Taekjip “TJ” Ha, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, is among ten faculty members from Johns Hopkins University to have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, an independent organization of leading professionals from diverse fields, including health, medicine, and the natural, social, and behavioral sciences. It serves alongside the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering as adviser for the nation and the international community.
Through its domestic and global initiatives, the academy works to address critical issues in health, medicine, and related policy. Membership is considered one of the highest honors in health and medicine. New members are elected by current members through a selective process that recognizes people who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health.
Ha is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, Biophysics, and Biomedical Engineering at the School of Medicine. His laboratory focuses on visualizing how individual molecules move within proteins and DNA. Understanding these basic biological processes gives scientists a zoomed-in view of how cells maintain the genome.
Ha completed his undergraduate studies in physics at Seoul National University, Korea, and his doctorate in physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The announcement of the 100 new members was made as part of the academy’s annual meeting. The 10 elected from Johns Hopkins are Pablo Celnik, Ted Dawson, Darrell Gaskin, Jessica Gill, Sherita Hill Golden, Taekjip “TJ” Ha, Drew Pardoll, Sarah Szanton, Tener Goodwin Veenema, and Cynthia Wolberger.
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