The Knowledge for the World Award 2010*

2010 Recipients

Peter C. Agre, Med '74, '81 (PGF)
Peter Agre is currently director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Institute has brought together malaria experts from around the world to treat and control the disease. In 2003, Agre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for his discovery of water channels in cell membranes. He has also been honored with the Homer W. Smith Award, which is given jointly by the American Society of Nephrology and the American Heart Association to a medical researcher judged to have made a major advance in understanding kidney disease. Agre served on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1981 – 2005. During his tenure in the School of Medicine, Agre co-founded and directed the Johns Hopkins Graduate Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, the first NIH funded program in molecular medicine. He joined Duke University Medical Center in 2005, as vice chancellor for science and technology and James B. Duke professor of cell biology. He holds two U.S. patents on the isolation, cloning and expression of aquaporins, and is the principal investigator on four current National Institutes of Health grants. Top

Lisa Egbuonu-Davis, Med '83, SPH '83
Lisa Egbuonu-Davis has worked most of her professional life to increase access to medicine on a global scale and decrease identified health disparities. After receiving her undergraduate degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979, Egbuonu-Davis received an MBA degree from the The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She served as an expert in health management and public policy in both the private and public sectors before taking a position as vice president for Public and Government Affairs at Lederle Laboratories and subsequently vice president of U.S. Medical Operations at Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals. In 1997, Egbuonu-Davis became vice president of Global Outcomes Research and Medical Services for the Pharmaceuticals Group at Pfizer, where she led a multinational research effort to develop and implement strategies that documented the economic and clinical value of global pharmaceutical products. In 2007, she began to focus on reducing health and educational disparities faced by minority and disadvantaged youth, and to work with non-profits to enhance the future pipeline of minority students in science and medicine. She has served on the boards of Johns Hopkins University and the National Council of Economic Education. She recently ended her two year terms as the Pfizer scholar-in-residence at Spelman College. Here, she developed and conducted a seminar course in health disparities, contributed to a leadership program to support black women in science and health, and piloted a peer to peer program in which undergraduate science students mentored middle school students. Top

Nancy Glass, Nurs '94, Nurs/SPH '96 (MSN/MPH)
Nancy E. Glass has spent her career working to end gender inequity, poverty and violence against women. She is an associate professor, Department of Community Public Health and the associate director, Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health in the School of Nursing. In addition to her Johns Hopkins degrees, Glass earned a PhD at the University of Maryland in 2001. Once a Peace Corps volunteer, Glass focuses her research on the development, implementation and evaluation of community-based interventions to prevent and reduce disparities in health access, quality of care, and health outcomes for survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). The goal of her current project is to improve health outcomes by building and sustaining the capacity at Makerere University to address current and evolving health priorities in Uganda and the East Africa Region through strategic partnerships with JHU and key national and international stakeholders. Closer to home, Glass works with small businesses and unions in Oregon to evaluate workplace interventions to prevent and reduce the impact of IPV on the health, safety and employment of immigrant and U.S. born women. Additionally, she is evaluating the employment and productivity impact of Oregon's protected leave law for victims of intimate partner violence, rape and stalking from the perspective of victims and employers. Top

David Serwadda, SPH '91
David Serwadda is a Ugandan academic, scientist, researcher and civil servant based in the capital, Kampala. He first identified the "Slim disease" as AIDS in Uganda in 1982, when little was known about the disease. He and a small group of colleagues began a pilot study of the disease. Over the next 18 years, Serwadda and his team at the Rakai Health Sciences Program continued to research what eventually became known as AIDS and its transmission. The program secured funding from numerous U.S. and international organizations, including the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Serwadda later became a Professor of Public Health and Dean of Makerere University School of Public Health, In the 1990s, he served as director of the Makerere Institute of Public Health, until his retirement in 2009. The university even named a lecture theatre in his honor. He now spends his free time on committees and boards such as the Populations and Public Health Funding Committee of the Welcome Trust. Serwadda's work has had tremendous implication for the whole world. Top

*As of November 2013, this award is now known as the Global Achievement Award.