Gregory D. Abowd

About

Gregory D. Abowd is the dean of Northeastern University’s College of Engineering and an ECE professor. His research has focused on ubiquitous computing, a field that explores the growth of computing beyond traditional desktop environments, emphasizing its application and social impacts in everyday life. His work has particularly addressed how emerging technologies can be integrated into classrooms, homes, and healthcare settings to create seamless and meaningful experiences. Notably, he founded the 'Classroom 2000' project to study the integration of computing capabilities into educational environments and established the 'Aware Home Research Initiative' in 1998 to develop technology that perceives and assists home occupants. More recently, Abowd has been involved in sustainable electronics, aiming to make computing more environmentally friendly by rethinking manufacturing and disposal processes, such as developing alternative soldering methods and creating tools for consumers to assess the environmental impact of electronic products. His contributions have been recognized with awards like the Lifetime Research Award from the ACM’s Special Interest Group for Computer-Human Interaction. In 2025, he was elected a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honor that highlights his significant impact in the field and provides opportunities to recognize other distinguished individuals.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Telecommunications
• Engineering
• Data Mining
• Psychology
• Machine Learning
• Data science
• Materials science
• Electrical engineering

Selected publications

• Flexible computational photodetectors for self-powered activity sensing

  npj Flexible Electronics · 2022 · 48 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract Conventional vision-based systems, such as cameras, have demonstrated their enormous versatility in sensing human activities and developing interactive environments. However, these systems have long been criticized for incurring privacy, power, and latency issues due to their underlying structure of pixel-wise analog signal acquisition, computation, and communication. In this research, we overcome these limitations by introducing in-sensor analog computation through the distribution of…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Algorithmic Power or Punishment: Information Worker Perspectives on Passive Sensing Enabled AI Phenotyping of Performance and Wellbeing

  2023-04-19 · 38 citations

  articleOpen access

  We are witnessing an emergence in Passive Sensing enabled AI (PSAI) to provide dynamic insights for performance and wellbeing of information workers. Hybrid work paradigms have simultaneously created new opportunities for PSAI, but have also fostered anxieties of misuse and privacy intrusions within a power asymmetry. At this juncture, it is unclear if those who are sensed can find these systems acceptable. We conducted scenario-based interviews of 28 information workers to highlight their persp…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Functional Destruction: Utilizing Sustainable Materials’ Physical Transiency for Electronics Applications

  2023-04-19 · 32 citations

  articleOpen access

  Today’s electronics are manufactured to provide stable functionality and fixed physical forms optimized for reliable operation over long periods and repeated use. However, even when applications don’t call for such robustness, the permanency of these electronics comes with environmental consequences. In this paper, we describe an alternative approach that utilizes sustainable transient electronics whose method of destruction is also key to their functionality. We create these electronics through…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Food, Mood, Context: Examining College Students’ Eating Context and Mental Well-being

  ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare · 2022-06-01 · 27 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Deviant eating behavior such as skipping meals and consuming unhealthy meals has a significant association with mental well-being in college students. However, there is more to what an individual eats. While eating patterns form a critical component of their mental well-being, insights and assessments related to the interplay of eating patterns and mental well-being remain under-explored in theory and practice. To bridge this gap, we use an existing real-time eating detection system that capture…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• SwellSense: Creating 2.5D interactions with micro-capsule paper

  2023-04-19 · 21 citations

  articleOpen access

  In this paper, we propose SwellSense, a fabrication technique to screen print stretchable circuits onto a special micro-capsule paper, creating localized swelling patterns with sensing capabilities. This simple technique will allow users to create a wide range of paper-based tactile interactive devices, which are mostly maintaining 2D planar form factor but can also be curved or folded into 3D interactive artifacts. We frst present the design guidelines to support various tactile interaction des…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• ITR/SY: The Aware Home: Sustaining the Quality of Life for an Aging Population

  NSF · $1.6M · 2001–2007

Frequent coauthors

• Julie A. Kientz

  University of Washington

  52 shared

• Gillian R. Hayes

  University of California, Irvine

  49 shared

• Munmun De Choudhury

  37 shared

• Rosa I. Arriaga

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  34 shared

• Thad Starner

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  31 shared

• Shwetak Patel

  University of Washington

  29 shared

• Anind K. Dey

  28 shared

• Khai N. Truong

  27 shared

Labs

• Abowd Elected Member of American Academy of Arts and SciencesPI

Education

• D.Phil. in Computation, Programming Research Group

  University of Oxford

  1991

• M.Sc. in Computation, Programming Research Group

  University of Oxford

  1987

• B.S., Mathematics

  University of Notre Dame

  1986

Awards & honors

• Lifetime Research Award from the Association for Computing M…
• Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Similar researchers at Northeastern University

• Ruth Aguilerah-77
• Ali Aburh-57
• Rajesh Aggarwalh-31