Shyam Gollakota ( Also go by as Shyamnath Gollakota ) Torode Professor, Paul G. Allen School of CSE Mechanical Engineering ECE Computing for Health Lab UW Networks & Mobile Systems Lab
Paul G. Allen Center
My group is highly inter-disciplinary spanning computer scientists, electrical, mechanical and aerospace engineers and we closely work with biologists and physicians. We are driven by our curiosity to explore science and technology and to tackle hard technical and societal problems. My group has made multiple inventions including ambient backscatter, Wi-Fi sensing, battery-free phones, active sonar on smart phones, Internet of plastic things, computing for insects, wireless bio-robots and created various computing tools that democratize medical diagnostics and care.
Inventions from our lab
Internet of Bio-Inspired Things: cameras that imitate insect eyes, UW Robofly , airdropping sensors from drones
Internet of Biological Things: bees with sensors, cameras integrated with insects, tracking "murder" hornets
Internet of plastic things : 3D printing Wi-Fi sensors , prosthetic arms and clothes as hard drives
Battery-free computing : phones without batteries, streaming cameras and power over Wi-Fi
Ambient backscatter : reflecting TV , Wi-Fi , FM , Bluetooth and LoRa signals to communication
Smart speakers as medical tools : cardiac arrest detection, infant monitoring and heart rhythm
Phones as tricorders: opioid overdose , sleep apnea , ear infection
Active sonar for interaction and physiological sensing: finger tracking, breathing , heart beats and tracking VR headsets
RF sensing: Wi-Fi gesture recognition, RFID gestures , imaging using Wi-Fi
Embracing wireless interference : ZigZag decoding , analog network coding , and securing implants
Open source code & Technology transfer
News
Honored to be named a Moore Inventor Fellow
Endowed with the Torode Family Career Development Professorship (2021 - 2024)
Honored to receive the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award in 2021
Vikram Iyer joins UW CSE as an assistant professor in 2021
Rajalakshmi wins the ACM SIGMOBILE Dissertation award in 2021
Rajalakshmi joins Cornell as an assistant professor in 2020
Check out our work on using smart speakers to monitor irregular heart rhythm (Washington Post , Telegraph )
CACM technical perspective article on Living IoT
Teaching new course on Internet of Robotic Things
Check out our thoughts on open problems in backscatter networks
IEEE Spectrum article on our Internet of Plastic things
Ongoing efforts with Department of Agriculture on wirelessly tracking murder hornets
Check out our MobiCom work on airdropping wireless sensors
Science Robotics paper and focus article on insect-scale steerable wireless cameras (NPR , CNN , CNBC )
VIDEO
NYTimes op-ed on using smart devices for COVID19 early detection
Read our privacy-preserving protocols (PACT) for contact tracing while upholding civil liberties
Serving on the ACM MobiCom steering committee
Check out our work on using white noise for infant monitoring
Check out our work on Living IoT for insects (NBC News , Forbes , Seattle times )
First wireless fly-sized drone takes off (IEEE Spectrum , Economist , Wired )
Nature npj Digital Medicine paper on contactless cardiac arrest detection (Bloomberg , Stat News , Digital Trends )
Science Translational Medicine paper on middle ear fluid detection with smartphones (NYTimes , NPR )
Science Translational Medicine paper on opioid overdose detection (Scientific American , Washington Post )
Paul Allen's team highlights three of our projects
Graduate Students and Mentees
Alumni
Vikram Iyer (Ph.D., assistant prof. at University of Washington, Microsoft Fellowship , Marconi Young Scholar , AAAS spotlight )
Mehrdad Hessar (Ph.D., OctoML)
Ali Najafi (Ph.D., VMWare Research)
Kelly Michaelsen (Mentee, assistant prof at UW Medicine, FAER Grantee )
Rajalakshmi Nandakumar (Ph.D., assistant Prof at Cornell, Marconi Young Scholar , SIGMOBILE Dissertation award)
Vamsi Talla (Postdoc, CTO of Jeeva Wireless, SIGMOBILE Dissertation award, SIGCOMM Dissertation award)
Bryce Kellogg (M.S., co-founder Jeeva Wireless)
I also worked closely with Vincent Liu (now assistant Prof at U. Penn) and Aaron Parks (co-founder Jeeva Wireless)
Awards
Moore Inventor Fellow, 2021
ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, 2020
SenSys Best Paper Award, 2018
IMWUT Distinguished Paper Award, 2018
SIGMOBILE RockStar Award, 2017
Forbes 30 under 30 All-Star Alumni, 2017
Popular Science Brilliant Ten, 2016
SIGCOMM Best Paper Award, 2016
Visionaries 2020, CNN, 2016
NSDI Best Paper Award, 2016
10 Tech Breakthroughs, MIT Tech Review, 2016
World Technology Award, Communication Technology, 2015
CoMotion Presidential Innovation Fellow, 2015
NSF Career Award, 2015
Alfred Sloan Fellowship, 2015
Forbes 30 under 30 Energy, 2015
Technology Review TR35, Innovators Under the Age of 35, 2014
ACM MOBICOM Best Paper Award, 2013
ACM SIGCOMM Best Paper Award, 2013
George M. Sprowls Award for Best Dissertation in CS, MIT, 2013
ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award, 2012
ACM SIGCOMM Doctoral Dissertation Award, 2012
ACM SIGCOMM Best Paper Award, 2011
ACM SIGCOMM Best Paper Award, 2008
William A. Martin SM Thesis Award, 2008
IIT Madras Institute Award in Computer Science, 2006
Using Smart Speakers to Contactless Monitor Heart Rhythms Advances and Open Problems in Backscatter Networking Airdropping Sensor Networks from Drones and Insects
Wireless steerable vision for live insects and insect-scale robots
TinySDR: Low-Power SDR Platform for Over-the-Air Programmable IoT Testbeds Identifying Pediatric Vascular Anomalies With Deep Learning Contactless Infant Monitoring using White Noise
Contactless cardiac arrest detection using smart devices pdf )
Detecting middle ear fluid using smartphones pdf )
MilliSonic: Pushing the Limits of Acoustic Motion Tracking Opioid Overdose Detection Using Smartphones pdf )
Living IoT: A Flying Wireless Platform on Live Insects
NetScatter: Enabling Large-Scale Backscatter Networks
