Luman Named Assistant Director for Strategy at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Ronald R. Luman has been named Assistant Director for Strategy at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md.

APL Director Ralph D. Semmel created the position to underscore the importance of strategic planning at the Lab. Luman will lead APL in identifying, prioritizing, and resolving key strategic issues. He will also be responsible for putting in place a streamlined and responsive strategic planning process that will be flowed down into the Business Areas and will enable staff to better understand and contribute to the Lab’s long-term and near-term priorities.

For seven years, Luman served at the helm of APL’s National Security Analysis Department. He says his new appointment is a natural extension of that role: “Many of the challenges we address in NSAD — identifying emerging challenges to national security, characterizing operational contexts, defining future force requirements, evaluating the impact and implications of new technology — have helped our sponsors identify their strategic direction, much in the same way that they help the Lab overall identify what direction we should be heading.”

Luman will also lead a new Investment Strategy Team comprised of the assistant directors and chief financial officer that will make recommendations and decisions regarding how the Laboratory should comprehensively invest for the future. He will continue to serve as chair of the Systems Engineering Program for the Whiting School of Engineering, in which more than 800 working technical professionals are pursuing master’s degrees in systems engineering – a core competency for APL.

Luman has served in various line and program management positions, as well as special assignments including technical advisor field assignment to COMSUBPAC in Hawaii, chief analyst for the first system of systems advanced concept technology demonstration for the Office of Naval Research, and as the APL chief systems engineer to the National Security Agency immediately following 9/11. Luman has served on several National Academies committees, including those addressing the role of naval forces in the global war on terror, effects of climate change on national security and the effectiveness of U.S. Army research in survivability and lethality.

He joined the Laboratory in 1978 after earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at Middlebury College and a master’s degree in applied math from Michigan State University. While at APL he earned a master’s degree in engineering management from Johns Hopkins University and a doctorate in systems engineering from George Washington University.