Hopkins on the Hill 2023 Alumni Networking

As interim vice president for federal strategy, Melisa Lindamood leads Johns Hopkins University and Medicine’s legislative and regulatory advocacy related to health care. Since joining Johns Hopkins in 2007, Melisa has worked on a wide range of issues important to academic medical centers and the communities they serve, including telehealth, health equity, graduate medical education, the 340B Drug Pricing Program, provider reimbursement, and workforce. She guides the institutions’ response to various investigations and congressional inquiries and frequently prepares expert witnesses for testimony.

Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, Melisa led the government affairs and communications office at the American Medical Women’s Association, where she worked to advance women in medicine and improve women’s health. Subsequently, she directed legislative affairs for the Baltimore City Health Department, advancing public health, implementing the department’s legislative agenda, and engaging in early implementation of then Mayor Martin O’Malley’s nationally renowned CitiStat.

Melisa received her bachelor’s degree from the University of San Francisco and her master’s in policy studies from Johns Hopkins University. She hails from Marin County, just north of the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a volunteer member on the Y of Central Maryland’s Advocacy Committee and has remained an avid cyclist since crossing America by bicycle in her 20s.

Dr. Wirtz directs the Johns Hopkins Physical Sciences-Oncology Center and co-directs the Cancer Nanotechnology Training Center, both National Cancer Institute-funded entities. He is a co-founder and former associate director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology.

Wirtz studies the biophysical properties of healthy and diseased cells, including interactions between adjacent cells and the role of cellular architecture on nuclear shape and gene expression. Cell biophysics, single molecule manipulation, intracellular particle trafficking, instrument development, tissue engineering, and nanotechnology in biology and medicine are among his research interests. Wirtz was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his contributions to cell micromechanics and cell adhesion. AAAS also recognized Wirtz for his development and applications for particle tracking methods to probe the micromechanical properties of living cells in normal conditions and disease state. In addition, Wirtz is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He is a past recipient of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award and the Whitaker Foundation Biomedical Engineering Foundation Award.

Wirtz has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed articles published in top journals including Science, Nature, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Methods, Nature Reviews Cancer, Nature Materials, Nature Protocols, PNAS, Nature Communications, and Journal of Cell Biology.  Ten of his PhD students and postdoctoral fellows are in faculty positions at research universities and more than a dozen have successful careers in industry.  His work at Hopkins has been cited >30,000 times and has an h-index of 95. He has also given numerous presentations at universities and research institutions around the world.

Wirtz earned his bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium and master’s and doctoral degrees in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University.