School of Medicine Dean’s Distinguished Mentoring Award
The Dean’s Distinguished Mentoring Award honors a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine faculty member whose exceptional career has included the mentoring of individuals who have gone on to establish independent, eminent careers in academic medicine. The Dean's Distinguished Mentoring Award is supported by a gift from Dr. Frances Meyer and Dr. Paul Rothman.
2026 School of Medicine Dean’s Distinguished Mentoring Award Lecture
Thursday, April 30, 4–5 p.m.
Johns Hopkins Hospital Chevy Chase Auditorium
2026 Award Recipient
David A. Kass, M.D.
Abraham and Virginia Weiss Professor of Cardiology
Professor of Medicine
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Lecture: “Why Do We Have a Department of Medicine in the School of Medicine?”
Myron L. Weisfeldt, M.D.
Past Director of the Department of Medicine (2001-2014)
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
David A. Kass, M.D.
David A. Kass, M.D., is the Abraham and Virginia Weiss Professor of Cardiology and a professor of medicine, biomedical engineering, and physiology, pharmacology and therapeutics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He joined Johns Hopkins as a cardiology fellow in 1983 and has published more than 545 original papers with over 63,000 citations. His honors include the Louis and Artur Lucian award, the American Heart Association Distinguished Scientist award and two consecutive NIH R35 Outstanding Investigator awards.
Mentorship is a hallmark of his career. Over his 40-plus years at Johns Hopkins, he has trained more than 110 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, many of whom now hold leadership roles in cardiovascular science. Dr. Kass is recognized not only for advancing the field, but for building a rigorous, collaborative training environment that develops the next generation of investigators.
Trained in engineering at Harvard and medicine at Yale, Dr. Kass pioneered pressure-volume analysis in human hearts, advancing pacemaker‑based cardiac resynchronization therapy. He co‑founded Cardioxyl to develop nitroxyl for heart failure, discovered how drugs like Viagra impact the heart, and has significantly advanced understanding of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) as a systemic illness. His NIH‑supported lab now focuses on heart failure mechanisms and therapies, including HFpEF.
Myron L. Weisfeldt, M.D.
Myron L. Weisfeldt, M.D., is a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a medical consultant for Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures. He served as the William Osler Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins from 2001 to 2014. Earlier in his career, he was director of cardiology at Johns Hopkins from 1975 to 1991 and chair of the Department of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons from 1991 to 2001.
Dr. Weisfeldt earned his M.D. from Johns Hopkins, completed cardiology training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and pursued three years of research training at the National Institutes of Health. His research has focused on cardiac function, aging-related changes in the heart and circulation, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He led the American Heart Association effort to develop and test automatic external defibrillators for bystander use and, from 2003 to 2019, served as study chair for a National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute–sponsored international network conducting randomized trials of devices, drugs and other therapies for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and severe traumatic injury.
A past president of the American Heart Association and a member of the National Academy of Medicine, Dr. Weisfeldt received the American Heart Association’s Eugene Braunwald Mentoring Award in 2022.
2025 Award Recipient
Jeremy D. Walston, M.D.
Raymond and Anna Lublin Professor of Geriatric Medicine
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology
Lecture: “The Alchemy of Johns Hopkins and the Magic of Mentoring”
David B. Hellmann, M.D., M.A.C.P.
Aliki Perroti Professor of Medicine
Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Innovative Medicine
2024 Award Recipient
David B. Hellmann, M.D., M.A.C.P.
Aliki Perroti Professor of Medicine
David B. Hellmann, M.D. Endowed Professorship
Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Innovative Medicine
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Lecture on the Importance of Mentoring: “The Bleeding Always Stops”
William R. Brody, M.D., Ph.D.
Past President of The Johns Hopkins University (1996–2009)
2023 Award Recipient
Elizabeth M. Jaffee, M.D., FAACR, FACP, FAAAS
The Dana and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli Professor of Oncology
Deputy Director, Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
Co-Director, Gastrointestinal Cancers Program
Guest Speaker: David A. Tuveson, M.D., Ph.D.
Director of the Cancer Center at CSHL & Roy J. Zuckerberg Professor of Cancer Research
Chief Scientist, Lustgarten Foundation
Past President, AACR
2022 Award Recipient
Charles Cummings, M.D.
Distinguished Service Professor of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery
Lecture: “Dr. Charles W. Cummings: Inside the Mind of a Mentor”
Charles Limb, M.D.
Francis A. Sooy professor and chief of the division of otology, neurotology and skull base surgery at the UCSF School of Medicine
2021 Award Recipient
Henry Brem, M.D.
Harvey Cushing Professor of Neurosurgery
Director of the Department of Neurosurgery
Neurosurgeon-in-Chief, The Johns Hopkins Hospital
Lecture: “From the Discovery of the First Angiogenesis Inhibitors to the Development of Controlled Drug Delivery Systems for Treating Nearly Any Disease: My Journey with Henry Brem”
Robert Langer, Sc.D.
David H. Koch Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Watch the recording.
2020 Award Recipient
Catherine DeAngelis, M.D.
University Distinguished Service Professor Emerita
Lecture: “Health Equity: We Can't Have One Without the Other”
Richard Besser, M.D.
President and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
2019 Award Recipient
Mike Weisfeldt, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Lecture: “From Academia, to Government and Industry: Lessons Learned About Biomedical Sciences”
Elias Zerhouni, M.D.
Professor Emeritus of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering
Former Executive Vice Dean, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
2018 Award Recipient
George Bigelow, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Lecture: “Ending the Opioid Crisis: The Role of Science”
Nora Volkow, M.D.
Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health
2017 Award Recipient
Donald Coffey, Ph.D.
Distinguished Service Professor of Urology
Professor Emeritus of Oncology, Pathology, and Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences
Lecture: “The Changing Landscape of Cancer Drug Resistance”
Charles Sawyers, M.D.
Chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
2016 Award Recipient
Guy McKhann, M.D.
First director, Department of Neurology
Founding director, Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute
Lecture: “The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain from Vienna 1900 to the Present”
Eric Kandel, M.D.
Director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University