| Shwetak Naran Patel | |
|---|---|
Shwetak Patel
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| Born | December 9, 1981 Selma, AL, USA |
| Residence | Seattle, WA, USA |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Human-Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous Computing, Embedded Systems |
| Institutions | University of Washington, Computer Science & Engineering, Electrical Engineering |
| Alma mater | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Doctoral advisor | Gregory Abowd |
| Doctoral students | Jon Froehlich |
| Known for | Sensing, sustainability, ubiquitous computing, energy sensing |
| Notable awards | MacArthur Fellowship, TR35, Microsoft New Faculty Fellowship |
Shwetak Naran Patel is a computer scientist and entrepreneur best known for his work on developing novel sensing solutions and ubiquitous computing. He is an assistant professor at the University of Washington in Computer Science & Engineering and Electrical Engineering, where he joined in 2008. His technology start-up company on energy sensing, Zensi, was acquired by Belkin International, Inc. in 2010. He was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow.[1]
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Shwetak Patel was born on December 9, 1981 in Selma, Alabama, though he was raised in Birmingham, Alabama. He attended Jefferson County International Baccalaureate School for high school in Birmingham, graduating in 2000. He received his B.S. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2003, and then continued on to receive his Ph.D. in computer science in 2008 under the advisement of Dr. Gregory Abowd. He started as an assistant professor at the University of Washington in 2008, where he remains today.
Patel is married to Dr. Julie Kientz, also a faculty member at the University of Washington, and currently resides in Seattle, Washington.
Patel’s research is broadly in the areas of ubiquitous computing, human-computer interaction, and user interface software and technology. He has published over 50 articles since 2003 and has received numerous best paper awards.[2] Patel focuses on developing easy-to-deploy sensing technologies, activity recognition, and applications for energy monitoring. He also has developed novel interaction techniques for mobile devices, mobile sensing systems, and wireless sensor platforms, many of which in collaboration with Microsoft Research, where is also a visiting researcher.[3] Dr. Patel's primary research has been in building low-cost and easy-to-deploy sensing systems, which he calls Infrastructure Mediated Sensing. These approaches leverage existing utility infrastructures in a home to support whole-house sensing.
Patel founded a company called Zensi, Inc., while he was a graduate student at Georgia Tech. Zensi was a demand side energy monitoring solutions provider. In 2010, Zensi was acquired by Belkin, Inc in 2010 for an undisclosed sum.[4] This acquisition resulted in numerous awards for Patel, including making the cover of Seattle Business magazine,[5] newsmaker of the year by TechFlash,[6] and was named one of the top 10 start up stories of 2010 by TechFlash.[7]
Dr. Patel has also received international recognition for his work, including the MacArthur Fellowship in 2011, the MIT Technology Review TR-35 award in 2009[8] and the Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship in 2011.[9] His work was recently featured in the cover story of Wired Magazine,[10] and his past work was also honored by the New York Times as a top technology of the year in 2005.[11] He also has numerous other articles appearing in the popular media on his inventions.[12]