Abdelzaher named 2021 IEEE Fellows

CSL's Tarek Abdelzaher was selected as a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in recognition for his extraordinary contributions to any of the

organization’s fields of interest. In all, 282 men and women were selected as 2021 IEEE Fellows.

Tarek Abdelzaher, the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Professor in Computer Science, was selected for contributions to cyber-physical systems and real-time computing. A prolific researcher with more than 350 publications, Abdelzaher is also known for his work on social sensing, which involves analyzing and measuring media where social signals interact with complex physical and information environments.

His work has applications where computer-driven devices interact with unpredictable, dynamic environments or remote ecosystems.

He also developed theory and tools for understanding systems that feature collaboration between human networks and embedded devices, such as sensors.

Abdelzaher is currently the academic leader of a $25 million Army Research Lab (ARL-funded) project that is developing the scientific foundations of next-generation Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) technology. The initiative, which includes university, industry, and ARL researchers, will produce new predictive battlefield analytics and services.

In another area of inquiry, Abdelzaher has studied how information propagates through social media. This past spring, he and his students repurposed their information propagation models to predict COVID-19 spread.

Abdelzaher received the IEEE Outstanding Technical Achievement and Leadership Award in Real-time Systems in 2012, and he was elected an ACM Fellow in 2019. He received a Grainger College of Engineering Xerox Award for Faculty Research in 2011. He is also affiliated with the Information Trust Institute (ITI)

Two other computer science faculty, Grigore Rosu and Svetlana Lazebnik, were also elected as IEEE Fellows. Rosu is also affiliated with ITI.