Distinguished Alumnus/a Award

2024 Award Recipients

Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, SAIS ’84
Former Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer and Former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Malta Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley is the President of the Middle East Policy Council, a think tank that contributes to American understanding of the political, economic and and cultural issues that affect U.S. interests in the Middle East, Senior Advisor at the strategic advisory firm, WestExec Advisors, and a  Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Before her current appointments, she held a series of senior positions that included Ambassador to the Republic of Malta, Foreign Policy Advisor to the Commander of U.S. cyber forces, Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism for the Department of State where she negotiated the establishment of the International Institute for Justice and Rule of Law, and Country Director for Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Ms. Abercrombie-Winstanley was the first woman to lead a diplomatic mission in Saudi Arabia as the Principal Officer in Jeddah after taking on the position of Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for the Middle East and Africa. In addition to the State Department, she held senior positions at the Defense Department and on the National Security Council staff. Prior to that, she was a Professional Staff Member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Ms. Abercrombie-Winstanley is the recipient of numerous awards including the Maltese Order of Merit, Department of State Meritorious and Superior Honor Awards, including “For acts of courage during an attack on the U.S. Consulate General, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on December 6, 2004 by al-Qa’ida terrorists”, Foreign Policy for America’s Community Leadership Award, and Peace Corps Women  of Achievement.  During her break in public service, 2018-2021, she ran Abercrombie- Winstanley Consulting and advised on issues ranging from U.S. policy in the  Mid-East, how diversity and inclusion improve U.S. foreign policy making, cyber  security challenges, and counterterrorism. She served in 2020 as co-chair of the  Diversity in National Security Working Group for the Biden campaign before being recalled to service by Secretary of State Blinken.  Ms. Abercrombie-Winstanley, a Cleveland native, has degrees from The George  Washington University and The Johns Hopkins University and is a member of the  Council on Foreign Relations and Women of Color Advancing Peace And Security. She was a co-Founder of The Leadership Council for Women in National Security— LCWINS, and has been an active Board member for several organizations committed to excellence in professional development and leadership including the Cleveland Clinic, the Forum for Education Abroad, College Now Greater Cleveland, and the International Career Advancement Association. She also served on the board of the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art. She sings with the Washington Performing Arts Society and has been published in the New York Times Opinion and The Foreign Service Journal. She is the co-author of two papers published in the New York Review of Science Fiction on “Diplomacy in Star Trek” and “The Representation of Disability in Star Trek”, and wrote the Forward for “The Young Black Leaders Guide to a Successful Career in International Affairs”. In 2019, she was voted into the American Academy of Diplomacy.

Elizabeth Cherot, A&S ’92, Bus ’16
Dr. Cherot received her bachelor’s degree in 1992 from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and her MBA degree from Carey Business School in 2016. As a student at Carey, she devised a birthing center as her capstone project and pitched it to St Peter’s Hospital (N.J.) executives. The hospital ultimately built the center on the first floor of the facility. She then devised an app that helps expecting mothers prepare for a cesarean section and post-operative care. The app was an overwhelming success as hospital stay duration and readmission rates dropped while patient satisfaction increased. This past year she was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of March of Dimes after a career dedicated to improving women’s and infant health. A trained OB/GYN,  Dr. Cherot has spent the better part of the last two decades in medical management, first at Brunswick Hills Obstetrics and Gynecology in New Jersey where she managed over 70 employees and 15 medical providers and then at Axia Women’s Health where she rose to the position of Chief Medical Officer overseeing a staff of 2,500 across five states. Today, as the first physician CEO of March of Dimes, she leads one of the world’s largest organizations dedicated to improving the health of all mothers and babies. In addition to her numerous professional accomplishments, Dr. Cherot has been a great volunteer and donor for Carey Business School. She is a former member of the Dean’s Alumni Advisory Board and served as an alumni mentor in the two-year NEXT program for Carey’s fulltime MBA students. She has also mentored students enrolled in Carey’s Health, Tech, and Innovation courses, and contributed to the School’s recent marketing campaign around its rebranding. She is dedicated to enhancing the student experience at Carey through mentoring and the School and its students have benefitted from her passion in many ways. 

Mary Cwik, A&S ’99, Med ’07 (PGF)
Dr. Cwik is an Associate Director of Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health and Senior Scientist in the Department of International Health at JHSPH. Since completing her post-doctoral training in youth suicide prevention at JHSOM Department of Psychiatry, she has applied her skills and humanitarian compassion to developing, promoting and scaling public health innovations to prevent youth suicide in communities suffering the highest inequities in the U.S., American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) populations. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for Americans ages 10-34, with startling increases over the past decade in youth deaths. Indigenous youth suffer the largest health disparities and are experiencing increasing inequity gaps since the COVID-19 pandemic compared to other U.S. youth. Dr. Cwik’s work brings hope. Dr. Cwik’s contributions to overcoming youth suicide inequities include: 1) Working with the White Mountain Apache Tribe since 2008 to develop, implement and evaluate the first of its kind tribally mandated suicide surveillance and case management system. Dr. Cwik provided 24-hour clinical support to local Apache case managers during the project’s implementation period. 2) Proving and publishing (lead author) in the American Journal of Public Health that the Apache suicide prevention system resulted in a 38% reduction in suicide deaths and 53% reduction in suicide attempts during a time when suicide was increasing among other AIAN and U.S. youth populations. 3) Leading her team in winning national recognition for the suicide prevention system from Indian Health Service, American Academy of Child Psychiatry and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA); 4) Mentoring and promoting career development among two White Mountain Apache behavioral health specialists who work for JHU, who have received Masters and Doctoral degrees over the past 10 years, and now clinically oversee the suicide prevention program locally; 5) Winning new grants in the past five years to scale the suicide prevention program to more than 10 new tribal communities across the U.S. One of these grants included a $500,000 “high impact” investment from the JHSPH’s Bloomberg American Health Initiative. 6) Providing senior consultation to the state of Maryland and national agencies, on regional and national suicide prevention.

Gatis Eglitis, SAIS B ’02
Gatis was born in small-town Dobele in Latvia in 1978 (then Soviet Union) and moved to Riga in 1997 to purse business and economics studies in the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. After graduating, he started working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on economic and security issues (NATO) and obtained his Master’s degree in international relations from JHU SAIS Bologna and Vienna Diplomatic Academy. Gatis continued his career in the European Commission in 2005-2016, representing European Union in its bailout programs aiding Latvia, Greece, and Cyprus. In this capacity he worked directly with policymakers and high-ranking politicians to quell the financial crises that engulfed these countries’ economies. After returning to Latvia, Gatis served as Member of Parliament from 2018 to 2021, inter alia, representing Latvia in NATO Parliamentary Assembly and co-sponsoring historic Holocaust restitution law. He served as Minister for Social and Labor Affairs from 2021 through 2022, overseeing some 40% of Latvia’s state budget (primarily pensions, benefits, and social security) and a staff of over 4000 employees. During this time Latvia was confronted by Covid pandemic and the regional crisis ignited by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As Latvia welcomed large refugee flows, he was in charge of providing safe harbor to those displaced.  Gatis is now the Chairman of the Latvian Conservative party, championing center-right policies and running for Prime Minister in 2026. Gatis travels to the U.S. frequently, meeting with Republican Party leadership, U.S. Treasury officials, and other organizations. Gatis is a good husband, a proud father of three (two daughters and a son), He speaks Latvian, English, Danish and Russian and has travelled for work and leisure to more than 100 countries. His SAIS Bologna class nominated him “Most Likely to Become a Diplomat.”

Shannon Frattaroli, BSPH ’94, ’99
Shannon Frattaroli is a nationally recognized injury prevention researcher with a special focus on gun violence prevention. Her work has directly influenced federal and state policy around research and violence prevention, including crucial research on reducing the threat of gun violence. In response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, CT in 2012, Shannon Frattaroli and her colleague Josh Horwitz assembled the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy, a multidisciplinary group of experts, to develop evidence-based policy recommendations for gun violence prevention. The work Dr. Frattaroli led at the Consortium is the foundation for her work in the development of Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) laws. Dr. Frattaroli has been able to continue her groundbreaking research with ERPO laws through a high impact project with the Bloomberg American Health Initiative where she has advocated for enabling clinicians to be able to petition for ERPOs, using ERPOs to prevent teen suicide, research ERPO policies and the implementation process, and the impact of COVID-19 on gun violence. She also serves as Director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy and she helped develop the policy track and co-directs the Health Policy and Management DrPH degree program. Dr. Frattaroli’s contribution and leadership in the violence prevention field is changing the way the nation is thinking about its injury and violence prevention policies. Her work is saving lives in families, communities, and across the country.

Laman Gray, Jr., Med ’67
Laman Gray, Jr., M.D. is an internationally recognized leader in the fields of cardiac surgery and development of artificial hearts and circulatory support systems. Dr. Gray’s outstanding accomplishments include performing the first heart transplant in Kentucky (1984) and the first bridge to heart transplant after the use of a Thoratec Bi-Ventricular Assist Device in the United States (1985). He was also an original investigator for the Novacor Ventricular Assist Device System. In 1992, he performed the first clinical use of ABIOMED’s SupraCor IABP and was one of the four primary clinical investigators that brought ABIOMED’s BVS 5000 temporary cardiac support system to clinical approval by the FDA. On July 2, 2001, Dr. Gray and his surgical team implanted the first artificial heart into Robert Tools who lived five additional months on the device. He has been the Director of the University of Louisville School of Medicine’s Division of thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery for more than twenty years and is a founding member of the Jewish Hospital heart and Lung Institute. Dr. Gray is also the Medical Director of the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute – a center focused on bio-adaptive heart innovations, including the integration of heart-assist device, bio-feedback sensors and related technologies. He also serves as a consultant the Food and Drug Administration to the circulatory System Devices Panel of the Medical Devices Advisory Committee, Center for Devices and Radiological Health.

Atul Grover, BSPH ’04 
Atul Grover is an internal medicine physician, health services researcher, and nationally recognized expert in health policy whose advocacy work transcends political lines - improving individual health and our healthcare system through his work to redefine health policy issues and highlight meaningful solution.  As the inaugural executive director of the Research and Action Institute at Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), he works to develop policy and programmatic solutions, then harnesses the power of the AAMC’s member schools, teaching hospitals and academic health systems, and academic societies to test, validate, and scale effective change. Through his work across the health policy field, he identified a significant gap—the translation of scientific research toward actionable, accessible language that can be easily understood by a large audience. As a featured contributor to USA Today and Health Affairs, Dr. Grover has worked to reduce the public’s knowledge gap through more accessible language, applying this approach to several public health issues including challenges associated with the response to COVID-19 and an examination on why the U.S. spends so much on healthcare. During the AAMC Research and Action Institute’s Learn Serve Lead 2023 Conference, Dr. Grover and colleagues discussed health policy priorities including rural health and mental health access, identifying clear problems, and exploring viable federal policy solutions in the present political and economic climate. Through this large-scale capacity building effort, Dr. Grover has made a nation-wide impact - analyzing problems in healthcare, identifying what is actionable, and building capacity to implement  solutions.

Chandresh Harjivan, BSPH ’99
Chandresh Harjivan is a well-respected public health leader and innovator with experience working across multiple types of organizations including pharmaceutical and health care industries, the public sector, and now the United States government. Dr. Harjivan’s wealth of experience allows him to work within key stakeholders’ needs to align requirements, set priorities, and define core capabilities, ultimately transforming and growing organizations in the public health space. He has advised companies, multilateral NGOs, and governments on crucial issues in global health and security, including understanding the epidemiology of existing and emerging diseases, the development and delivery of technologies against those diseases—whether new diagnostics, drugs, vaccines, or digital tools—as well as on advising where to make healthcare investments.  Dr. Harjivan is a co-founder of SaponiQx, a bio-pharmaceutical company where the focus is on technology that has the potential to dramatically change how vaccines are created and extend the average vaccine lifespan thereby improving access, reducing cost, and saving more lives.  In October of 2023, Dr. Harjivan was appointed to the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, Dr. Harjivan contributes to the Administration’s response to public health threats with pandemic potential and strengthens domestic pandemic preparedness. His work primarily focuses on the oversight of interagency research & development, diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics policy, supply chain, and plans & exercises.

Marjorie Olds, A&S ’72
Ms. Olds commitment to transforming lives is evident in her role as a Consultant for NYS Prison Reentry Programming, where she has played a pivotal role in creating and implementing programs to enhance the success of young adults upon release from prison. Her extensive work in securing federal and state grants for pre- and post-release educational and employment services underscores her dedication to breaking the cycle of incarceration. Similarly, as a New York State Consultant for the Office of Children and Family Services and Cornell Cooperative Extension Energy Warriors, Ms. Olds contributed to overcoming barriers to employment and education for incarcerated teens through statewide initiatives and pilot programs. She previously served as a Supervising Administrative Law Judge for the New York State Department of Labor, where she managed a hearing unit, oversaw personnel and training, and developed strategies for compliance. Ms. Olds served as the first female City Court Judge in Ithaca, focusing on domestic violence programming, dispute resolution, and court supervision for individuals with recidivism histories related to drugs, alcohol, and mental health challenges. She also previously served as a Visiting Jurist at the United Nations, where she worked on human rights issues worldwide. Further highlighting her trailblazing achievements, and perhaps most notable for the JHU community, Ms. Olds was first woman undergraduate admitted to Johns Hopkins University. She received a bachelor’s degree in humanistic studies from the Krieger School. 2011 New-Letter article: https://www.jhunewsletter. com/article/2011/03/first-woman-admitted-to-jhu-shares-her-experiences-50884

Roy Strowd, Ed ’18
Dr. Strowd is truly a triple-threat in medicine with nationally recognized expertise in neuro-oncology, medical education, and translational research. This all began during his training at Johns Hopkins. As a fellow in the Department of Neurology, he developed a foundation in clinical research and medical education that have catalyzed a highly productive career. He was the senior author in a phase 2 multi-center study that translated a long-standing Johns Hopkins interest in the ketogenic/modified Atkins-based diet for patients with glioma. He is recognized nationally in neuro-oncology and has been invited to speak at national meetings (e.g., AAN, SNO) and was editor of a recent textbook titled “Neuro-oncology for the clinical neurologist.” He is a passionate educator. He serves as Vice Dean for Medical Education at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine – the highest educator-specific leadership position at the school. He has received numerous prestigious awards and recognitions including the Innovation in Medical Education Award from the SGEA and was the inaugural recipient of the national Brownell Anderson Award from the AAMC for his exceptional teaching scholarship.

Kurt Vandenberghe, SAIS B ’91 ’92
Kurt was appointed Director General of DG CLIMA on 16 January 2023.  Until then, he was the Green Deal and Health advisor to President Ursula von der Leyen since 1 December 2019.  He had joined the cabinet of the President coming from DG Research and Innovation where he was Director for Policy & Programming since 1 February 2016 and Acting Director for Research & Innovation Outreach since 1 June 2019 .Before that, he was Director for ‘Climate action and resource efficiency’ at DG Research and Innovation since July 2013. He served in the Cabinet of Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin (1999-2004) and as Head of the Cabinet of Janez Potočnik, who was Commissioner for Research and Innovation (2004-2009) and subsequently for Environment (from 2010). Kurt joined the European Commission in 1996 as co-ordinator of the Commission’s Intermodal Transport Task Force and of the Transport Research Programme. Before entering the Commission, Kurt worked for 4 years as a manager at Ernst & Young Association Management, where he set up, managed and represented international trade associations. After reading French and Italian literature at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) and obtaining a degree in Public and International Affairs at the University Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve (UCL), Kurt gained a Master of Arts degree in International Relations at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (S.A.I.S.) in Bologna, Italy and Washington D.C., US.  

Laura Wood, Nurs ’12
Laura Wood received a Bachelor of Science (BSN) degree in Nursing, Magna Cum Laude, from West Virginia University School of Nursing; a Master of Science (MS) degree from The University of Maryland, Baltimore; and a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Johns Hopkins University Fralic Nursing Fellowship. In 2012, she was named a Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Foundation Executive Nurse Fellow as part of a selective three-year national executive leadership program. Wood has served on a variety of child and education focused non-profit boards over the past two decades. She currently serves as a member of the Boston Children’s Hospital Board of Trustees, as Principal Investigator for the Sporing Carpenter Chair in Nursing, and as a member of numerous national nursing advisory boards including: The Beryl Institute’s Nurse Executive Council, CRICO’s Nursing Advisory Board, Greater Boston Nursing Collective, Harvard Medical School Bioethics Hospital Advisory Board, Johns Hopkins University Nursing Advisory Board, The Joint Commission Nursing Advisory Council, and the Press Ganey CNO Advisory Board. As Executive Vice President Patient Care Operations, System Chief Nursing Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, Dr. Laura Wood leads the discipline of nursing and provides system-level oversight of patient care delivery throughout the organization’s network and satellite locations. Boston Children’s serves as the pediatric training center for Harvard Medical School, where nurses in concert with interprofessional care teams actively translate science to care delivery as part of the world’s largest pediatric research enterprise — treating more children with rare and complex conditions than any other hospital in the world. Boston Children’s is consistently recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best children’s Hospitals.