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R. Paul Johnson will join Yerkes National Primate Research Center as director on August 1, 2014. Johnson currently serves as director of the New England Primate Research Center (NEPRC), chair of the NEPRC Division of Immunology, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. He will succeed Stuart Zola, who has served as director of Yerkes since 2001.

Emory named top ‘green school’ among US universities

The US Green Building Council’s Center for Green Schools gave Emory top honors in its annual “Best of Green Schools 2013” report for maintaining “sustainability as one of its top priorities—to help restore the global ecosystem, foster healthy living, and reduce the university’s impact on the local environment.” Emory has among the highest square footage of LEED-certified space of any campus in the US.

Saint Joseph’s receives fifth Magnet designation

Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital has received Magnet recognition for the fifth time from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Saint Joseph’s is one of only three hospitals in the world to receive five consecutive designations. Emory Healthcare is the only health system in Georgia with two Magnet-designated hospitals. Emory University Hospital was recognized for the first time in January.

Humanities professors win Guggenheim Fellowships

Professor of Religion Joyce Flueckiger and Professor of Art History Bonna Wescoat were selected as Guggenheim Fellows in April by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Flueckiger has carried out extensive fieldwork in India, working with both Hindu and Muslim popular traditions. Wescoat has spent more than 35 years studying the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on the Greek island of Samothrace.

Carter Center appoints new CEO

Mary Ann Peters will become chief executive officer of The Carter Center on Sept. 2. Currently provost of the US Naval War College, Peters spent more than 30 years as a career diplomat with the US Department of State, including serving as US ambassador to Bangladesh from 2000 until 2003, when she received a Presidential Meritorious Service Award. She succeeds John Hardman, who has held the post since 1992.

NCI designates Winship lead clinical trial site

Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University is one of 30 centers chosen as a Lead Academic Participating Site for the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) new National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN). The NCTN serves as NCI’s primary infrastructure to conduct phase II and III cancer clinical trials. Winship is one of only five centers in the Southeast to be chosen for the NCTN.

Nursing professor top grant winner

Cancer researcher Deborah Watkins Bruner, Woodruff Professor of Nursing at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and associate director of cancer outcomes at Winship Cancer Institute, was awarded $2.8 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grants in 2013—the top-ranked nurse researcher in the world in terms of total grant support from the NIH.

Emory student wins leadership award

Omar Villanueva, an Emory graduate student in chemistry, was named a 2014 recipient of the annual K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Villanueva was among eight graduate students from a pool of 225 nominees representing 125 institutions of higher education across the nation to receive the future leaders award.

NIH study examines asthma therapy for African Americans

Emory School of Medicine and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta are recruiting patients for a National Institutes of Health clinical study on asthma in African Americans that will assess how they react to therapies and explore the role of genetics in determining response to asthma treatment. African Americans suffer higher rates of asthma attacks, hospitalizations, and asthma-related deaths than whites.

Rollins welcomes new chair

Colleen McBride joins the Rollins School of Public Health as Rollins professor and chair in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education in July. A renowned researcher in behavioral epidemiology, McBride works on developing innovative public health interventions to promote risk-reducing behaviors. Her research focuses on ways to use genetic information to inform and motivate healthy behaviors.

Summer institute focuses on black aesthetics

Scholars will examine the concepts and criteria for art from the defining era of the Harlem Renaissance to what black aesthetics mean today at the Emory summer institute “Black Aesthetics and African Centered Cultural Expressions: Sacred Systems in the Nexus between Cultural Studies, Religion, and Philosophy” to be held July 13 to August 1 and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

School of Nursing launches NNP program

Emory’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing will begin Georgia’s only Neonatal Nurse Practitioner (NNP) program in the fall. The graduate program will educate experienced neonatal nurses as primary, acute, and critical care advanced practice nurses with extensive clinical preparation in comprehensive physical assessments, diagnostic evaluations, and symptom and disease management for newborns.