2008 Commencement Speaker
MICHAEL KLAG, DEAN OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF HEALTH, TO SPEAK AT JUNIATA COLLEGE COMMENCEMENT
HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Michael Klag, dean of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a graduate of Juniata College, will receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree and deliver the commencement address at Juniata's 130th Commencement ceremony at 10 a.m., Saturday, May 10 on the Juniata campus.
Dr. Klag is an internationally known expert on the epidemiology and prevention of cardiovascular and kidney disease and has served as the dean of the Bloomberg School since 2005. He has been a faculty member at Johns Hopkins since 1987.
He earned a bachelor's degree from Juniata in 1974 and earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978.
He completed his residency and chief residency in internal medicine at the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center. After his residencies, he served in the U.S. Public Health Service. He came to Johns Hopkins in 1984 as a Fellow in general internal medicine and earned a master's degree in public health in 1987 from the school he now leads.
At Johns Hopkins, he was named the David M. Levine Professor of Medicine in the university's School of Medicine and held joint appointments in the Bloomberg School's Department of Epidemiology and Department of Health Policy and Management. In 2001, he was named vice dean for clinical investigation, where he restructured the university's policies and procedures overseeing research involving human volunteers.
Klag's personal research interests center on the prevention, epidemiology and treatment of hypertension and kidney disease. Starting in 1988, he also directed the John Hopkins Precursors Study, a long-term study of Johns Hopkins medical students that began in 1946 and continues today. The study has contributed to an understanding of how characteristics in young adulthood influence health and disease later in life.
He also has investigated pioneering research in kidney disease, including the first study to assess the incidence of end-stage renal disease and to identify blood pressure as a risk factor for the development of kidney disease.
Klag is a founding member and was interim director of the university's Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research. His research has been published in more than 120 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and he served as editor-in-chief of the "Johns Hopkins Family Health Book."