Baker to be Inducted into Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame (web article)

Susan Baker, MPH, professor of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was selected for induction into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame, which is managed by the Maryland Commission for Women, honors Maryland women who make unique and lasting contributions to the economic, political, cultural and social life of the state, and provides models of achievement for tomorrow’s female leaders.

An epidemiologist specializing in injury prevention, Baker was the first director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy. Her research focuses on aviation safety, teenage drivers and investigations of motor vehicle occupant and pedestrian deaths among children and adults. She has also studied crashes of motorcycles and heavy trucks, carbon monoxide poisoning, drowning, childhood asphyxiation, house fires, falls in the elderly, homicide, suicide and fatal occupational injuries. She is well known for developing the widely-used Injury Severity Score, an anatomical scoring system that provides an overall score for patients with multiple injuries, and for authoring the Injury Fact Book. Dr. R.A. Cowley, founder of the Shock-Trauma center at the University of Maryland, credited Baker’s early research with documenting the need for a statewide emergency medical services system.

Baker is an ardent advocate of policy changes that will prevent injuries. Much of her teaching and research is designed to influence the legislators, administrators, media representatives and others whose decisions can determine the likelihood of injury for thousands of people.

Edyth Schoenrich, MD, MPH, associate director of the Master of Public Health Programs at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in 2005. Dr. Schoenrich, also a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, was recognized for her clinical practice in internal medicine, hematology and general preventive medicine.

The Hall of Fame is located in the Maryland Law Library in Annapolis, which is adorned with a plaque and information about the honorees. Among those honored are legislators, political and social activists, scientists, educators, writers and business, spiritual and community leaders. They represent women who have helped to shape the State of Maryland, the United States and the world.

A formal recognition ceremony will be held at 5:30 p.m. on March 9, 2006, in Annapolis. – Kenna L. Lowe