Ralph Etienne-Cummings Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs
Ralph Etienne-Cummings assumed the position of Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs in July 2022. In this role, Dr. Etienne-Cummings will be a key contributor to the development and execution of the long-term vision of the Office of the Provost. Specifically, he will work closely with schools across the university to address pressing issues facing our faculty, identify opportunities to increase collaboration, increase faculty diversity, and continue efforts to improve mentorship programs for our junior faculty.
Dr. Etienne-Cummings has been a Johns Hopkins faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 1998 with a secondary appointment in Computer Science. He served as chair of the Electrical and Engineering department from 2014 to 2020.
Dr. Etienne-Cummings earned a bachelor’s in Physics from Lincoln University and a master’s and PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. Etienne-Cummings has published nearly 400 technical articles, books/book chapters, and patents related to his research pursuits over a career that spans more than three decades. He is the founding director of the Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering and has received numerous awards and recognitions for his research, including the National Science Foundation’s Career and Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award and multiple JHU Discovery Awards.
A pioneer for the past three decades in mobile robotics and legged locomotion, Ralph Etienne-Cummings’ innovations have the potential to produce computers that can perform recognition tasks as effortlessly and efficiently as humans can and has developed prosthetics that can seamlessly interface with the human body to restore functionality after injury or to overcome the disease. His research foci include developing systems and algorithms for biologically inspired and low-power processing, biomorphic robots, closed-loop neural prosthetics, and computer-integrated surgical systems and technologies.