March 6, 2010 | by Andrea Appleton
Anne Marie McKenzie-Brown, Med ’87
Investing by Proxy
For Anne Marie McKenzie-Brown it is all about the vicarious satisfaction of helping others help others. As chair of the Alumni Council’s Student Grants and Programs Committee, McKenzie-Brown supports the enterprising efforts of students who pitch projects that aim either to serve others through community-based work or to enhance the campus experience through cultural programming.
Every year, McKenzie-Brown and her team sift through a thick pile of applications, identifying student projects that are worthy of funding and deciding how much money to allot. “This committee allows me, by proxy, to invest in the lives of others,” says McKenzie-Brown, who began serving on the Alumni Council
six years ago for the same reason she became an
anesthesiologist and pain management specialist: to help people.
In 2009, she and her fellow committee members gave their blessing to 65 diverse proposals that were awarded a total of $50,000 in grant monies, including a service trip by nursing students to Haiti after January’s earthquake, an off-road vehicle design-and-construction project by engineering students, and an exhibition of capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art.
Recently, the committee has started funding more international student projects, which are especially meaningful to McKenzie-Brown. “I’m Jamaican, originally from a Third World country,” she says, “and I think it’s wonderful that students are taking the Johns Hopkins name abroad and using their knowledge to help people overseas.”
Anne Marie McKenzie-Brown, Med ’87
For Anne Marie McKenzie-Brown it is all about the vicarious satisfaction of helping others help others. As chair of the Alumni Council’s Student Grants and Programs Committee, McKenzie-Brown supports the enterprising efforts of students who pitch projects that aim either to serve others through community-based work or to enhance the campus experience through cultural programming.
Every year, McKenzie-Brown and her team sift through a thick pile of applications, identifying student projects that are worthy of funding and deciding how much money to allot. “This committee allows me, by proxy, to invest in the lives of others,” says McKenzie-Brown, who began serving on the Alumni Council six years ago for the same reason she became an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist: to help people.
In 2009, she and her fellow committee members gave their blessing to 65 diverse proposals that were awarded a total of $50,000 in grant monies, including a service trip by nursing students to Haiti after January’s earthquake, an off-road vehicle design-and-construction project by engineering students, and an exhibition of capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art.
Recently, the committee has started funding more international student projects, which are especially meaningful to McKenzie-Brown. “I’m Jamaican, originally from a Third World country,” she says, “and I think it’s wonderful that students are taking the Johns Hopkins name abroad and using their knowledge to help people overseas.”
Photo by Will Kirk/Homewoodphoto.jhu.edu
