UW CSE postdoc and Electrical Engineering Ph.D. alum Vamsi Talla has been recognized with the 2016 WAGS/UMI Outstanding Innovation in Technology Award. The award, which is sponsored by the Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS) and University Microfilms International (UMI), recognizes a graduate thesis or dissertation that presents an innovative technology which offers a creative solution to a significant problem. Talla earned the award for his 2016 doctoral dissertation, “Power, Communication and Sensing Solutions for Energy Constrained Platforms,” in which he describes a variety of new energy harvesting, communication, and sensing techniques that will enable a true Internet of Things.
Talla completed his dissertation under the guidance of his Ph.D. adviser, CSE and EE professor Josh Smith of the Sensor Systems Lab, and CSE professor Shyam Gollakota of the Networks & Mobile Systems Lab. He continues to work with Smith and Gollakota on projects such as interscatter, which enables medical implants and other devices to communicate using Wi-Fi and earned Best Paper at SIGCOMM 2016, and Passive Wi-Fi, a system capable of generating Wi-Fi transmissions using 10,000 times less power than conventional methods. Passive Wi-Fi was named one of the 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2016 by MIT Technology Review and also captured Best Paper at NSDI 2016. Talla and his colleagues co-founded a startup company, Jeeva Wireless, to commercialize their research.
Talla will be honored at an awards lunch on March 21st in Seattle.
Congratulations, Vamsi!