Biography
Deborah Estrin is a Professor of Computer Science with a joint appointment in Electrical Engineering at UCLA, holds the Jon Postel Chair in Computer Networks, and is Founding Director of the NSF-funded Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS). Estrin received her Ph.D. (1985) in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her B.S. (1980) from U.C. Berkeley. Before joining UCLA she was a member of the University of Southern California, Computer Science Department.

In 1987, Professor Estrin received the National Science Foundation, Presidential Young Investigator Award for her research in network interconnection and security. During the subsequent 10 years much of her research focused on the design of network and routing protocols for very large, global, networks, such as: scalable multicast routing and transport protocols, self-configuring protocol mechanisms for scalability and robustness, and tools and methods for designing and studying large scale networks. Since the late 90's Professor Estrin has focused on embedded networked sensing systems, with a particular focus on applications to environmental monitoring. Most recently this work includes participatory-sensing systems, based on automated, programmable, and adaptive collection of environmental, physiological, and social parameters at the personal and community level. These systems will leverage the installed base of image and acoustic sensors that we all carry around in our pockets or on our belts—cell phones.

Estrin has been a co-PI on many NSF and DARPA funded projects. She chaired a 1997-98 ISAT study on sensor networks and the 2001 NRC study on Networked Embedded Computing which produced the report Embedded Everywhere. She chaired the Sensors and Sensor Networks subcommittee of the NEON Network Design Committee (http://neoninc.org). Estrin also served on the Advisory Committees for the NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and Environmental Research and Education (ERE) Directorates, and is currently a member of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of The National Academies.

In 2007 Professor Estrin was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also a fellow of the ACM, AAAS and the IEEE. She has served on numerous panels for the NSF, National Academy of Sciences/NRC, and DARPA. She has also served as an editor for the ACM/IEEE Transactions on Networks, and as a program committee member for many networking related conferences, including Sigcomm and Infocom. She was Steering Group Chair and General Co-Chair for the first ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, Sensys 2003, and served as one of the first Associate Editors for the new ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks.

Professor Estrin was selected as the first ACM-W Athena Lecturer in 2006. The Athena Lectures celebrate women researchers who have made fundamental contributions to Computer Science. She was awarded the Anita Borg Institute’s Women of Vision Award for Innovation in 2007.

Research Interests
Since the late 90's Professor Estrin's resaerch has focused on embedded networked sensing systems, with a particular focus on applications to environmental monitoring. Most recently this work includes participatory-sensing systems, based on automated, programmable, and adaptive collection of environmental, physiological, and social parameters at the personal and community level. These systems will leverage the installed base of image and acoustic sensors that we all carry around in our pockets or on our belts—cell phones.

Awards and Recognitions

• 2007-2008 Mackay Fellow, UC Berkeley

• 2007 American Academy of Arts & Sciences

• 2007 Anita Borg Institute’s Women of Vision award for Innovation

• 2006-2007 First ACM-W Athena Lecturer

• 2006 Jon Postel Endowed Chair

• 2004 IEEE Fellow

• 2001 AAAS Fellow

• 2000 ACM Fellow

• 1997 Okawa Foundation Award

• 1987-1992 NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award