promise to contribute to the advancement of knowledge. Twenty-six former Sloan Fellows have received Nobel Prizes.

School of Medicine

R. Keith Baker, assistant director of the Office of Technology Licensing, has been named interim director, following the departure of director Nina Ossanna.

Deborah D. Barbara, director of technology and corporate initiatives in the Department of Pathology, has joined the Office of Technology Licensing as senior director of business development. She will assist faculty in developing institutional research alliances with major pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

James Brasic, a radiology fellow, has been named the Essel Investigator of the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression. Brasic will receive a Young Investigator grant, funded by the Essel Foundation through the 2000 NARSAD Research Partners Program, which allows contributors to designate a one-year gift to a scientist doing research in their area of interest. Brasic has also been selected to be a member of the Medical Advisory Board of the Greater Washington Chapter of the Tourette Syndrome Association.

Catherine D. DeAngelis, currently on leave to serve as editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, has won the Marion Spencer Fay Award, presented by the National Board for Women in Medicine.

John D. Gottsch, associate professor of ophthalmology, has received a $55,000 Physician-Scientist Award from Research to Prevent Blindness Inc. The award, established this year, will support Gottsch's research on the proteins that enable the cornea to guard against worm infections.

Joseph Handler, professor of medicine and physiology and director of the Division of Nephrology, has won this year's Robert W. Berliner/Abbott Laboratories Award for Excellence in Renal Physiology. The award is given annually to a senior renal physiologist for lifetime contributions to the field.

James Hildreth, associate professor of pharmacology and molecular sciences and associate professor of pathology, is the recipient of the Year 2000 Minority Access Alumnus Role Model Award. Minority Access Inc. is a nonprofit educational organization that supports individuals, institutions, federal agencies and corporations in diversifying their campuses and work sites by improving the recruitment, retention and enhancement of minorities. Hildreth was selected for his efforts in recruiting underrepresented minorities to graduate programs and his establishment of a minority graduate student association.

John T. Little, assistant professor of psychiatry, has been presented with the 2001 American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry/Eli Lilly Clinical Scholars Award. The award will provide Little with three years of partial funding for his new study of regional brain activation in geriatric depression.

H. Moo Kwon, associate professor of nephrology, has received the Young Investigator Award of the Renal Section of the American Physiological Society. The award honors Kwon's research on the kidney medulla.

Susan MacDonald, associate professor of clinical immunology, is one of the first recipients of the Women Physicians in Allergy Award, presented by the American Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology. The award identifies women with leadership potential in the field, honors their achievements and provides a $20,000 unrestricted laboratory grant for each recipient.

Peter Maloney, professor of physiology, has been named associate dean for graduate student affairs, succeeding James Hildreth. Maloney has served as director of admissions for the university's largest graduate program--biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology--and as director of the physiology graduate program, as well as chairman of the M.A./Ph.D. committee.

Elizabeth O'Hearn, associate professor of neurology, has received a $30,600 grant from the National Ataxia Foundation for her research into a new form of spinocerebellar ataxia, or the brain's failure to regulate the body's posture and the strength and direction of limb movements. The research is in collaboration with Russell Margolis, associate professor of psychiatry; Susan Holmes, associate professor of psychiatry/neurobiology; and Christopher Ross, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience.

Antony Rosen, associate professor of rheumatology, pathology and cell biology and anatomy, has been named co-director of the Division of Rheumatology. He will join current director Frederick Wigley, professor of rheumatology, in leading the division's continuing translational research.

Daniel N. Sauder has been appointed director of the Department of Dermatology and Noxell Professor of Dermatology, following an extensive international search. Over the last decade, Sauder has developed a strong research and academic training program at the University of Toronto, where he is currently chief of the Department of Dermatology, and has received considerable funding from the Medical Research Council, Canada's equivalent of the NIH. From 1979 to 1982, Sauder was a visiting associate of the dermatology branch of the NIH.

Claudia L. Thomas, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery, has been chosen by The Baltimore Times newspaper and its nonprofit foundation, Times Community Services Inc., as one of this year's five Women of Distinction. The award, for which more than 200 women were considered, celebrates people who offer exceptional amounts of time to community service.

Stephen T. Wegener, associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, has been appointed vice chairman of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Wegener also serves as director of rehabilitation psychology.

Sheila K. West, professor of ophthalmology, has received her second $65,000 Senior Scientific Investigator Award from Research to Prevent Blindness Inc. The award honors her work with trachoma, the second leading cause of blindness.

The Office of Communications and Public Affairs has won a Telly Award for a 30-second television spot used to recruit nurses. The spot, produced and edited by Jay Corey, ran during ABC's Hopkins 24/7 series and the Discovery Health Channel's Nurses series. The Telly Awards recognize non-network TV commercials and programming as well as training video and film productions around the country.

NITZE School of Advanced International Studies

Shirin Raziuddin Tahir-Kheli, director of the South Asia Program, is to be nominated by President Bush as the representative of the United States on the Human Rights Commission of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. She was appointed in 1992 by the former President Bush to the National Advisory Council on the Public Service, and she served as an alternate U.S. representative for special political affairs from 1990 to 1993. Tahir-Kheli served with the National Security Council from 1984 to 1989 and was a member of the policy planning staff at the Department of State from 1982 to 1986. She is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and received a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.

School of Public Health

Shih-Chen Chang, a doctoral student at the school's Center for Human Nutrition, has received the 2001 Harry J. Prebluda Fellowship in Nutritional Biochemistry.

Mario Merialdi, a doctoral student at the Center for Human Nutrition, has been awarded the 2001 Harry Kruse Award in Nutrition. The award was endowed in 1987 by the Kruse family to recognize outstanding doctoral candidates in the area of nutrition.

Cecile M. Pickart, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, has been invited to chair the National Institute of Health's Biochemistry Study Section, Center for Scientific Review, for the term beginning July 1 and ending June 30, 2003.

Patricia Tschida, a doctoral student at the Center for Human Nutrition, is the recipient of the 2001 Elsa Orent Keiles Award in Human Nutrition.