December 5, 2005

Dear Colleagues:

We are immensely pleased and gratified that the extraordinary accomplishments and cooperation of eight of The Johns Hopkins University’s schools and entities were instrumental in persuading the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to award a $15 million grant to a 21-institution consortium we assembled to create a National Center for the Study of High Consequence Event Preparedness and Response.

This new center will be dedicated to studying all aspects of preparing for and responding to national emergencies. The most important goal of our education program will be to create an infrastructure to train disaster experts, from today’s scientists to tomorrow’s leaders in academia, health care and public service.

Following 9/11, Hopkins President Bill Brody wrote to Tom Ridge, then the Secretary of Homeland Security, saying Hopkins wished to use its remarkable resources to help the nation prepare for disasters, be they man-made or natural. With the significant and ongoing support of The Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Johns Hopkins Health System, and the School of Medicine, the prompt, subsequent creation of the university’s Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR), demonstrated our commitment to that effort. CEPAR is the command center and clearinghouse for Hopkins-wide planning for and response to emergencies, and our role in this new DHS center, for which CEPAR will be the headquarters, ensures that we will be able to fulfill President Brody’s pledge.

Each of the Hopkins divisions that will be part of the new Center offers unique qualities and will make a significant contribution to the success of this new center:

• The Bloomberg School of Public Health is the premier school of its kind in the nation. Its Center for Public Health Preparedness and Center for Law and the Public’s Health lead efforts to educate public health workers in preparing for terrorism and responding to it.
• The School of Medicine is world-famous for research, particularly in emerging infections, and its Department of Emergency Medicine is the leading emergency science department in the country.
• The Applied Physics Laboratory has an unparalleled set of special skills in the technological development of solutions to operational problems.
• The Nitze School of Advanced International Studies is a national leader in international relations. Its experience may improve local response to international crises.
• The School of Professional Studies in Business and Education provides undergraduate and graduate courses in public safety leadership and has extensive experience developing leaders in the law enforcement community.
• The Whiting School of Engineering’s Information Security Institute has experience in cyber security.
• The Krieger School of Arts and Sciences will provide undergraduate educational opportunities in these fields.
• CEPAR’s leaders and faculty have vast experience in research, administration and providing education on responses to critical events.

We are extremely grateful for all that these Hopkins entities did to help ensure the success of our application for this grant. We and our partners in educational and private institutions across the country look forward to working together to research and develop innovative educational programs for critical Homeland Security missions.

Sincerely,

Gabor Kelen, M.D., professor and director of the Department of Emergency Medicine and director of CEPAR.

Lynn Goldman, M.D., M.P.H., professor of environmental health sciences in the Bloomberg School of Public Health