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Gregory D. Abowd: The Internet of Materials

The Internet of Materials

Gregory D. Abowd

March 10th 2022, 2-4pm

Seely Mudd bld. room 3514

Panopto Link


ECE and the Center for HCI + D are proud to co-host: The Internet of Materials: The next logical step or a paradigm shift? Presented by Gregory D. Abowd and organized by Josiah Hester.

Gregory D. Abowd
is the Dean of the College of Engineering at Northeastern University, where he is also a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering with affiliate appointments in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences and the Bouvé College of Health Sciences. Prior to joining Northweastern in March 2021, Dr. Abowd was faculty in the college of computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology for over 26 years, where he held the titles of Regents' Professor and J.Z. Liang Endowed Chair in the School in Interactive Computing. His research falls largely in the area of Huma-Computer Interaction with an emphasis on applications and technology development for mobile and ubiquitous Computing in everyday settings. 


Abstract
Revisiting Weiser’s 30-year old inspirational vision on ubiquitous computing, we see that there are three factors that today limit the kind of ubiquity that Weiser described: power, cost, and form factor. Using these factors to drive our efforts, we have created examples of computational materials at Georgia Tech that demonstrate self-sustaining computational devices that are manufactured with simple materials to perform interesting sensing and communication tasks. These computational materials can be more literally woven into the fabric of everyday life, inspiring many more applications of ubiquitous computing, as well as many avenues for research challenges. We will demonstrate some of these early examples, motivating an Internet of Materials vision. Is this a logical progression from the Internet of Things, or something fundamentally new? I will present examples of computational materials that have been created at Georgia Tech in collaboration with materials scientists, chemical engineers, and other disciplines. I will also discuss some of the exciting research challenges for this emerging field.
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