The John C. Malone Professorship has been created in recognition of the recent $30 million gift to the Whiting School from alumnus John C. Malone that will support the construction of Malone Hall, a facility dedicated to research in the areas of individualized health, systems engineering, and computing and information sciences.
In keeping with Dr. Malone's belief in the importance of research that crosses disciplines, the Malone professorship will be awarded to an outstanding member of the WSE faculty whose work crosses the borders of multiple disciplines.
Russell H. Taylor, professor of computer science and the director of the Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology (CISST-ERC) has been named the school's inaugural John C. Malone Professor. A dedication ceremony is being planned.
In making the announcement, Nicholas P. Jones, Benjamin T. Rome Dean of the Whiting School, said, "There could be no more fitting recipient of this honor than Russ Taylor. Russ' work in computer-integrated interventional medicine exemplifies the cutting-edge research approach supported by Dr. Malone."
Broadly, Taylor's research includes medical robotics, medical imaging and modeling, complete systems for surgical assistance, image-guided surgery,and what he refers to as "Surgical CAD/CAM." An underlying theme of Taylor's work has been the idea that information-based technologies can have as profound an impact on computer-integrated medicine as they have had on computer integrated manufacturing. To that end, he has pioneered development of surgical systems that integrate novel computer and human/machine interface technologies and that extend surgeons' abilities to achieve better outcomes at lower costs.
After receiving his bachelor's degree from JHU in 1970, Taylor earned his PhD in computer science from Stanford in 1976. That year, he joined IBM Research, where he developed the AML robot language and managed the Automation Technology Department and, later, the Computer-Assisted Surgery Group. In 1995, Taylor returned to Johns Hopkins to join WSE's computer science faculty (while holding joint appointments in the departments of mechanical engineering, radiology, and surgery) and became the founding director of the NSF-funded CISST-ERC in 1998.
Taylor has authored numerous refereed publications, is a Fellow of the IEEE, AIMBE, and Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention(MICCAI) Society, and holds 65 patents. He is also a recipient of the IEEE Robotics Pioneer Award, the Maurice Müller award for excellence in computer-assisted orthopedic surgery, and received the 2010 Enduring Impact Award from the MICCAI Society.