Jonathan Bratt and Adrianne Hammershaimb are recognized as individuals under the age of 40 who are making a difference in the workplace and shaping the future of the Greater Baltimore community.
Two members of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) community — Jonathan Bratt, MS, CEM, and Elizabeth Adrianne Hammershaimb, MD, MS — were named to the Baltimore Business Journal’s annual 40 Under 40 list, which honors 40 professionals under the age of 40 who are making a difference in the workplace and shaping the future of the Greater Baltimore community.
Bratt, executive director of the UMB Office of Emergency Management (OEM), and Hammershaimb, instructor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s (UMSOM) Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (CVD), were among the 40 chosen from 270 nominations by the newspaper’s editorial staff. The winners will be honored during a Nov. 17 event at the Marriott Owings Mills Metro Centre and featured in the Nov. 18 edition of the Baltimore Business Journal.
Commitment to Emergency Management
Dawn M. Rhodes, DBA, vice president and chief business and finance officer, UMB, nominated Bratt for the award, saying, “His authority, capacity to think rationally during crisis, and talent for discerning lessons out of loss are a north star for the Baltimore community. His blend of in-the-moment courage and innate ability to advocate for big-picture change is exceptional.
“Jonathan’s commitment to serve has spanned more than 20 years,” Rhodes added about Bratt, who joined UMB in 2018 as the University’s first-ever emergency manager. “By leading with empathy through challenges, he helps Greater Baltimore not only survive, but also thrive.”
In his four years at UMB, Bratt and his team have helped to establish a new model for a university-based 911 system, created Maryland’s first fellowship in emergency management, installed door locks across UMB as added protection in the unlikely event of an active assailant on campus, and provided critical leadership to UMB’s COVID-19 pandemic response and recovery. OEM also helps to support cardiopulmonary resuscitation, automated external defibrillator, and Stop the Bleed training.
Bratt says his team’s most important accomplishment has been forming relationships across UMB and with peers from other universities and city and state emergency management agencies.
“Successful emergency management requires a culture of intense teamwork, flexibility, a willingness to share resources, and a can-do attitude,” Bratt said. “We’ve been able to make interdisciplinary partnerships more commonplace, promote an environment of collaborative risk mitigation and prevention, and facilitate a culture of institutional learning and continuous improvement.”
Bratt also is a member of the Arbutus, Md., Volunteer Fire Department, a member of Gov. Larry Hogan’s Emergency Management Advisory Council, deputy team commander of the New Jersey-1 Federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team, and a board member of the American Red Cross of Central Maryland. In 2021, he received the American Red Cross Exemplary Service “Superman” Award, recognizing his volunteer service to the organization.
“To say Jonathan has impacted everybody in Greater Baltimore is no exaggeration,” Rhodes said. “Not only has he directly saved countless lives, his indirect impact through training future helpers and leaders, as well as his policy advocacy to prevent or recover from emergencies, is immeasurable.”
The Baltimore Business Journal award is the latest in a string of honors for Bratt and/or his team. In 2020, Bratt and the OEM staff were recognized as UMB Champions of Excellence for their efforts to help coordinate the University’s COVID-19 response and recovery efforts and keep the community healthy and safe.
In 2021, Bratt was among the UMB employees honored with a President’s Core Values Award for collaboration, celebrating their work in transforming the SMC Campus Center into a COVID-19 vaccination site for health care workers and other front-line personnel. Those efforts also were recognized this year when Bratt, his OEM colleagues, and others from UMB were presented with a Governor’s Citation from Hogan.
“These honors are both humbling and validating,” said Bratt, who adds that he appreciates the recognition because first responders and emergency management professionals often do a lot of work to prepare for events that thankfully never happen. “We’re all extremely committed to our work, and the OEM team has worked incredibly hard over the past few years to serve the community, save lives, and protect UMB’s ability to achieve its mission of improving the human condition.
“I felt a deep sense of gratitude to the University for providing me the tools, resources, and opportunity to accomplish work that’s worthy of this 40 Under 40 recognition. It’s a great honor!”
Protecting Kids from COVID
Hammershaimb is well-regarded by her colleagues and known for her commitment and passion for protecting children from infectious disease. She played a key role in the Moderna and Novavax COVID-19 vaccine trials in Maryland and led a study that helped influence the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) messaging on administering the vaccine to children.
After completing her residency training in pediatrics at Inova Children’s Hospital in Falls Church, Va., Hammershaimb joined UMSOM in 2019 to undertake subspeciality fellowship training in pediatric infectious diseases. Shortly after she arrived, the first cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed in Maryland.
Hammershaimb diagnosed and reported some of Maryland’s earliest cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) — a disease in children related to COVID-19 — and soon became a highly sought-after resource for the latest developments in prevention, testing, and treatment for COVID-19 in children and MIS-C. She helped implement hospital policies and helped educate medical students and pediatricians across the University of Maryland Medical System and the community on the topics of COVID-19 in children and MIS-C.
She also helped lead the Moderna and Novavax vaccine trials at UMSOM’s satellite site at CASA de Maryland in Prince George’s County, providing outreach to the Hispanic community and ensuring that the trial was inclusive of Hispanic Marylanders. This work was significant because the Hispanic community in the state traditionally has not been involved in clinical research and was disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
Hammershaimb simultaneously engaged in research related to COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, work that caught the attention of national policymakers and public health leaders and was used in discussions of how to appropriately message the public on the topic. This year, she presented her work to the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ COVID-19 Working Group, which influenced how the organization disseminated information and recommendations to the public on the COVID-19 vaccine for children.
“Of all our work during the pandemic, what sticks out the most in my mind is the work we did to study the COVID-19 vaccine in children,” she said. “Long after adults had the opportunity to be protected against COVID-19 by vaccines, children were still waiting. We worked tirelessly to close that gap without compromising on the safety of the vaccine and making sure that it was just as effective in children as it was in adults.
“Getting the first vaccines approved for adults was a hard-won victory, but getting one approved for children as young as 6 months old felt like we finally finished what we set out to do — protect everyone from COVID-19.”
Hammershaimb said she was surprised and humbled to earn the 40 Under 40 recognition.
“There are so many people at CVD, UMB, and around the city doing incredible work,” she said. “I asked myself, ‘Why me when there are so many people who deserve this?’ But I realized that the teams I work with at CVD are all behind this honor — everything we accomplish is a team effort, and we all root for each other.”