Steven Cummer
Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University
Steven Andrew Cummer is an American electrical engineer, geophysicist and academician, who is William H. Younger Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Duke University. He is best known for his work on metamaterials, geophysical remote sensing and lightning phenomena.
Education and career
Cummer received bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1991, 1993 and 1997, respectively. His graduate studies were conducted in the Stanford VLF Group. From 1997 to 1999, he served as a National Research Council postdoctoral research associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. In 1999, he joined the faculty of Duke University.
Research and awards
Cummer's research focuses on geophysical remote sensing, lightning phenomena, and electromagnetic and acoustic metamaterials. In 2006, his research group, in collaboration with David R. Smith and John Pendry, has built the first prototype of metamaterial cloaking device for microwaves using the theory of transformation optics. Having developed a theoretical recipe for designing such devices for sound waves in 2008, his research group experimentally demonstrated the two-dimensional acoustic metamaterial cloaking in 2011. Cummer's research group further extended their design to cloak objects for incident waves in arbitrary directions in 2014.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Steven Cummer” is professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Steven, Cummer and Professor, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q60059844. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1991, 1993, 1997 and 1999.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Steven Cummer”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Steven Cummer primary sources, Steven Cummer archive and Steven research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Steven Cummer”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Steven Cummer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.