Alanson Sample

Alanson Sample is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan (since 2018), leading the Interactive Sensing and Computing Lab. His research focuses on Human-Computer Interaction, Cyber-Physical Systems, and wireless technology innovations. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington (2011), with prior postdoctoral work there developing implantable medical devices.

Before academia, Sample held senior roles at Disney Research (2013-2018) as Executive Lab Director and Principal Research Scientist, leading teams in Robotics, AI, Computer Vision, and HCI. Earlier, he worked at Intel Labs (2008-2013) on energy harvesting for wearables and IoT. Key research themes include wireless power systems, embedded sensing, and privacy-aware technologies. Over 150+ publications span topics like magnetic sensing (MagDesk), acoustic gesture recognition (HandSAW), and privacy-preserving activity tracking (PrivacyMic). His work bridges academic and industry innovation, particularly in scalable interactive systems and medical technology.

Notable projects include the Quasistatic Cavity Resonance wireless charging system, RFID-based sensing platforms (WISP), and wearable health monitoring devices. His lab develops hardware-software co-design frameworks for energy-efficient embedded systems. Current research emphasizes medical applications, smart infrastructure, and ubiquitous computing interfaces.