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Nirupama Bulusu is a Full Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University. She received her Ph.D from the University of California at Los Angeles in 2002 under the supervision of MacArthur Fellow Deborah Estrin and her B.Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1997, both in Computer Science.
Her research interests lie in mobile and pervasive computing, applied machine learning, cybersecurity and Internet markets. She applies such computing technologies in the realms of environmental sensing, urban planning and smart cities, electronic commerce and mobile health, participating/partnering in major national scientific initiatives, such as the NSF Science and Technology Centers for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) and Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction (CMOP) as well as flagship industry endeavours, such as Cisco's Connected Mobile Experiences. Previous work has applied machine learning on networked sensor data to domains as diverse as tracking freshwater plumes in the Columbia River Estuary, monitoring invasive cane-toad populations in Australia and scanning commuters on public transportation systems in Singapore.
Bulusu was amongst the foremost pioneers in sensor networks research. In 2000, she led the development of the first wireless localization system for sensor networks. Her first paper on localization is among the top 5 most frequently downloaded articles of all time in IEEE Personal Communications. Her subsequent contributions include numerous highly cited and award winning publications on network localization; as well as widely used public domain software such as the DHV protocol; and the widely cited book, Wireless Sensor Networks: A Systems Perspective (Artech House, 2005). She developed the world's first anti-counterfeiting supply chain using Near Field Communications and Blockchain. She is a pioneer in trustworthy participatory sensing and trustworthy mobile crowdsensing, enabling trust in citizen science, by developing the first trusted platform module (TPM) based solution for sensor data integrity that unlike reputation systems, is robust to collusion. Her research has been cited over 10,000 times per Google Scholar, and garnered extensive media coverage, including from outlets such as MIT Technology Review, Wired Magazine and the Australia Broadcasting Corporation.
Her recognitions include the National Science Foundation CAREER award (2008), the Provost's Portland State University Foundation Faculty Development Award (2004), University of New South Wales GoldStar Award (2007), Sigma Xi honor society (2003), the IIT Madras Institute Merit Prize from IIT Madras (1993), and a best paper award at IEEE PerCom 2019. She was invited as a Distinguished Visiting Scientist by CSIRO Australia (2012), the Computing Research Association's Leadership in Science Policy Fellow (2013) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) mHealth Summit Fellow (2013).
She serves as an Area Editor for Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing. Previously, she served as Editor for ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks, as well as Elsevier Ad Hoc Networks. She has also served on the organizing and program committees of several premier sensor networks conferences including ACM SenSys, EWSN, IPSN, and DCOSS. She was the founding program co-chair and steering committee member for IEEE EmNetS workshop series.
A proponent of widening participation in computer science and STEM, Bulusu has created an interactive educational demonstration on sensor networks at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. She has served as a a featured keynote speaker at the Networking Networking Women (N2Women) meeting at ACM SenSys 2008, as a Computing Research Association (CRA) Distributed Mentor to female undergraduates, and as a Grand Awards Judge at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
Prior to joining PSU, Bulusu held professional appointments at the Oregon Health and Sciences University and National ICT Australia Limited. She has also been a Visiting Scientist at the University of New South Wales.
She is a senior member of the Association of Computing Machinery, and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and the American Geophysical Union.