Outstanding Recent Graduate Award

2024 Award Recipients 

Somaya Albhaisi, BSPH ’22
Somaya Albhaisi is an early career physician-scientist, an Assistant Professor of Medicine, an academic hospitalist, and an aspiring hepatologist-social entrepreneur in the Department of Internal Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Her research focuses on the epidemiology, prevention, and treatment of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis cirrhosis. During her first 3 years as faculty, she produced over 24 publications that received more than 400 citations. She received several academic awards, including the Emerging Liver Scholar Award from the American Association for Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) in 2019, and getting inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi Honorary Society in 2022, and the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health in 2023. She is an active member of major national GI and Liver societies, the Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis Clinical Research Network (NASH CRN) and the Alcoholic Hepatitis Network (AlcHepNet) of the NIH. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she led an initiative to establish a COVID-19 registry with biorepository to become the Founding Director of VCU’s first institutional COVID-19 biorepository, named VCU Registry of SARS-CoV-2 (VCU-RS). She received multiple internal grants from the Wright Center and the Health Innovation Consortium to fund the registry. Serving as the principal investigator of the COVID-19 registry has allowed her to collaborate widely with many researchers in VCU and outside of VCU in order to yield high impact studies that could potentially make positive changes to treatment of patients with COVID-19 infection. In addition, she participated as a key co-investigator in several COVID-19 clinical trials at national and institutional levels. 

Cheree Davis, Ed ’15
Cheree has been deeply entrenched with Baltimore City Public Schools since her days as a founding teacher at the Baltimore Talent Development High School (where at-risk students were given an alternative to other area schools) through today in her work as an educational advocate and support professional. Cheree joined Baltimore County Public Schools in 2016 as an educational specialist. She was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the School Programs for the Acceleration and Recovery of Credit Program, which impacts nearly 5,000 students. She is now the Supervisor of Leadership Development which involves teaching aspiring leaders and supporting new leaders. In her role as a School Transformation Facilitator with Johns Hopkins, she was uniquely positioned to drive the academic, cultural, and community goals of Johns Hopkins and play an integral role is leading school turnaround initiatives across the country. She was recently featured as the inaugural speaker with the School of Education’s School Leadership Consortium and will be joining the adjunct faculty at SOE. She is a current member of the Johns Hopkins Alumni Council and Executive Committee.

Julie Jenkins, Nurs ’22
Julie A. Jenkins, DNP, APRN, WHNP-BC, is the Clinicians in Abortion Care Strategist & Training Program Manager at the National Abortion Federation. She is a sexual and reproductive health nurse practitioner with more than 15 years of clinical experience across multiple organizations. Julie was previously the lead plaintiff in federal ACLU litigation challenging Maine’s physician-only abortion law, an effort that ultimately succeeded through state legislation. Julie completed her doctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University in 2022, focusing on executive leadership. She was the Reproductive Health Access Project’s national Advanced Practice Clinicians Cluster Leader from the cluster’s inception in 2020 until she became CIAC liaison to the cluster in late 2022. Julie was an early adopter of telehealth medication abortion, providing telehealth abortion care for multiple organizations, and now provides telehealth abortion training to organizations interested in implementing this care. In 2022 she and two other abortion providers co-founded the Abortion Freedom Fund — a national abortion fund supporting accessible, affordable, evidence-based telehealth abortion care for all. Julie is an experienced educator, speaker, and trainer. She has taught in nursing programs at UCSF, University of Maine, and MGH institute of Health Professions, and is currently a member of the nursing faculty at Yale. She speaks nationally on the role of advanced practice clinicians in abortion care and on abortion provision, from in-clinic services to self-managed abortion. She provides training on abortion care and options counseling and consults on projects for various national organizations. In the past she worked as a Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner/Forensic Nurse Examiner (SAFE/FNE) performing sexual assault and domestic violence exams. As a longtime political activist and sexual and reproductive health advocate, she looks to Reproductive Justice experts to guide her work. She is board certified in Women’s Health and, in addition to her doctorate, holds a Master of Science in Nursing from California State University, Long Beach and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Southern Maine, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and a Certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Maine at Orono. 

Albert “Jim” Marckwardt, SAIS ’14, SAIS ’23
Dr. Albert J. Marckwardt is the Faculty Co-Lead, Program Administrator and Adjunct Lecturer for the Americas Focus Area at the Johns Hopkins University School of  Advanced International Studies.  He is also Faculty Lead & Associate Professor for Institutional Capacity Building at the Defense Security Cooperation University.  Jim is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and Foreign Area Officer that served in various policy and security cooperation positions including at the Office of Secretary of Defense for Policy as the Colombia and Venezuela Country Director, at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras as the Liaison Officer & Political Military Advisor for Joint Task Force Bravo, at the Defense Intelligence Agency as a Defense Strategic Intelligence Planner,  and at U.S. Army North as a Mexico Senior Leader Engagement Officer. He is a graduate of Argentine’s Escuela Superior de Guerra (Superior War School) and deployed twice in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in command and staff positions as an Armor Officer.  During his time in Iraq, he coauthored The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa, the premiere tactical primer for junior leaders on the conduct of modern counterinsurgency.  He earned his Doctor of International Affairs and Master of International Public Policy degrees at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and  a BA in International Business at Florida International University.

Momodou “Lamin” Sonko, A&S ’16
Dr. Sonko graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Krieger School with a B.S in Molecular and Cellular Biology and a minor in Bioethics. Dr. Sonko gained valuable experience at Remedy Partners, where he served as a business analyst. In this capacity, he played a pivotal role in transitioning healthcare organizations from a fee-for-service model to a more patient-centered, value-based bundled payment system. His involvement in co-founding White Coat Strategists in 2017 further highlights his commitment to peer mentorship within the healthcare community. Having earned his MD/MBA from the Perelman School of Medicine and Wharton School of Business in 2022, Dr. Sonko has seamlessly  integrated his medical and business acumen. Currently, as a second-year resident in Emergency Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, he is making  significant contributions to patient care while pursuing further specialization in a  challenging field. Dr. Sonko’s impact extends beyond the hospital walls through the establishment of Diaspora Health, a healthcare startup that undoubtedly reflects his entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to improving healthcare delivery to the African diaspora.

Spencer Twigg, Bus ’16
Upon completion of his master’s degree, Spencer was selected to serve as the 2016 Administrative Fellow at Carolinas Hospital System. Two years later, he was promoted to Assistant Chief Executive Officer at the age of 25. He was responsible for the daily operations of 4 large clinical departments. Just two years later, Spencer was given additional responsibility over a rural 124-bed hospital where we worked together. At the age of 27, he was the Administrator for the sole hospital in an underserved county. His scope expanded to over 600 employees in all ancillary, clinical, and diagnostic departments, a 92-bed nursing home, and 12 physician clinics. Spencer led that hospital through the COVID-19 Pandemic where we stood up testing, treatment, AND vaccination efforts to combat the virus. During his time as a hospital administrator in a rural area, Spencer was engaged in a number of civic and community organizations. He became a Rotarian, attending weekly meetings and organized volunteer activities. Leading a rural hospital through the COVID-19 Pandemic, Spencer became heavily involved in community outreach, education, and advocacy – all exemplars of Johns Hopkins mission. During those uncertain times, he organized the hospital’s drive thru COVID testing efforts, which at the time was the only site for COVID testing in the county.  Eventually, 24,000 vaccines were successfully administered to citizens over a course of months (in a county with a total population less than 29,000). Through the hospital Spencer wrote grants to obtain funding for identified gaps in the community we served. The first grant was to address pediatric food insecurity. Boxes of fresh produce and easy-to-follow recipes were distributed to families with children screened as food insecure (representing almost 24% of the county’s population). Additionally, he wrote a grant for 3D Mammography to provide earlier detection of breast cancer to at risk women in the area. Spencer was able to work with the MUSC School of Dentistry and state leaders to integrate oral health into our rural primary care practices for children who needed prophylaxis during their annual wellness visits. Most recently, Spencer was able to achieve his dream working for the  #1 hospital system in the United States. Today, he serves as an Operations Administrator at Mayo Clinic. During his time at Mayo, he’s overseen the Departments of Anesthesiology, Ophthalmology, Urology, and Gynecology representing over 200 physicians and other allied health staff.

Kimberly Zou, Engr ’19
Kimberly “Kim” Zou is the co-founder and CEO of Sightline Climate, a marketing intelligence platform that organizes the climate ecosystem, providing tactical research and insights, and bringing clarity to climate. The company developed out of CTVC, a leading newsletter on climate innovation. The weekly newsletter, which comes out every Monday, is read by over 35,000 industry leaders. CTVC generates data-driven insights on the climate tech market, which have been featured in channels including Bloomberg, Reuters, Financial Times, and TechCrunch, and highlights leading companies and voices working to bend the climate curve.  Prior to starting CTVC and Sightline Climate, Kim was a climate tech investor at Energy Impact Partners, a $2.5B AUM venture capital firm investing in a sustainable future backed by a coalition of 40+ energy & industrial companies. Prior to joining EIP, Kim was part of JPMorgan’s Tech M&A investment banking team. Kim was named one of 40 Leaders in Climate by Climate Transformed. She has been featured on numerous podcast and sites, including “Invested in Climate,” “Climate Week,” and at the SOSV Climate Tech Summit.  Kim graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and applied mathematics and statistics. With her immense accomplishments and brand, it hard to believe that she graduated less than 5 years ago.