Nivedita Arora

UPDATE: I will be joining the ECE dept. at Northwestern University as Asst. Professor & Allen K. and Johnnie Cordell Breed Jnr. Professor of Design from Fall 2023. I am actively looking to work with students/researchers at all positions. Please, email me at niveditaATnorthwesternDOTedu 
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I’m currently a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology with Dr. Josiah Hester. My research envisions creating sustainable computational materials and things that operate by harvesting energy from the environment and, at the end of their life cycle, can be responsibly composted or recycled. My research process involves working at the intersection of device fabrication, low-power systems, and design. I actively look to apply my work to application domains like smart homes, health, accessibility, biodiversity, and urban infrastructure monitoring. 

In Dec ’22, I completed my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech, advised by Dr. Gregory Abowd and  Dr. Thad Starner, where I built the first realized example of sustainable computational material —  interactive stickers. This work has appeared in ACM IMWUT, ACM UIST, ACM MobiSys, and NPJ Flexible Electronics. It has won two best papers (ACM IMWUT, ACM SenSys-ENSsys), two best poster awards (MobiSys, UIST), and research highlights in Communications of the ACM and SIGMOBILE GetMobile Magazine.

For my research and service work, I have been named the winner of the Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Ubicomp Student award in the ACM Ubicomp and ISWC community, Foley scholar in Georgia Tech’s GVU Center, Outstanding GRA in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, GT’s Top 10 Faces of Inclusive Excellence and MIT Rising Stars in EECS.

Awards

• Best position paper, International Workshop on Energy Harvesting & Energy-Neutral Sensing Systems, 2022
• Finalist, Fast Company Design Innovation Competition in Experimental Category for work on a computational facemask, 2022
• Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant Award in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, 2022
• GVU foley Scholar, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021
• Winner, ACM Ubiquitous Computing Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award, 2021
• Scholarship recipient, Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference, 2021
• EECS Rising stars, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2021
• Honoree, Fast Company Design Innovation Competition in Experimental Category for work on self-powered stickers, 2021
• Young researchers, Heidelberg Laureate Forum, 2020
• Distinguished Paper, ACM Ubicomp conference, 2019
• Best poster, ACM MobiSys conference, 2019
• Best poster, ACM UIST conference, 2018
• Final round, Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship, 2018
• 2nd position in powering internet of things poster presentation, NextFlex Workshop, 2017
• Faces of Inclusive Excellence, Georgia Tech, 2015

Publications

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

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

• Designing Sustainable Computational Things
  9th International Conference on Networking, Systems and Security,
  Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dec, 2022
• Circularity in Energy Harvesting Computational “Things”
  10th International Workshop on Energy Harvesting Energy-Neutral
  Sensing Systems Nov, 2022
• Self-powered Acoustic Vibration Sensing Stickers: Devices, Systems and Applications
  Amazon Lab 126 (Host: Wontak Kim ) Aug, 2022
• Towards Self-powered Interactive Material for Mixed Reality Experiences
  HCI Seminar series, Meta Reality Labs (Host: Kashyap Todi ) July, 2022
• Self-powered Acoustic Vibration Sensing Material
  1st ACM International Workshop on Intelligent Acoustic Systems and
  Applications Workshop, MobiSys, Portland July, 2022
• Designing for Sustainability in Computing: Self-Powered Computational Material
  Brown Bag, GT’s GVU Center May, 2022
• Self-Powered Vibration Sensing Material
  Emerging Tech and Incubation group, Cisco (Host : Ramana Kompella) May, 2022
• Self-sustainable Wireless Interface Stickers
  Systems and Networking Research Group (SyNRG),
  UIUC (Host: Romit Roy Choudhury) Dec, 2021
• Self-sustainable Computational Stickers
  Responsive Environment Group,
  MIT Media Lab (Host: Joe Paradiso) Oct, 2021
• Self-sustainable Computational Stickers
  HCI Engineering Group,
  MIT CSAIL (Host: Stefanie Mueller) Oct, 2021
• Building self-sustainable gas sensing material
  Molecular Information Systems Lab,
  University of Washington (Host: Luis Ceze) Oct, 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 Class, Georgia Tech, April, 2019
• Towards Printable Self-sustainable Sensing
  HP Labs (Host: Tico Ballagas)
• SATURN: A thin and flexible self-powered microphone leveraging triboelectrification
  Ubicomp Conference, Sept 2018

Fellowships

• $550 travel grant by GT’s GVU and SGA for attending ACM MobiSys Conference, 2022
• $30,000, graduate research assistant position sponsored by HEERF Covid funds, Georgia Tech, 2022
• $180,000 research grant by Cisco for my Ph.D. dissertation, 2021
• $1000 Travel Scholarship by College of Computing, Georgia Tech, 2019
• $50,000 NSF I-Corps Commercialization grant for Self-sustainable Building Water Leak Detection project 2019
• $2000 provost travel grant, Career Research and Innovation Development Conference (CRIDC), Georgia Tech, 2019
• $1500 Travel grant by Career, Research, and Innovation Development Conference (CRIDC), Georgia Tech, 2018
• $18,0000 international research fellowship, American Association of University Women (AAUW), 2016

Teaching Experience

• 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

• Material Science
  • Sutikshan Bansal (MS) | Aug 2022-Present
  • Philothei Sahinidis (UG) | Aug 2022-Present
  • Yazan Binnasser (UG) | Aug 2022-Present
  • Harsh Kumar Verma (MS) | Aug 2022-Present
  • Sriram Srirangan (MS) | Aug 2022-Present
  
• Electrical Engineering
  • Anfisa Bogdanenko (UG) | Aug 2022-Present
  • Injoo Moon (UG): Research Engineer at MIT Langer Lab | Jan 2021-May 2022
  
• Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Bill Yen (UG) | Oct 2022-Present
  • Mohit Gupta (Ph.D.): Research Scientist at Apple | Aug 2018-Aug2019
  
• Computer Science and Engineering
  • Zhihan Zhang (UG): Graduate student at UW | Oct 2021-May 2022
  • Ali Mirzazadeh (BS/MS): Graduate student at MIT | Sept 2019-May 2022
  • Yunzhi Li (MS): Graduate student at CMU | Jan 2021-May 2021
  • Qiuyue Xue (MS): Graduate student at UW | Feb 2018-May 2019
  • Peter McAugen(MS): Software Engineer at Microsoft | Sept 2018-May 2019
  • Dhruv Bansal (UG): Graduate student at Stanford | Sept 2018- May 2019
  
• Design and HCI
  • Daniela C. Rodriguez (UG): UX Designer Adobe | Jan 2021-July 2021
  • Jin Yu (MS): Graduate student at Gatech | Aug 2019-Feb 2020
  • Michelle Ma (MS): UX designer at Amazon | Sept 2018-May 2019
  • Diego Osorio (MS): UX Engineer at SimSpace | Sept 2017 – May 2019

Service

• Program Committee:
  Work-in-Progress ACM Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI) (2021),
  CHI Late-Breaking-Work (2021, 2022)
  ACM MobiSys Workshop Digibiom (2022)
• Conference Session Chair: ACM UIST On-Body Interaction, 2021
• Paper Reviewer: UbiComp (2016-2021), Mobile HCI (2018), ISWC (2017), CHI(2018, 2019, 2020), IUI(2021), TEI(2021)
• Student Volunteer for ACM Ubicomp Conference, Virtual Event , 2020 and Ubiquitous Computing Conference in Osaka, Japan, 2015
• 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
  ACM Ubicomp Conference in Singapore, Broadening Participation Workshop, 2018
• Panelist for Georgia Tech MS HCI Seminar, Getting a Ph.D, 2019
• Founding Member, Science for a Billion (SFAB): Initiative to promote RnD initiatives in India
• 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
• Founder, Mobile Development Group, Delhi University, 2011-2012