Global Achievement Award 2015
Prerna M. Khanna, BSPH ’96
Prerna Mona Khanna, MD, MPH, FACP, FACPM, FACOEM, a graduate of the JHU residency in public health and preventive medicine, is a triple residency-trained, triple board-certified practicing medical doctor and an Emmy award-winning multi-platform medical journalist who is committed to making a difference in the lives of others through disaster and humanitarian volunteerism. She just returned from Ebola-afflicted Monrovia, Liberia, where she worked to integrate occupational health and safety provisions into the restoration of health infrastructure and health services to the people of Liberia who saw more than 500 of their own health workers die from Ebola Virus Disease during caregiving. Dr. Khanna's dedication to international and domestic health is longstanding and comprehensive, as demonstrated by her medical service in the past 17 years after 5 hurricanes, 3 earthquakes, 2 tsunamis, a plane crash, a typhoon, a flood, a terrorist attack and a rampant infectious disease. By credentialing on 4 disaster teams -- HHS Disaster Medical Assistance Team, Illinois Medical Emergency Response Team, Urban Search & Rescue Team and Texas State Guard -- she maximizes her chances of being available to be deployed to national and international disasters, particularly in developing countries, where chronic low-level disaster conditions are the norm. Dr. Mona Khanna is an alumna who exemplifies the Johns Hopkins tradition of excellence and has brought credit to the university and her profession in the international arena through her humanitarian service in more than 12 countries.
Kenneth K. Lam, Peab ’07
Ken Lam is originally from Hong Kong, attended college in England, and spent 10 years working as an attorney for a major international law firm. He is also a trained violinist and while in Hong Kong in 2000, Lam briefly took a position helping to manage Naxos, the classical/jazz/world music record label that also maintains a vast online digital library. During his free hours, he found a community orchestra in which to play and a choir in which to sing. At a rehearsal for the former, the conductor called in sick, and Lam volunteered to substitute. He liked it so much, and did so well, they invited him to take over full time. His Naxos task completed, Lam returned to his law firm, however, he continued to conduct on the side and by 2004-2005, he was overseeing an orchestra and three choirs— all without a music degree. At this point he decided he should go back to school. He chose a summer 2005 master class program in Bulgaria, where he met Gustav Meier, co-director of Peabody’s graduate conducting program. Lam entered Peabody in 2005 and since then has been “on holiday” from practicing law. He was a fellow at the American Academy of Conducting; studied at the National Conducting Institute; made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra; and accepted an assistant conductorship with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He was a featured conductor in the League of American Orchestra’s 2009 Bruno Walter National Conductors Preview with the Nashville Symphony and made his US professional debut with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in June 2008 as one of four conductors selected by Leonard Slatkin. In recent seasons he led performances with the symphony orchestras of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Pops, Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis, Illinois and Meridian, as well as he Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Taipei Symphony Orchestra. In opera, he directed numerous productions of the Janiec Opera Company at Brevard and was Assistant Conductor at Cincinnati Opera, Baltimore Lyric Opera and at the Castleton Festival. He led critically acclaimed performances of the opera Feng Yi Ting by the Chinese composer Guo Wenjing at the Spoleto Festival USA and Lincoln Center Festival this season and his run of Massenet’s Manon at Peabody Conservatory was hailed by the Baltimore Sun as a top ten classical event in the Washington D.C/Baltimore area in 2010. Ken is currently Music Director of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Resident Conductor of the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina, Associate Conductor for Education of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Director of the Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestras, Associate Professor and Director of Orchestra at Montclair State University in New Jersey, and Artistic Director of Hong Kong Voices.
Luke C. Mullany, BSPH ’02, ’05
Dr. Luke Mullany has made significant contributions to saving the lives of numerous newborn infants in developing countries through demonstrating that the application of an inexpensive antiseptic (chlorhexidine) to the umbilical cords of infants in the first week of life can significantly improve their chances of surviving this high risk period. Prior to his work, the World Health Organization recommended not applying any substances to the umbilical cords of infants but rather to keep the cord dry while waiting for it to detach. In rural Nepal, where most women deliver at home in unhygienic conditions, the umbilical cord area is like an open wound where bacteria and viruses could easily enter the blood stream, causing sepsis, a common cause of death among newborns in the first few weeks of life. Dr. Mullany conducted a randomized community based trial to assess the impact of chlorhexidine applied to the umbilical cord on cord infections and survival of newborns in rural Nepal. Compared with dry cord care, this study among more than 15,000 newborns showed that if chlorhexidine could be applied to the cord within 24 hours of birth, deaths were reduced by 34% and severe cord infections were reduced by 75%. These results led to new World Health Organization guidelines, and prompted countries such as Nepal and others in Asia and Africa to implement national programs to provide this inexpensive intervention to newborns.
Vicente Navarro, BSPH ’69, Faculty
Vicente Navarro, MD, DMSA, DrPH '68, PhD, has most recently served as the Director of the JHSPH Fall Institute in Barcelona, Spain, and is the Director of the JHU- UPF Public Policy Center in Barcelona, and as professor of policy studies and coordinator of Spanish Projects at JHSPH. The JHU-UPF joint program between Hopkins and the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona is an effort that enhances Hopkins' international reputation and reach. Navarro is best known for his research in social policy and specifically the socio-political economic forces that shape health policy, serving as a consultant to governments on nearly every continent as well as a visiting professor at universities in Europe, all Latin American countries as well as the United States and Canada. Navarro is the international expert on comparative health policy. Of note, Navarro founded the International Journal of Health Services (IJHS) in 1971 and has been the journal's editor-in-chief since then.
Michael C. Perkinson, Bus ’09, SAIS ’87
Michael Perkinson has spent 25 years on the front lines of combat, diplomacy and peacekeeping. Mr. Perkinson has served as a US diplomat in China, a United Nations peacekeeper and an advisor to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. He was a Naval Intelligence Officer who served around the world in a variety of leadership roles. Following his departure from government, he founded the China practice at Veracity Worldwide, a New York consultancy providing strategic advisory services to financial services firms and industrials pursuing investment in emerging markets. Currently, he serves as Chief of Staff to the Chief Investment Officer at Guggenheim Partners, a financial services firm with $240 billion under management. As Chief of Staff, he serves as a confidential advisor and Management Committee delegate for the Chairman of Investments and as the lead in many firm-wide initiatives which comprise the business’s long-term plan: quarterly portfolio performance reviews, human capital performance management, corporate social responsibility, campus recruiting, first-year analysts, etc. Mr. Perkinson's expertise includes leading sensitive negotiations among warring factions and managing businesses through rapid change. He has studied at the University of London and The American University. He was awarded a Master of International Public Policy by the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and also earned a Master of Science in Finance from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.
R. Bradley Sack, BSPH ’68
Since 1962 Brad has held a variety of academic appointments and leadership positions at Johns Hopkins, including faculty appointments in the School of Medicine and in the School of Public Health. He also served in the Medical School from 1977 to 1985 as Chief of the Division of Geographic Medicine. In 1985 he founded the JHU International Travel Clinic. Brad began studying cholera in 1962, and is today one of the world's leading experts in the epidemiology and ecology of cholera and its treatment. As an infectious diseases fellow, he began these intensive studies at the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Calcutta, India with Charles C. Carpenter, a JHH faculty member. They demonstrated that by using intravenous therapy the death rate from cholera could be reduced from 25-50% to less than 1%. This is now accepted as the gold standard for treating cholera. Brad returned to Calcutta as resident coordinator of the JH Center for Medical Research and Training (ICMRT) from 1968 to 1970. During that time, he and Dr. Nathaniel Pierce, a Professor of Medicine at Hopkins, developed oral rehydration therapy (ORT) for treatment of cholera and other secretory diarrheas, thus replacing much of the need for IV therapy. ORT, a solution of glucose plus electrolytes, is considered one of the most revolutionary public health discoveries of the twentieth century. In 1968, Brad's lab discovered enterotoxigenic E. coli, the most frequent bacterial cause of diarrhea in children of the developing world, and of travelers’ diarrhea. Additional long term collaborations were made in Lima, Peru (1961) and with the White Mountain Apache Indian tribe (1971) with Dr. Mathu Santosham (JH Professor), where epidemiological studies in children’s diarrhea were done.