Gabe Cohn
(University of Washington)
Tuesday, March 25, 4:30pm
Computer Science 105
Although we have successfully created smaller, faster, and cheaper
computer devices, several adoption barriers remain to realize the dream
of Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp). By lowering these barriers, we can
seamlessly embed human-computer interfaces into our home and work
environments. My work focuses on building integrated hardware/software
sensing systems for Ubicomp applications using my expertise in embedded
systems, low-energy hardware design, and sensing, in addition to
integrating communications, signal processing, and machine learning. In
this talk, I will use my research to present three main techniques to
lower the installation, maintenance, and scalability adoption barriers
and bring Ubicomp to life. First, I will discuss my work on using the
existing infrastructure in buildings to reduce the number of sensors
required to enable many Ubicomp applications. Second, I will discuss how
the conductive properties of the human body can be leveraged to enable
novel human-computer interactions and health sensing opportunities.
Finally, I will describe techniques for dramatically reducing the power
consumption of embedded sensor systems for Ubicomp applications. By
continually working on application-driven interdisciplinary research, we
can lower the adoption barriers and enable many new high-impact
application domains.
Gabe Cohn is a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering in the
Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp) Lab at the University of Washington,
advised by Shwetak Patel. His research focuses on (1) designing and
implementing ultra-low-power embedded sensing systems, (2) leveraging physical phenomena to enable new sensing modalities for human-computer interaction, and (3) developing sensor systems targeted at realizing immediate change in high-impact application domains.
He was awarded the Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellowship in 2012, the
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2010, and 6
Best Paper awards and nominations. He is the co-founder of SNUPI
Technologies (www.wallyhome.com),
a sensor and services company focused on home safety, security, and
loss prevention. He received his B.S. with honors in Electrical
Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2009, where
he specialized in embedded systems, computer architectures, and digital
VLSI.