Nicola (Nicki) Dell has earned the 500th Ph.D. awarded by UW Computer Science & Engineering – a milestone by any measure!
Nicki was advised on her thesis – “Mobile Camera-Based Systems for Low-Resource Settings” – by Gaetano Borriello and Linda Shapiro. In January, she will be starting her new position as an Assistant Professor at Cornell Tech in New York City.
Nicki was born in Zimbabwe and received a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of East Anglia (UK) in 2004 and an M.S. in Computer Science & Engineering from UW in 2011. Her research lies at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD) with a focus on designing, building, and evaluating novel computing systems that improve the lives of underserved populations in low-income regions. Her research and outreach activities have been recognized through several awards and fellowships, including a Graduate Facebook Fellowship, a Google Anita Borg Scholarship, and a Palantir Scholarship for Women in Technology. She has completed internships at Microsoft Research in Redmond, USA and in Bangalore, India and has led the Change group at the University of Washington since 2011.
Learn more about Nicki and her research from her website here and a short video here. Check out the roster of UW CSE Ph.D. recipients here.
Who will receive UW CSE Ph.D. number 2**9? We’ll find out soon!