Shwetak N. Patel
is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Computer
Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering. His research interests
are in the areas of Human-Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous Computing, and
User Interface Software and Technology. He is particularly interested in
developing easy-to-deploy sensing technologies and approaches for location
and activity recognition applications. He is also interested in exploring
novel interaction techniques for mobile devices, mobile sensing systems, and
wireless power technologies. Shwetak's most recent research has been in
building a new class of sensing systems for the home to enable in-situ
human-centered research, called Infrastructure Mediated Sensing, which
leverages existing utility infrastructures in a home to support whole house
sensing. These systems are being use for a variety of applications including
home health and elder care, energy monitoring, and home automation.
Georg Seelig will join the faculty in spring 2009 as an assistant professor. He received his Diploma in Physics from the University of Basel in 1999 and his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Geneva in 2003. For the last few years he has been a postdoc at Caltech working with Erik Winfree and Michael Elowitz. In 2007 he received a Career Award at the Scientific Interface from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Georg is interested in understanding how biological organisms process information using complex biochemical networks and how such networks can be engineered to program cellular behavior. The focus of his research is the identification of systematic design rules for the de novo construction of biological control circuits with DNA and RNA components. His approach integrates the design of molecular circuitry in the test tube and in the cell with the investigation of existing biological pathways like the microRNA pathway. Engineered circuits and circuit elements are being applied to problems in disease diagnostics and therapy.