Media Relations Staff

Joann Rodgers, B.S. M.S.
Senior Advisor, Science, Crisis and Executive Communications
office: 410-955-8659
e-mail: jrodgers@jhmi.edu

Joann Rodgers is the senior advisor for science, crisis, and executive communications to the Senior Director for Strategic Communications. She joined Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) after 18 years as a science journalist and columnist for the Hearst Newspapers, where she won numerous science reporting prizes, including a Lasker Award for medical journalism. A former Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs for JHM, she is a graduate of Boston University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she is a board member and past president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing; past president of the National Association of Science Writers; a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); and an elected member of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. She also serves on the Advisory Board of EurekAlert and on the Public Understanding of Science committees of AAAS and Sigma Xi. She has participated in NIH-funded science communications research published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, and she holds a faculty appointment at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. The author of seven books, including a book on evolutionary biology, Sex: A Natural History, (Henry Holt and Company, NY); and Media Guide for Academics (FACS). She also contributed the chapter on institutional crisis communications for the 2nd edition of Field Guide for Science Writers (Oxford University Press).

Gary Stephenson
Senior Associate Director
office:  (410) 955-5384
cell: (443) 324-6726
e-mail: gstephenson@jhmi.edu

An award-winning former medical and science journalist, Gary M. Stephenson, M.S., joined Hopkins in 1996 as Senior Associate Director for Media Relations after serving in a similar position at the University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP). Prior to his position at UMCP, Stephenson was Washington editor for Diagnostic Imaging Magazine. He is also an associate faculty member at The College of Notre Dame, in Baltimore, Md., where he teaches graduate courses in public relations management and communications. Stephenson's news beats at Hopkins include corporate communications, "the business of medicine" and the areas of healthcare policy, labor relations, hospital emergency and disaster preparedness and response, nursing, radiology, outcomes research, clinical practice guidelines, and biotechnology and technology licensing.

Beats Covered:

• Biotechnology
• Bioterrorism
• Business of Medicine
• Health Care Policy
• Labor Relations
• Managed Care
• Nursing
• Pharmacy
• Radiology, Radiological Sciences and Imaging Technology
• Security
• Technology Licensing
• Women’s Board

Christen Brownlee
office:  (410) 955-7832
cell: (443) 838-3386
email: cbrownlee@jhmi.edu

Christen L. Brownlee, a science writer and editor by training, joined the media relations staff at Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Division of Media Relations and Public Affairs in August 2007.

Before joining the Hopkins team, Brownlee’s most recent position was at National Geographic, where she served as an editor to a startup science and social studies magazine for middle school students. She has previously worked as a reporter for the weekly magazine Science News, where she wrote about basic biology, and as a science writer for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She has contributed freelance work to a variety of media outlets, including popular press magazines, scientific journals, health websites, and children’s publications.

Brownlee holds a masters degree from New York University’s Science and Environmental Reporting Program.

• Allergy/Clinical Immunology/Asthma
• Endocrinology/ Diabetes
  
• Hematology
• Neurology/ Neurosurgery
  
• Nephrology
• Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
• Urology

Natasha Bolotina

office: (410)502-9422
cell: (443)838-3534
E-mail: nboloti1@jhmi.edu

Natalia Bolotina, Ph.D., has joined the media relations team within Johns Hopkins Marketing and Communications division as the primary media representative for Johns Hopkins International, the global arm of Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Natalia has spent more than a decade in print journalism, television and radio news and documentary production, as well as nonprofit and agency media relations on both sides of the Atlantic.

At the Russian Television Network in Moscow and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto, Canada, Natalia covered health care and foreign affairs, business and lifestyle stories. She helped to deliver investigative articles and programs to readers of The New York Times and Sports Illustrated, and to viewers of the Discovery Channel and CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) News.

In her academic career, Natalia served as a researcher at the Nordica Centre for Research in Journalism, Mass Media, and Culture at Moscow State University, coordinated exchange programs with Scandinavian universities, and mentored graduate students. She also directed the Russian portion of a multinational project titled News Definitions Across Cultures under the auspices of Syracuse University.

Natalia received her doctorate in Journalism at Moscow State University. She underwent further professional training at a rigorous BBC World Service Center course in London, UK, and was selected for the Yeltsin Democracy Fellowship Program sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency in Canada.


Beats covered:

• International news media relations
• Johns Hopkins Medicine International

Stephanie Desmon 
office:  (410) 955-8665
cell: (410)530-5876
email: sdesmon1@jhmi.edu

Stephanie Desmon, an award-winning medical journalist, has joined Johns Hopkins Medicine as a senior media relations representative and public information officer.

Desmon comes to Johns Hopkins from The Baltimore Sun, where she spent the last nine years as a reporter and writer covering medicine and politics, among other topics. While at the Sun, she was nationally recognized for her six-part series, “The Trial of Their Lives,” which chronicled the lives of terminal cancer patients undergoing an experimental breast cancer trial at Hopkins. She also received the Gerald Loeb Award, the highest journalism honor for business reporting, for a series she wrote about the decline of the Maryland crab industry and the subsequent rise of crabbing in Asia.

At JHM’s division of Media Relations & Public Affairs, she will be principally responsible for covering surgery, transplants, gastroenterology, and complementary and integrative medicine.

Desmon previously worked at newspapers in West Palm Beach and Jacksonville, Fla., and in Birmingham, Ala. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied American history.


Beats Covered

• Anesthesiology/Critical Care Medicine/Pain Medicine
• Bioethics
• Biomedical Engineering (clinical)
• Complementary and Integrative Medicine
  
• Gastroenterology
• General Internal Medicine
• Medical Education
  
• Rheumatology
• Surgery
• Transplants

Kim Hoppe

office:  (410)516-4934
cell : 410-935-4762
e-mail: khoppe1@jhmi.edu

Kim Hoppe is the Associate Director of Communications and Public Affairs for the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. Prior to joining Hopkins, in June 2004, Kim was the media relations manager for an international franchising company headquartered near Washington D.C. Before that, she spent nearly 10 years as a senior newsroom producer, medical news producer, and newscast producer at the Baltimore CBS and ABC television affiliates. During that time, Kim received an Emmy award nomination for television production. A graduate of the University of Connecticut, Kim earned her bachelor of arts in journalism. She is a member of the Public Relations Society of America.

Beats Covered

• Johns Hopkins Childrens' Center
• Pediatrics

Audrey Huang
Director, Basic Science Research Communications
office: 410-614-5105
cell: 443-838-3378
e-mail: ahuang18@jhmi.edu

Audrey M. Huang, M.A., Ph.D., is the Director of Basic Science Research Communications. A science writer and molecular geneticist by training, she joined the media relations staff at Johns Hopkins Medicine in 2006.

Most recently, Huang was a science writer and communications officer at the Genetics and Public Policy Center, part of the Berman Bioethics Institute at Hopkins, located in Washington, DC. As a freelance editor and writer, Huang has written for the National Institutes of Health, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the Ontario Genomics Institute. She holds a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University where she currently teaches a graduate course in grant writing.

She has extensive research experience in developmental biology, molecular and cell biology and genetics, having studied the molecular mechanisms involved in muscle cell development at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and mammalian embryonic development at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Huang studied chromosome structure in fruitflies and yeast during her postdoctoral training at the Carnegie Institution of Washington Department of Embryology. She holds a Ph.D. in genetics and a B.A. in Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley.

 Beats covered:

• Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences (IBBS)
• Institute for Cell Engineering
• The McKusick/Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine
• Animal Care and Use
  

John Lazarou
office: (410) 502-8902
cell: (410) 707-3116
e-mail: jlazaro1@jhmi.edu

John M. Lazarou, a former journalist and public radio talk show host joined the media relations staff at Hopkins in January 2002. Lazarou came to Hopkins after two years at a local public relations agency, where he practiced media relations. His areas of responsibility include dentistry, dermatology, event communications, ophthalmology, plastic surgery, Weight Management Center and women’s health – GYN/OB/reproductive endocrinology. Prior to relocating to Maryland, Lazarou was the media relations representative for Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in New Jersey. Before entering public relations, he worked as a newspaper reporter and feature writer in New Hampshire as well as a journalist and a talk show host for public radio stations in the New York and New Jersey area. He received his bachelor of arts in communications from Temple University and holds a master of arts in liberal studies from Fordham University.

Beats Covered

• Dentistry
• Dermatology
• Event communications
• Geriatrics/Gerontology
• Ophthalmology
  
• Orthopedic Surgery/Sports Medicine
• Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
• Plastic Surgery
  
• Women’s Health---
  
• GYN/OB/Reproductive Endocrinology

David March
office: (410) 955-1534
cell: (410) 598-7056
E-mail: dmarch1@jhmi.edu

David B. March, a science writer and former public relations agency consultant, joined the media relations staff at Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Office of Corporate Communications in May 2004.  March comes to Hopkins from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he practiced media relations for Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center.

Prior to joining the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, March was a media relations consultant for Vancouver General Hospital in British Columbia, Canada. 

March received his bachelor of sciences degree in biology from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and holds a master of health administration degree from the University of Ottawa.

Beats Covered

• AIDS/HIV
• Cardiology/Cardiac Surgery
• Hospital Epidemiology
• Infection/Infectious Diseases
• Otolaryngology
• Pathology
• Pulmonary

Ekaterina Pesheva

office: 410-516-4996
cell : 410-926-6780
e-mail : epeshev1@jhmi.edu

As a senior media relations representative, Ekaterina is responsible for reporting on faculty research and assisting media in developing stories about basic science and clinical research. Prior to joining the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, Ekaterina worked at the University of Missouri-Columbia as a research assistant and a health writer for a federal project designed to improve media coverage of arthritis and rheumatologic diseases. Prior to that, she worked as a medical and general-assignment reporter for two newspapers in St. Louis.  She is a recipient of the Missouri Press Association Award for News Reporting.  Ekaterina has a master’s degree in Journalism and Strategic Communication from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism and a bachelor’s from Truman State University.

Beats Covered

• Johns Hopkins Childrens' Center
• Pediatrics

Beth Simpkins
office: (410) 955-4288
cell: (443) 838-0504
email: bsimpkins@jhmi.edu

Beth Simpkins joined the office of Marketing and Communications in September 1996. As the News Media Services Coordinator, Beth manages the Johns Hopkins Medicine news and information web site including technical support for the podcast operation, RSS feeds and multimedia news content. She coordinates press release distribution and responds to media inquiries. She also coordinates social media efforts for Johns Hopkins Medicine news.

Beth holds a bachelor's degree in Public Relations from the University of Florida.

Elizabeth Tracey
Director, Electronic News Media
office: (410) 955-2877
cell: (410) 215-7749
e-mail: etracey@jhmi.edu

Elizabeth Tracey, MS, brings more than 15 years of broadcast and print medical journalism experience to the position of Director of the Johns Hopkins HealthNewsfeed radio service, a daily one-minute objective medical news program broadcast throughout the United States and internationally via Voice of America.  This free service highlights medical information of interest to the general public.

More information about Health Newsfeed or JHM Podcasts.

Vanessa Wasta
Vanessa Wasta
office: (410)614-2916
pager: (410)283-8034
E-mail: wastava@jhmi.edu

Vanessa Wasta joined the Public Affairs Office for the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in September 1998. She holds a bachelor of science in biology and a master of business administration with a concentration in marketing. Previously, she worked in the Marketing and Public Relations Office for the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center.

Beats Covered

• Cancer/Oncology
• Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center

 Maryalice Yakutchik

office:  443-287-2251
cell: 443-838-3346
email:  myakutc1@jhmi.edu

Maryalice Yakutchik is a writer specializing in basic science research for Johns Hopkins Medicine. Before joining the media relations staff in June 2008, she was an international correspondent producing live Web expeditions for the Discovery Channel, a writer and producer of Web documentaries for Fusionspark Media, and an instructor of journalism at Loyola College in Maryland. She also regularly contributed freelance work to a range of media, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Smithsonian magazine and National Public Radio. 

Her latest book, Womens Lacrosse: A Guide for Advanced Players and Coaches was published in April 2008 by the Johns Hopkins University Press. 

Beats covered:

• Biological Chemistry
• Bioinformatics
• Biomedical Engineering
• Biophysics
• Cell Biology
• Functional Anatomy & Evolution
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Neurosciences
• Pharmacology
• Physiology
• Veterinary & Comparative Medicine

Also see - Audrey Huang 410-614-5105 e-mail: audrey@jhmi.edu