The Johns Hopkins Hospital
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Baltimore, MD 21287
News
Explore the latest news and discoveries from our research lab. Our team of experts is dedicated to advancing knowledge in various fields.
We're excited to welcome Rhea Charles to the lab as our new Lab Research Coordinator!
Looking forward to having you as part of the team and to all the great work ahead
Fun facts about Rhea: She speaks 5 languages and loves to try different cuisines while traveling!
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Congratulations to Dr. Michelle Johansen on becoming the Acting Director of the Comstock Center in Hagerstown!
The George W. Comstock Center for Public Health Research and Prevention in Hagerstown, Maryland, has supported community-based research for more than 60 years. With experienced staff, strong community partnerships, established research infrastructure, and decades of valuable health data and biospecimens, the Center continues to provide unique opportunities for innovative public health research.
Congratulations to lab member Jing Wang on her first first-author publication!
Her paper, Late-Life Incident Stroke in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study: Etiology and Prediction, has been published in Stroke on April 30th, 2026. Congratulations on this exciting milestone!
We are thrilled to congratulate lab member Sandra Kong on matching into her top-choice Internal Medicine residency at UCLA Health.
This exciting achievement reflects her dedication, hard work, and commitment to patient care. We wish her continued success as she begins the next chapter of her medical training.
Congratulations to lab member Sandra Kong on having her research abstract accepted to the American Neurological Association (ANA) Annual Meeting!
Stay tuned for her abstract presentation on October 17-20th in San Diego, CA!
Congratulations to lab member Meghna on graduating with Honors and successfully completing her DREAMS project!
We are proud of her accomplishments and wish her continued success in the next chapter of her academic and professional journey.
Lab Member Kate Petitt Presents Research at the 2026 International Stroke Conference (ISC)
Kate's project was entitled "Is Associated With Adverse Measures of Brain Health Among Patients With Cardiovascular Risk Factors?"
Lab members Jing Wang & Jonathan Yao Present at 2025 American Neurological Association Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD
Jonathan's project was entitled "Are Lipoprotein A and Apolipoprotein B Levels Associated with Cognitive Performance among Patients with Cardiovascular Risk Factors?"
Jing's project was entitled "The Differences in Stroke Etiology by Age, with Mediation Effect of Embolic Risk Factors: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study".
Congratulations to Johansen Lab member Daniel Mousavi for starting his new enrollment at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (CCLCM) on a full-tuition scholarship where he will be pursuing a 5-year research intensive MD focusing on neuroengineering. His research project will be engineering closed-loop deep brain stimulation models for Parkinson's patients.
Congratulations to Johansen Lab member Sandra Kong for being awarded the 2025 AHA Student Scholarship in Cerebrovascular Disease and Stroke!
Dr. Johansen's Guy McKhann, M.D. Associate Professorship in Neurology Celebration
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Lab Member Jing Wang presented her research entitle "Dose the Rate of Acute Ischemic Stroke Treatment Received Differ by Atrial Fibrillation Status?" at American Neurological Association 2024 Meeting in Orlando, FL.
Manasi has graduated from JHU with a B.S. in Neuroscience with Honors and a minor in the Writing Seminars.
Samantha has graduated from JHU with a B.S. in Neuroscience and Sociology and will be starting her masters in Medical Science at Brown University in the Fall.
Our newest Research Coordinator, Jing, has graduated with a Masters in Epidemiology from the Bloomberg School of Public Health.
DREAMS 2023
Manasi's Neuroscience Honors Project
Lab member Manasi Prashant presented data on demographic differences between those who provided vs declined consent for the NOMINATE Study of atrial fibrillation and cognitive decline. DREAMS is JHU's annual undergraduate research day. Results from this project were also presented to the Clark Family Foundation!
Lab member Sandra Kong presented her research entitled "Determining the Association between Congestive Heart Failure Characteristics and Cognitive Performance" at a moderated poster session at the 2023 International Stroke Conference in Dallas, TX.
Lab members David Zhao & Emma Gootee present at American Neurological Association 2022 Meeting
Congratulations to David and Emma on their poster presentations at the 2022 ANA conference. David's project was entitled "Acute Brain Injury Due to Asymmetric Cerebral Desaturation is Time Dependent in Veno-Arterial Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Monitored by Near Infrared Spectroscopy." Emma projects were entitled "Risk of Recurrent Stroke is Increased When Incident Stroke Etiology is Unknown" and "Racial Differences in Left Atrial Structure Among Patients with Ischemic Stroke without Atrial Fibrillation." The former of Emma's projects was a recipient of a poster award! Follow the link below to learn more.
Dementia risk may be higher if an upper heart chamber is abnormal
A recent study led by our very own Dr. Johansen that was published on August 10, 2022 in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that structural or functional abnormalities within the heart’s left atrium, with or without symptoms, may increase a person’s risk of developing dementia later in life by 35%.
Johansen Lab Student wins the Inaugural Robert Raben Health Equity Innovation Competition at Morehouse School of Medicine
Sandra Kong, second year medical student and Johansen Lab student researcher, recently won the Robert Raben Health Equity Innovation Competition for her project entitled "Optimizing Care Coordination for Patients with Multimorbidity." She and fellow Johns Hopkins medical student Xindi Chen will use their $10,000 award to expand the Multidisciplinary Empowerment for Sustainable Health (MESH) program, which will help to streamline care for some of the most vulnerable patients in the healthcare system.
Johansen Lab student awarded scholarship in Cerebrovascular Disease and Stroke
Congratulations to Johansen Lab member David Zhao for being awarded the AHA Student Scholarship in Cerebrovascular Disease and Stroke! David received this award for his work on determining the association between atrial cardiopathy and cerebral microbleeds.
Videos
Embolic Stroke: A Primer
Johns Hopkins Medicine: A Woman's Journey Executive Women's Briefing 2021
Embolic Stroke: Future Directions
Neurology Spotlight on Junior Faculty and their Groundbreaking Research
Featured in the News
The Investigation of Cardiac Structure Pathology and Associations with Stroke Subtype and Clinical Outcome
In Stroke, Outcomes Differ for Men and Women
No Difference in Cognition After CABG vs PCI
ARCADIA: Predicting the Risk for Atrial Cardiopathy Poststroke
Asymptomatic Coronary Plaque Linked to White Matter Lesions
Podcasts
Neurology Podcast: March 24, 2015 Issue
Stroke in the setting of CNS vasculitis
03/24/2015
ANA Investigates ESUS
05/2020
ANA Investigates the ANA2020 Emerging Scholars Awardees
11/16/2020
ANA Investigates Tenecteplase in Stroke
03/19/2021
Faculty Factory: Habits and Hacks with Michelle C. Johansen, MD, PhD
09/03/2021
Focus on women's health at JHU
11/10/2021