Professor Humes received a B.S. with highest distinction from Purdue University in 1975 (audiology & speech sciences, psychology), a M.A. from Central Michigan University in 1976 (audiology), and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1979 (audiology & hearing science). He has been at Indiana University since 1986, serving as department chair from 1996-2001, and prior to that was on the faculty at Vanderbilt University for eight years. Professor Humes is an expert in auditory perception, with special expertise in the effects of hearing impairment and aging on auditory perception. His most recent research activities have been focused on age-related changes in speech perception and the evaluation of treatments for speech-perception deficits, including hearing aids and auditory training. He has served as an associate editor or editor for several prestigious journals in his field. From 2003-2005, he chaired a committee of the National Academies' Institute of Medicine charged with performing a critical examination of the evidence regarding the presence of noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus in U.S. military veterans since the 1940s. Professor Humes is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the Acoustical Society of America, and the International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology. He received the highest honor from ASHA, Honors of the Association, in 2007 and was awarded the Alfred E. Kawana Council of Editors Award from ASHA, that association's highest honor for scholarly publication, in 2008. In 2008, the American Academy of Audiology awarded him its highest honor for research accomplishment, the James Jerger Career Award for Research in Audiology. He was awarded Distinguished Professor in 2010. Humes received the IU Bicentennial Medal in September 2020 in recognition of his distinguished contributions to Indiana University.