A Computer Science researcher who seeks to apply technological solutions to situations in the everyday world faces several challenges. The majority of these challenges stem from the balancing act between the need as researchers to advance knowledge in an academic discipline and the desire to make (or be perceived as making) a contribution in the application domain. In this talk, I will describe through a set of examples how this balancing act can play out in the career of a computer scientist. My examples will draw from my own research experience, where I have applied the technologies of mobile and ubiquitous computing to opportunities ranging from education to domestic life to health and sustainability. My goal is to motivate researchers at all levels to unleash the passion to seek computing solutions to meaningful problems of life without having to sacrifice the rigor and advancement of serious computer science research.
Bio: Gregory D. Abowd is Dean of the College of Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University. Prior to joining Northeastern in March 2021, he was on the faculty in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology for 26.5 years. In his time at Georgia Tech, Dr. Abowd initiated bold and innovative research efforts, such as Classroom 2000 and the Aware Home, as well as pioneering innovations in autism and technology, health systems, and a joint initiative with engineering in computational materials and sustainable electronics. He was on the founding editorial board of IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine, and was founding Editor-in-Chief of Foundations and Trends in HCI and The Proceedings of the ACM in Interactive, Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT). He also founded the non-profit Atlanta Autism Consortium in 2008 to serve and unite the various stakeholder communities in Atlanta connected to autism research and services. Dean Abowd’s contributions to the fields of Human-Computer Interaction and Ubiquitous Computing have been recognized through numerous awards from ACM and ACM SIGCHI, including the 2023 Lifetime Research Award from ACM SIGCGHI. He has graduated 39 Ph.D. students, the majority of whom have gone on to successful careers at top universities around the world. Dr. Abowd received the degree of B.S. in Honors Mathematics in 1986 from the University of Notre Dame. He then attended the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom on a Rhodes Scholarship, earning the degrees of M.Sc. (1987) and D.Phil. (1991) in Computation.
To request accommodations for a disability please contact Emily Lawrence, emilyl@cs.princeton.edu, at least one week prior to the event.