Oaxaca, MX

Esther Jang

I'm a 4th year PhD student in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD) at the Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at UW in Seattle, WA.

I spend most of my time doing projects around a few central that sometimes become .

Seattle Community Cellular Network | UW | 2019-present

A local action research project to design, build, deploy, and sustain a community LTE network for low-income and marginalized neighborhoods in South Seattle. Advised by Dr. Kurtis Heimerl. [link.]

Maijuna Connectivity | UW, PUCP | 2019-present

Community LTE deployment and sustainability projects for Maijuna Indigenous communities along the Napo River in Peru. Advised by Dr. Jason Young, Dr. Michael Gilmore, and Dr. Kurtis Heimerl in collaboration with the PUCP Rural Telecommunications Group in Peru.

Community Networks Toolkit | UW, Athabasca U. | 2019-present

Qualitative field study of community wireless network management structures and sustainability in Oaxaca, MX and Quintana, AR towards co-creating a network sustainability toolkit. Advised by Dr. Michael Lithgow and Dr. Kurtis Heimerl.

Rural Repair for Community Cellular | UW, UP | 2017-2018

Designed SMS-based software and hardware sensor utilities to facilitate local repair of rural basestations by non-expert community members of villages in the remote rural Philippines. Studies performed in collaboration with the University of the Philippines Diliman in 2017, published at CHI 2018 and CSCW 2019. Advised by Dr. Kurtis Heimerl.

Puffin, a hackable sip-puff joystick mouse | MIT | 2015-2016

Co-designed and prototyped a portable, low-cost sip-puff joystick mouse for people without use of their hands. Project began at the MIT assistive technology hackathon ATHack. Advised by Adriana Mallozzi.

MEng: Cognitive routing for sensor networks | MIT | 2015-2016

Designed and analyzed a delay-minimal cognitive routing algorithm with traffic measurement for metropolitan area sensor networks. Advised by Dr. Vincent Chan.

Algorithms for miniature robot swarming | UMD | 2013

Fabricated and programmed miniature robots to exhibit distance-based swarming with RSSI as distance metric. Advised by Dr. Derek Paley and Dr. Sarah Bergbreiter.

Investigation of genes in brain aging | MIT | 2012-2013

Built computational models of brain aging with microarray gene expression levels. Advised by Dr. Christin Glorioso and Dr. Leonard Guarente.

Low-cost Internet access in rural Tanzania | MIT | 2011-2012

Designed and deployed a system for improving broadband access at Orkeeswa Secondary School. System has been implemented at multiple schools. Advised by Dr. Vincent Chan.

participatory . diy . open source . learnable . repairable . sustainable . local . communal . decentralized . playful . enjoyable . feminist . social . infrastructure

Jang, E., Garrison, P., Vistal, R., Perez, M., Martinez, P., Johnson, M., Barela, M., Evangelista, J., Ahmed, I., Dionisio, J., and Heimerl, K. (2019). Trust and Technology Repair Infrastructures in the Remote Rural Philippines - CSCW 19. [link.]

Weld, G., Jang, E., Li, A., Zeng, A., Heimerl, K., Froehlich, J. (2019). Deep Learning for Automatically Detecting Sidewalk Accessibility Problems Using Streetscape Imagery - ASSETS 19. [link.]

Johnson, M., Sevilla, S., Jang, E., Heimerl, K. (2018). dLTE: Building a more WiFi-like Cellular Network (Instead of the Other Way Around) - HotNets 18. [link.]

Jang, E., Barela, M., Johnson, M., Martinez, P., Festin, C., Lynn, M., Dionisio, J., Heimerl, K. (2017). Crowdsourcing Rural Network Maintenance and Repair via Network Messaging - CHI 17. [link.]

Jang, E., Johnson, M., Burnell, E., and Heimerl, K. (2017). Unplanned Obsolescence: Software and Hardware After Collapse. Proceedings of the 2017 Workshop on Computing Within Limits - LIMITS 17. doi:10.1145/3080556.3080566 [link.]

I try to avoid too much coursework to make room for .

Computer Security . Distributed Systems . Computer Networks . Human-Computer Interaction . Collaborations in Feminism and Technology . Information and Communication Technologies for Development . Heterogeneous Networks . Discrete Stochastic Processes . Inference and Information . Natural Language Processing . Machine Learning . Cellular Biophysics and Neurophysiology

I currently live in the Lemon House with my housemates Jasper and Talia. I love communal living and have recently lived at the Extraordinary Least Squares, and Hestia (formerly the Cyberpunk-Twee Haus) which I founded in 2017. I love singing and improvising music, especially jazz. On alternating Tuesdays I host a jam session for some of my workmates. At MIT I was a member of the a cappella group the MIT-Wellesley Toons. At UW I am a member of the "CSE band." I am involved with the Tech Workers' Coalition, the ACLU, and Socialist Alternative in Seattle. I love mushrooming and occasionally grow my own mushrooms. When in my hometown of New York City, I'm a volunteer installer with the NYC Mesh Network organization. I speak English, Spanish, Korean, Tagalog, and Swahili at varying levels.