Vice President, Public Safety

Dr. Branville G. Bard, Jr. serves as the vice president for public safety for all Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine campuses and facilities worldwide, with the exception of the Applied Physics Laboratory.

As vice president for public safety, he works to ensure Johns Hopkins students, faculty, staff, patients, visitors, and neighbors are provided a safe and secure environment and receive responsive and respectful assistance for their public safety and security needs.  He also proactively identifies public safety and security risks to Johns Hopkins institutions, its facilities, and the people it serves. Bard and his team design and direct implementation of policies, procedures, training, and operations to address those risks and increase safety awareness.

Bard joins Johns Hopkins with more than 28 years of experience in law enforcement and public safety. Known as a reform-minded pracademic who is heavily influenced by a sense of procedural and social justice, Bard believes you can keep communities safe from crime, while also safeguarding the civil rights of those who make up the community. Most recently Bard served as the police commissioner for the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He began his career as a member of the Philadelphia Police Department, where he proudly served for more than two decades before retiring at the rank of police inspector to become chief of police and director of public safety for the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

As a law enforcement practitioner, Bard has led reformative change as the head of two law enforcement agencies. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated leadership and has a proven record of forging meaningful relationships between the police and members of the residential, business, and religious communities. These relationships have helped foster partnerships that reduce crime and address quality-of-life issues while elevating community and police engagement.

Bard has been appointed to several prestigious boards and commissions, including serving as co-chair of Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney’s Transition Team for Public Safety. He also served as a member of the Historical Injustices and Present Policing Project advisory committee led by the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project and the Institute on Race and Justice at Northeastern University; the Criminal Justice Task Force at the Northeastern University School of Law, police reform subgroup; and the Police Professional Standards, Ethics, and Image Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Bard holds a doctorate in public administration, with emphasis on criminal justice policy from Valdosta State University (Dissertation: “Racial Profiling: Towards Simplicity and Eradication”. He earned two master’s degrees (MS in Public Safety Management and MS in Criminal Justice), and a BA in Criminal Justice from Alvernia College. He has also earned an Executive Education Certificate in Public Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Bard has successfully completed several advanced career development programs, including the FBI’s National Academy, the Police Executive Research Forum’s Senior Management Institute for Police, Harvard University’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, and Harvard University’s Senior Executive Fellows.