Faculty Directory
Josiah Hester

Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Assistant Professor of Computer Science

Assistant Professor (by courtesy) of Preventive Medicine at Feinberg School of Medicine

Breed Junior Professor of Design

Contact

2145 Sheridan Road
Tech L477
Evanston, IL 60208-3109

Email Josiah Hester

Website

Josiah Hester's Homepage

Ka Moamoa Lab

Departments

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Computer Science

Download CV

Education

Ph.D. Computer Science, Clemson University, Clemson, SC

B.S. Computer Science, Clemson University, Clemson, SC


Research Interests

I'm interested in designing, building, and deploying tiny computers that run for decades, supporting global scale applications.

My research is broadly in mobile and pervasive computing, wireless sensor networks, and embedded systems. Specifically battery-free smart devices and intermittent computing, where I design computer systems resilient to frequent and unpredictable power failures. I explore and develop new hardware designs, software techniques, tools, and programming abstractions so that developers can easily design, debug, and deploy intricate sensing applications that work in spite of frequent power failures, constrained resources, and unpredictable conditions. I work towards a sustainable future for computing informed by my Native Hawaiian (Kanaka maoli) heritage. I often apply my work to mobile healthcare, infrastructure monitoring, and conservation.


Selected Publications

    Vito Kortbeek, Abu Bakar, Stefany Cruz, K.S. Yildrim, Przemysław Pawełczak, Josiah Hester. "BFree: Enabling Battery-Free Sensor Prototyping with Python." 
ACM Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp’21). Published in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.


    Jasper de Winkel, Vito Kortbeek, Josiah Hester, and Przemysław Pawełczak. "Battery-Free Game Boy." ACM Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp’20).

    Published in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.


    Shibo Zhang, Yuqi Zhao, Dzung Nguyen, Runsheng Xu, Sougata Sen, Josiah Hester, and Nabil Alshurafa. "NeckSense: A Multi-Sensor Necklace for Detecting Eating Activities in Free-Living Conditions." ACM Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp’20)

    Published in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.


    Jasper de Winkel, Carlo Delle Donne, Kasim Sinan Yildirim, Przemysław Pawełczak, Josiah Hester. "Reliable Timekeeping for Intermittent Computing." International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS'20)

    Vito Kortbeek, Kasim Sinan Yildirim, Abu Bakar, Jacob Sorber, Josiah Hester, Przemysław Pawełczak. "Time-sensitive Intermittent Computing Meets Legacy Software." International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS'20)

     

    Kasim Yildirim, Amjad Majid, Dimitris Patoukas, Koen Schaper, Przemyslaw Pawelczak, Josiah Hester. "InK: Reactive Kernel for Tiny Batteryless Sensors." 16th ACM Conference on Embedded Network Sensor Systems (SenSys '18)

     

    Taylor Hardin, Ryan Scott, Patrick Proctor, Josiah Hester, Jacob Sorber, David Kotz. "Application Memory Isolation on Ultra-Low-Power MCUs." 2018 USENIX Annual Technical Conference (USENIX ATC’18)

    Josiah Hester, Jacob Sorber. New Directions: The Future of Sensing is Batteryless, Intermittent, and Awesome. 15th ACM Conference on Embedded Network Sensor Systems (SenSys '17)

    Josiah Hester, Jacob Sorber. "Flicker: Rapid Prototyping for the Batteryless Internet-of-Things." (BEST PAPER NOMINEE) 15th ACM Conference on Embedded Network Sensor Systems (SenSys '17)

    Josiah Hester, Kevin Storer, Jacob Sorber. "Timely Execution on Intermittently Powered Batteryless Sensors." 15th ACM Conference on Embedded Network Sensor Systems (SenSys '17)

    Josiah Hester, Travis Peters, Tianlong Yun, Ronald Peterson, Joseph Skinner, Bhargav Golla, Kevin Storer, Steven Hearndon, Kevin Freeman, Sarah Lord, Ryan Halter, David Kotz, Jacob Sorber. "Amulet: An Energy-Efficient, Multi-Application Wearable Platform." 14th ACM Conference on Embedded Network Sensor Systems (SenSys '16)

    Josiah Hester, Lanny Sitanayah, Jacob Sorber. "Tragedy of the Coulombs: Federating Energy Storage for Tiny, Intermittently-Powered Sensors." 13th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys '15)

    Josiah Hester, Timothy Scott, Jacob Sorber. "Ekho: Realistic and Repeatable Experimentation for Tiny Energy-harvesting Sensors." (BEST PAPER AWARD). 12th ACM Conference on Embedded Network Sensor Systems (SenSys '14)