Shyam Gollakota ( Also go by as Shyamnath Gollakota ) Thomas J. Cable Endowed Professor Paul G. Allen School of CSE Mobile Intelligence 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. We work across hardware, algorithms, signal processing and machine learning to build systems that previously were not thought possible.
My group has made multiple inventions including battery-free computers that float in the wind, 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 including contactless breathing and heart rhythm monitoring, blood clot and ear infection testing using smartphones.
Inventions from our lab
Internet of bio-inspired things: computers that float in the wind , UW Robofly , airdropping sensors
Internet of biological things: bees with sensors, cameras imitating insect eyes, 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
Democratizing underwater technology: Underwater messaging and ranging on smartphones and watches
AI for earables: on-device directional hearing , clearbuds for speech enhancement
Mobile computing for audiology: ear infections , middle ear disorders with tymponometry
Blood testing on smartphones: blood clot testing with a single drop, laser speckle with smartphone LiDAR
Technology for opioid overdoses: detection using smartphones, naloxone wearable injector
AI for contactless cardiology : Detecting cardiac arrest , irregular heart rhythm
Smart speakers and phones as tricorders : breathing monitor , sleep apnea , infant monitoring
Wireless sensing: Wi-Fi gesture recognition, RFID gestures , imaging using Wi-Fi, tracking fingers tracking, and VR headsets
Embracing wireless interference : ZigZag decoding , analog network coding , and securing implants
News
MobiCom keynote on "Intelligent mobile systems: From melding bits and biology to democratizing healthcare"
Center for Cardiovascular Biology talk on "AI for contactless cardiology"
OSU AIOT seminar on "Creating the Internet of Biological and bio-inspired things"
SIGMOBILE distinguished lecture on "Creating intelligent acoustic systems"
Endowed with the Washington Research Foundation / Thomas J. Cable Professorship
Vikram wins the ACM SIGMOBILE Dissertation award in 2022
SIGCOMM paper on first underwater messaging app for smartphones
VIDEO
Our work on blood clot testing wins three different awards at the 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting
Communications Medicine paper on middle ear disorder detection using smartphones (Stat News article)
Check out our work on AI-enabled wireless clearbuds (IEEE spectrum , Techcrunch , Nvidia )
VIDEO
ACM IMWUT paper on laser speckle using smartphones (coverage by Register )
AAAI paper on deep learning for on-device directional hearing
Nature paper on computers and sensors that float in the wind like dandelion seeds
VIDEO
Check out our work on wearable injector for opioid overdose reversal with West Pharma
Contactless breathing monitoring using ultrasound on phones got FDA 510(k) clearance
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
Nature Communications paper on bloot clot testing using smartphones
VIDEO
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 )
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 Living IoT for insects (NBC News , Forbes , Seattle times )
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 )
Graduate Students and Mentees
Ph.D. Alumni
Anran Wang (Ph.D., Sound Life Sciences)
Vikram Iyer (Ph.D., assistant prof. at University of Washington, Marconi Young Scholar , SIGMOBILE Dissertation award)
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)
Undergraduate Alumni
Collin Pernu (Starfish space)
Hans Gaensbauer (MIT grad)
Hao Zhang (Wisconsin grad)
Kyle Johnson (UW grad)
Vicente Arroyos (UW grad)
Jose Jaime (Sound Life Sciences)
Ryan Feng (Michigan grad)
Qifan Pu (Berkeley grad)
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
Open source code & Technology transfer
Underwater messaging using mobile devices Project page )
ClearBuds: Wireless binaural earbuds for learning-based speech enhancement Project page )
Performing tympanometry using smartphones Project page )
Wind-dispersal of battery-free wireless devices Project page )
Testing a drop of liquid using smartphone liDAR Project page )
Micro-mechanical blood clot testing using smartphones Project page )
AACC Annual Scientific Meeting 2022 (Distinguished Abstract; Clinical Translational Science Division - Best Abstract Award; Hematology And Coagulation Division - Best Abstract Award )
Hybrid neural networks for on-device directional hearing Project page )
Closed-loop wearable naloxone injector system Using Smart Speakers to Contactless Monitor Heart Rhythms Project page )
Advances and Open Problems in Backscatter Networking Airdropping Sensor Networks from Drones and Insects Project page )
Wireless steerable vision for live insects and insect-scale robots
PACT: Privacy-Sensitive Protocols And Mechanisms
for Mobile Contact Tracing TinySDR: Low-Power SDR Platform for Over-the-Air Programmable IoT Testbeds coverage )
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
