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Steven A. Cummer
William H. Younger Distinguished Professor of Engineering
Dr. Steven Cummer received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1997 and prior to joining Duke University in 1999 he spent two years at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as an NRC postdoctoral research associate. Awards he has received include a National Science Foundation CAREER award and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2001. His current work is in a variety of theoretical and experimental electromagnetic problems related to geophysical remote sensing and engineered electromagnetic materials.
Appointments and Affiliations
- William H. Younger Distinguished Professor of Engineering
- Associate Chair of Faculty Affairs in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Bass Fellow
Contact Information
- Office Location: 3455 CIEMAS, Durham, NC 27708
- Office Phone: +1 919 660 5256
- Email Address: cummer@duke.edu
- Websites:
Education
- Ph.D. Stanford University, 1997
- M.S.E.E. Stanford University, 1993
- B.S.E.E. Stanford University, 1991
Research Interests
Theoretical and experimental electromagnetic problems related to geophysical remote sensing and engineered electromagnetic materials.
Awards, Honors, and Distinctions
- Stansell Family Distinguished Research Award. Pratt School of Engineering. 2018
- Fellow. Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. 2011
- Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers. President of the United States of America. 2001
Courses Taught
- ECE 891: Internship
- ECE 590: Advanced Topics in Electrical and Computer Engineering
- ECE 574: Waves in Matter
- ECE 493: Projects in Electrical and Computer Engineering
- ECE 392: Projects in Electrical and Computer Engineering
- ECE 391: Projects in Electrical and Computer Engineering
- ECE 270L9: Fields and Waves: Fundamentals of Information Propagation (Lab)
- ECE 270DL: Fields and Waves: Fundamentals of Information Propagation
- ECE 110L: Fundamentals of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- ECE 110L9: Fundamentals of Electrical and Computer Engineering - Lab
In the News
- Most Tropical Lightning Storms Are Radioactive (Oct 4, 2024 | Pratt School of Engineering)
- Snap, Crackle, Pop: How Lightning Works (Aug 21, 2024 | Pratt School of Engineering)
- Steve Cummer: New Information on “Gigantic Jet” Lightning Bursts That Reach Toward Space (Aug 5, 2022 | Georgia Tech University)
- Moving Tiny Things ... With Sound (Aug 25, 2021 | Pratt School of Engineering)
- Steve Cummer on Studying Waves in Duke Forest (Mar 1, 2021)
- The Science of Lightning: Steven Cummer Answers Your Questions (May 14, 2020 | Pratt School of Engineering)
- A Research Tour of Duke's Largest Laboratory (Dec 15, 2019 | Duke Research Blog)
- Duke Adds 21 Faculty to Distinguished Faculty Rank (May 7, 2019)
- Beyond Materials: From Invisibility Cloaks to Satellite Communications (Mar 26, 2018 | Duke Stories)
- Steven Cummer explains auditory invisible cloaks (May 23, 2016 | Marketplace Tech)
- 3D-printed device helps computers solve cocktail-party problem (Aug 11, 2015 | Nature)
- 'Hearing aid' picks out voices in a crowd: Device mimics how the brain processes sound using the 'cocktail party effect' (Aug 11, 2015 | The Daily Mail)
- Steven Cummer: Is there more to lightning than meets the eye? (Apr 21, 2015 | The News & Observer)
- There's More to Lightning Than Meets the Eye (Jan 26, 2015)
- On the hunt for a sprite on a midsummer's night (Sep 29, 2014 | The New York Times)
- 3D-acoustic cloaking device can make you invisible -- to dolphins (Mar 12, 2014 | The Huffington Post UK)
Representative Publications
- Cummer, S, Data from: Indirectly measured ambient electric fields for lightning initiation in fast breakdown regions (2020) [10.7924/r4g44p43t] [abs].
- Xie, Y; Tsai, T-H; Konneker, A; Popa, B-I; Brady, DJ; Cummer, SA, Single-sensor multispeaker listening with acoustic metamaterials., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol 112 no. 34 (2015), pp. 10595-10598 [10.1073/pnas.1502276112] [abs].
- Lu, G; Cummer, SA, Implications of lightning emissions for terrestrial gamma-ray flashes and associated lightning discharges, 2014 International Conference on Lightning Protection, ICLP 2014 (2014), pp. 1496-1502 [10.1109/ICLP.2014.6973365] [abs].
- Zigoneanu, L; Popa, B-I; Cummer, SA, Three-dimensional broadband omnidirectional acoustic ground cloak., Nature materials, vol 13 no. 4 (2014), pp. 352-355 [10.1038/nmat3901] [abs].
- Cummer, SA, Applied physics. Selecting the direction of sound transmission., Science (New York, N.Y.), vol 343 no. 6170 (2014), pp. 495-496 [10.1126/science.1249616] [abs].