Rama Chellappa

Rama Chellappa is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He serves as interim Co-Director of the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Initiative. A pioneer in artificial intelligence, his research focuses on computer vision, pattern recognition, and machine learning with applications in biometrics, healthcare, and autonomous systems. He previously held leadership roles at the University of Maryland, including Department Chair and Center Director.

Chellappa's education includes a doctorate from Purdue University under Professors Fukunaga, Kashyap, and King Sun-Fu. His work on facial recognition systems (e.g., the Janus project) and gait analysis has been widely recognized. He co-leads multidisciplinary research groups at JHU's Center for Imaging Science and Institute for Assured Autonomy.

His research interests integrate computer vision with biomedical challenges, such as using motion capture for Parkinson's diagnosis and developing AI tools for medical imaging. Notable contributions include adversarial learning frameworks, bias mitigation in algorithms, and multimodal recognition systems. He has published extensively in top journals and conferences, including IEEE and CVPR venues.

Chellappa has received prestigious awards including the IEEE Signal Processing Medal and National Academy of Engineering membership. His 2022 book Can We Trust AI? explores ethical AI applications. Current projects include AI-driven tumor simulation and fair machine learning systems.

• Labs/Teams: AI for Engineering and Medicine Lab
• Key Collaborations: National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense
• Grants: NSF, NIH, DARPA-funded projects on AI ethics, biometrics, and medical AI