There is most definitely a Hopkins link, but not pertaining to design. Johns Hopkins was where the ORO (Operations Research Office) was located. This was an Army funded civilian research group that, among other things, looked into things like should there be a NATO standard for ammo, what, in actual combat engagements, are average ranges of engagement, etc.? They actually got the BRL (Ballistics Research Lab) at Aberdeen Proving Ground to look at small caliber rounds seriously. That's when the SCHV project began and the developement of the early versions of 5.56 ammo was done - by engineers at APG. The rest is (even more muddled) history.
So your answer is, it really did kinda get started at Hopkins, in a round-a-bout way. But the design of the rifle itself was done by Eugene Stoner and others at Armalite.