Pat Pannuto

Pat Pannuto is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. His research bridges digital systems and the physical world, focusing on resource-constrained computing, embedded systems, and IoT infrastructure. He leads projects on sustainable computing, energy harvesting, social interaction tracking, and city-scale sensing.

Research Interests: Dr. Pannuto designs systems for extreme resource constraints (microwatts power, kilobytes memory) that enable reliable sensing/actuation. Key areas include:

• Embedded OS development (Tock OS)
• Energy harvesting from unconventional sources (soil MFCs, corrosion systems)
• Human interaction tracking for epidemiology/psychology
• Large-scale infrastructure monitoring (GridWatch)
• Localization and ultra-low-power communication

Awards & Fellowships:

• National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellow (2013)
• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2013)
• Qualcomm Innovation Fellow (2013)

Teaching & Service: He teaches courses in computer architecture, embedded systems, and IoT. As faculty advisor, he mentors 25+ graduate students and oversees undergraduate research programs (ERSP/TRELS). He chairs conferences including TockWorld 7 and serves on TPCs for MobiCom, SenSys, and IPSN.

Labs & Teams: Leads the UCSD Embedded Systems Lab, co-founded the UCSD Embedded Systems Seminar, and collaborates with the TerraSwarm and CONIX research centers. Current projects include security for embedded OS, hyperdimensional computing libraries, and renewable energy systems.