Pharmacy Professor Wins 2025 Google Research Scholar Award

BALTIMORE, Md. – A Notre Dame of Maryland University pharmacy professor has received the highly selective 2025 Google Research Scholar Award, recognizing early-career faculty around the world for their innovative research. NDMU is one of only two Maryland institutions to receive this year’s award.

Dr. Salahuddin Mohammed, an assistant professor in the School of Pharmacy & Health Professions, received a $60,000 research award to study Alzheimer’s disease risk in traditionally underrepresented populations using advanced machine-learning analyses. He will lead a team of student researchers to analyze large clinical datasets and build models that help predict disease risk and progression. According to the Mayo Clinic, an estimated 70% of the more than 55 million people living with dementia worldwide have Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia. There is currently no cure for Alzheimer's disease.

“The team will leverage machine learning to surface clinically meaningful patterns from years of study data,” said Dr. Mohammed. “This interdisciplinary translational project brings together machine learning, basic science, and clinical research to address health disparities and inform future, more personalized treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.” The Google Research Scholar Program provides funding to early-career professors across fields relevant to Google from health research and software engineering to programming languages and quantum computing, fueling innovation at institutions worldwide.

A prolific contributor, Dr. Mohammed has authored or co-authored more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and mentors up to 10 undergraduate and graduate researchers annually, guiding them through each stage of the research process. Many of his students publish or present their work at academic conferences.

“I like to think of our team as health data detectives,” said Dr. Mohammed. “We’re using machine learning to identify clues in the clinical datasets toward finding effective treatments – ultimately, a cure for Alzheimer’s disease.”

Established in 1895, Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU) is a private, Catholic institution in Baltimore, Maryland, with the mission to educate leaders to transform the world. Notre Dame has been named one of the best "Regional Universities North" by U.S. News & World Report.