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Making Roads Safer by Making Drivers Better
Hari Balakrishnan M.I.T. and Cambridge Mobile Telematics Tuesday, October 17, 9:05-9:55 AM
Abstract:
The world's roads see over 50 million injuries and 1.25 million fatalities every year; road accidents are the leading cause of death among people between the ages of 15 to 30. This talk will describe how mobile sensing (especially using smartphones), signal processing, machine learning, and behavioral science can improve road safety by making people better drivers. I'll discuss several challenges in achieving this goal, as well as learnings from successful deployments in multiple countries. Interesting problems include inferring vehicular dynamics from noisy sensor data; accurate drive detection; detecting and discouraging distracted driving; designing good incentives for safe-driving; and the design of new sensing platforms to augment smartphone sensors.
About the Speaker:
 Hari Balakrishnan is the Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science and a Director of MIT's Center for Wireless Networks and Mobile Computing. His research is in networked computer systems, with current interests in networking, data management, and sensing for a world of "truly mobile" devices connected to cloud services running in large datacenters. Based on the CarTel research project, he co-founded Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), a company that develops mobile sensing, inferencing, and data analytics technologies to change driver behavior and make roads safer around the world. He is an alumnus of UC Berkeley (PhD, 1998, winner of the ACM doctoral dissertation award) and IIT Madras (1993), which named him a distinguished alumnus in 2013. He was inducted to the National Academy of Engineering in 2015 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017 for his contributions to networks and distributed systems. He has also received "test of time" awards from SIGCOMM, SIGMOBILE, SIGOPS, and SIGMOD.
Navigating the Chasm between Curiosity and Impact-Driven Research
Shyam Gollakota University of Washington Wednesday, October 18, 9:45-10:35 AM
Abstract:
Being in academia provides a unique opportunity to explore one’s
curiosity and build cool systems that advance human understanding of
engineering and science. System researchers however also have a
responsibility to build systems that can impact practice in the
near-term and perhaps, even create a brand new industry. In my talk,
I will focus on my efforts so far navigating this chasm between
curiosity and impact driven research. Specifically, I will share two
research themes I have been working on as an assistant professor at
UW CSE, where what initially began as curiosity-driven projects were
transformed by the urge to make immediate practical impact as well
as be unique. In particular, I will first talk about our journey
going from a science-driven project on ambient backscatter
(Sigcomm’13) to building wireless backscatter systems that work
reliably and address a key pain-point in the industry. Next, I will
talk about how we shifted gears from working on wireless gesture
recognition (WiSee, Mobicom’13) to addressing a medical need of
millions of people in the United States that go undiagnosed from
sleep apnea (ApneaApp, Mobisys’15) and our experience licensing our
technology to a multi-national medical corporation. Finally, I will
share my thoughts on how our research community can help us better
navigate this chasm.
About the Speaker:
 Shyam Gollakota is an Associate Professor of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington where he leads the Networks and Mobile Systems Lab. He is also the President of Jeeva Wireless Inc. His research covers a range of topics, including computer networks, human-computer interaction, battery-free computing and mobile health. His work on backscatter is being commercialized at Jeeva Wireless Inc. and ResMed Inc. has licensed his work on sleep apnea. He is the recipient of a 2015 National Science Foundation Career Award and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. He was named as MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35, Popular Science 'brilliant 10' and twice to the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. His research has earned Best Paper awards at SIGCOMM, MOBICOM, NSDI and CHI and named as a MIT Technology Review Breakthrough technology of 2016 as well as Popular Science top innovations in 2015. He is an alumnus of MIT (Ph.D., 2013, winner of ACM doctoral dissertation award) and IIT Madras (2012).
Spurring Mobile Systems Research Into The Next Decade
Thyaga Nandagopal National Science Foundation Thursday, October 19, 11:30-12:20 PM
Abstract:
Wireless and mobile systems are becoming an ubiquitous part of everyday life. Some of the most common systems have become commoditized, enabling higher-layer application-driven research while at the same time inhibiting lower-layer research. On the other hand, new frontiers of wireless communications are opening up in various spectrum bands hitherto not used for wireless data communications. This talk will cover the future of wireless systems-driven research and contributions to science & technology from the vantage point of the National Science Foundation.
About the Speaker:
 Dr. Thyaga Nandagopal is a Program Director at the National Science Foundation in the Directorate of Computer & Information Science and Engineering (CISE), where he manages mobile systems and wireless networking research across multiple funding programs with an annual budget of over $50M. At NSF, he leads the Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program, a $100M public-private partnership launched in July 2016. He also serves as the co-chair of the Wireless Spectrum Research and Development Senior Steering Group (WSRD SSG), which co-ordinates spectrum-related research and development activities across the Federal government. He is an IEEE Fellow, and a member of ACM SIGMOBILE. Thyaga Nandagopal holds a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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