MEET THE DIRECTOR: Scott Levin, PhD
As Director and Chair of the Leadership Council of the Johns Hopkins Systems Institute, Scott Levin has big plans for the future.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with the Systems Institute.
I’m a biomedical engineer by training and have worked in the School of Medicine and for the Johns Hopkins Health system since 2008. When the institute was started, Tak Igusa engaged me to participate on projects with School of Engineering faculty and students. My role in the Systems Institute grew from there to continue to develop these collaborative projects across Medicine and Engineering. When it was time to select a new Director, the Executive Committee selected me for the job.
What are some goals that you hope to accomplish during your time as Director?
There are two important goals that I’d like to accomplish during my time as Director: the first is to build the number of people involved and benefiting from the Systems Institute, and the second is to break down barriers across the Johns Hopkins organization.
To build up the number of faculty and students involved with the Institute, we plan to create activities and data infrastructure to support application of systems methods to challenges plaguing modern cities and healthcare delivery; the two application focus areas of the institute.
The faculty members currently involved in the Systems Institute see ourselves almost as a group of misfit toys. We see things on a bigger picture scale and wonder about the repercussions not only in our primary field, but how it relates to other fields as well. Being a part of the Systems Institute allows us to work others to analyze situations and create solutions to complex problems.
What do you think makes the Systems Institute special?
For faculty, I don’t think they realize how much support being a part of the Institute provides. Not only do you have a team of people from different disciplines working on one issue, but the infrastructure itself allows our support staff to give guidance and reinforcement in a variety of areas.
Regarding students, the Civil Engineering Department offers a Systems track of study, but does not confer degrees in this area. The students who select this track use modeling and simulation tools to study the performance of such complex systems and calculate the effect of changes at the component level on the performance of the system as a whole. Collaborations with the other civil engineering program areas are common, for example, in disaster resilience and public health.