Swarun Kumar

Swarun Kumar is the Sathaye Family Foundation Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), with affiliate appointments in Computer Science, the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII), and CyLab. His research focuses on next-generation wireless networks, mobile systems, and interactive applications. He leads the Emerging Wireless Technologies (WiTech) Lab at CMU, which explores innovations in mmWave radar, battery-free IoT, and wireless actuation.

Education: Received the George Sprowls Award for Best Ph.D. Thesis in Computer Science at MIT and the President of India Gold Medal at IIT Madras. His academic roles include teaching courses like Computer Systems (18-213/613), Computer Networks (18-441/741), and Wireless Networks (18-859G).

Research Interests: Wireless networks, mobile systems, IoT, 5G, wireless sensing, and security. Key projects include Joltik (LPWAN analytics), Quasar (satellite ground stations), and wireless actuation for soft robots. His work integrates hardware-software co-design and has applications in healthcare, robotics, and smart cities.

Awards: ACM SIGMOBILE Rockstar (2024), NSF CAREER Award, and multiple best paper awards. His grants include NSF-funded projects on spectrum pollution, energy-centric wireless systems, and mmWave networks.

Students: Advises PhD students in wireless systems, sensing, and robotics. Notable alumni include faculty at UW, UCSD, and NUS. Collaborates with industry and government partners like NASA and the USGS.

Labs/Teams: WiTech Lab, CMU mmWave testbed, and partnerships with Virginia Tech for smart farm sensor networks. Open-source projects include TagFi, Sozu, and PLatter.