About Me
I’m a Computer Science Ph.D. student in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, advised by Prof. Gregory Abowd and Prof. Thad Starner. I am part of the GT Ubicomp Lab and work on the computational materials or COSMOS initiative. My research focuses on re-imagining the future of mobile and ubiquitous computing by embracing an alternative view of computing where the physical surfaces would be covered with a computational material that can self-sustain itself to sense, compute, actuate and communicate as well as have the capability of being manufactured at large scale. Specifically for my dissertation, I am building self-sustainable computational material stickers. Here is my full research statement.
To accomplish my research goal I work at the intersection of novel materials, device fabrication, low-power systems, and application research. I also often collaborate with researchers in material science, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, electronics, and design to explore the challenges and solutions for the exciting new age of the Internet of Materials (IoM). I have published in ACM IMWUT, ACM UIST, ACM MobiSys, Communications of the ACM, and SIGMOBILE GetMobile Magazine. I am also the recipient of the UbiComp Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award, along with IMWUT distinguished paper and best poster award at UIST and MobiSys.
Previously, I have done Masters in Interactive Computing and Human-Computer Interaction from Georgia Institute of Technology and a Bachelors in Information Technology from Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology, Delhi University.
Publications
2021
D. Zhang, C.F. Hernandez, Y. Li, J.W. Park, Y. Wang, Y. Zhao, N. Arora, A. Mirzazadeh, Y. Do, T. Cheng, T. Starner, and G.D. Abowd. Flexible Computational Photodetectors for Self-Powered Activity Sensing. NPJ Flexible Electronics
(Details coming soon!)
N. Arora, A. Mirzazadeh, I. Moon, C. Ramey, Y. Zhao, D. Rodriguez, G. D. Abowd and T. Starner. MARS: Nano-Power Battery-free Wireless Interfaces for Touch, Swipe, and Speech Input. Proceedings of the 34th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, October 2021.
[Honoree, Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Competition]
2020
N. Arora, T. Starner and G. D. Abowd. SATURN: An Introduction to the Internet of Materials. Communications of the ACM, January 2021.
[Research Highlights: 16000 downloads]
A. Waghmare, Q. Xue, D. Zhang, Y. Zhao, S. Mittal, N. Arora, C. Byrne, T. Starner, and G. D. Abowd. UbiquiTouch: Self-Sustaining Ubiquitous Touch Interfaces. Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, March 2020.
Y.K. Meena, X.D. Yang, M. L¨ochtefeld, M. Carnie, N. Henze, S. Hodges, M. Jones, N. Arora and G.D. Abowd. Self-Sustainable CHI: Self-Powered Sustainable Interfaces and Interactions. In Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2020.
N. Arora, J. Yu, H. Oh, T. Starner and G. D. Abowd. SATURN: Technical and Design Challenges in Building a Self-sustainable Sound and Vibration Sensing Material. GetMobile: Mobile Computing and Communications. January 2020.
[ACM SIGMOBILE Research Highlights]
2019
N. Arora, Q. Xue, D. Bansal, P. McAughan, R. Bahr, D. Osorio, X. Ma, A. Sample, T.Starner and G. D. Abowd. Surface++ : A Scalable and Self-sustainable Wireless Sound Sensing Surface. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services, MobiSys (pp. 543-544), June 2019.
[Best Poster]
2018
N. Arora, and G. D. Abowd. ZEUSSS: Zero Energy Ubiquitous Sound Sensing Surface Leveraging Triboelectric Nanogenerator and Analog Backscatter Communication. Adjunct Publication of the 31st Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, October 2018.
[Best Poster]
N. Arora, S. L. Zhang, F. Shahmiri, D. Osorio, Y.-C. Wang, M. Gupta, Z. Wang, T. Starner, Z. L. Wang, and G. D. Abowd. SATURN: A thin and flexible self-powered microphone leveraging triboelectric nanogenerator. Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), Volume 2 (2), June 2018. [Distinguished Paper (Top 3% of accepted papers)]
2016
N. Arora, L. Freil, I. Walker, T. Starner, M. M Jackson. Towards Mobile and Wearable Brain-Computer Interfaces. Proceedings of the 6th International Brain-Computer Interface Meeting, organized by the BCI Society, May 2016.
Patents
- Systems And Methods For Multi-Channel Ambiently-Powered Real-Time Sensing. Filed: April, 2021. Patent Application: 63/231,930, GT provisional: 8734
- Self-powered Wireless Identification Barcode based on Triboelectric Nanogenerator and Backscatter Communication. Filed: Dec, 2020, GT provisional: 8653
- A Thin and Flexible Self-Powered Microphone Designed on the Principle of Triboelectric Nanogenerator. Granted: US Patent 10,932,063.
Invited Talks
- Building self-sustainable gas sensing material, University of Washington, Molecular Information Systems Lab Aug 2019
- How to give good poster presentations, Ubicomp Lab, Georgia Tech, Sept 2019
- 5th generations of computing : Computational Materials, Guest Lecture, Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing, Georgia Tech, April 2019
- Towards Printable Self-sustainable Sensing, HP Labs, Jan 2019
- SATURN: A thin and flexible self-powered microphone leveraging triboelectrification, Ubicomp Conference, Sept 2018
Service
- Paper Reviewer: UbiComp (2016, 2017, 2019), Mobile HCI (2018), ISWC (2017), CHI(2018, 2019, 2020), IUI(2021), TEI(2021)
- Program Committee for the Work-in-Progress track of ACM Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI), 2021
- Student Volunteer for ACM Ubicomp Conference, Virtual Event , 2020
- Founding Member, Science for a Billion (SFAB), website 2020-Present
- Group Meeting Coordinator, Computational Materials Group, Georgia Tech 2017-2020
- Workshop Co-Organiser, ACM CHI Virtual, Self-SustainableCHI: Sustainable Self-Powered Interfaces and Interactions, 2020
- Panelist for Georgia Tech MS HCI Seminar, Getting a Ph.D, 2019
- Workshop Co-Organiser, Broadening Participation Workshop, ACM Ubicomp Conference in Singapore, 2018
- Georgia Tech Grad Group leader, Founding member, 2018
- Instructor, Girls Who Code Georgia Tech Chapter 2017
- Group meeting coordinator, Ubiquitous Computing Lab, Georgia Tech, 2016-2018
- Student Volunteer at Ubiquitous Computing Conference in Osaka, Japan, 2015
Teaching
- Teaching Assistant, Artificial Intelligence CS6601, Fall 2020
- Teaching Assistant, Artificial Intelligence CS6601, Summer 2020
- Teaching Assistant, Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing, Spring 2019
- Teaching Assistant, Graduate Group Orientation course, Fall 2018
- Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, Summer 2018
- Teaching Assistant, Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing, Spring 2017
- Mentor, Texas Instruments Summer Internship Workshop, Delhi University (DU), 2014
- Student Mentor for Mobile Applications, Google Developer Group (GDG), Delhi 2014
- Teacher, Each one Teach One, Times of India initiative to teach poor children in Delhi, India, 2009
Mentoring
- Daniela C. Rodriguez (UG CS), Jan 2021-present
- Injoo Moon (UG EE), Jan 2021-present
- Ali Mirzazadeh (UG CS), Sept 2019-present
- Qiuyue Xue (MS CS) : Graduate student at University of Washington, Feb 2018 – 2019
- Peter McAugen(MS CS) : Software Engineer at Microsoft, Sept 2018 – 2019
- Dhruv Bansal (UG CS) : Graduate student at Stanford, Sept 2018- May 2019
- Michelle Ma (MS-HCI) : UX deisgner at Amazon, Sept 2018- May 2019
- Diego Osorio (MS-HCI) : UX Engineer at SimSpace, Sept 2017 – May 2019