Title: "When Disaster Strikes: Supplementing Centralized Infrastructure with Opportunistic Communication"
Speaker: Corey Baker, Ph.D., Dept of ECE, UC San Diego
Reliance on Internet connectivity is detrimental where modern networking technology is lacking, power outages are frequent, or network connectivity is sparse or non-existent (i.e., developing countries, natural disasters, and in-field military scenarios). Realization of the limitations resulting from reliance on Internet and cellular connectivity were prevelant in Hurricane Matthews (2016), which killed over 1000 people and destroyed cellular infrastructure. As an alternative, deploying resilient networking technology can facilitate the flow of information in resource-deprived environments to disseminate life saving data. In addition, leveraging opportunistic communication can supplement cellular networks to assist with keeping communication channels open during high-use and extreme situations. This talk will discus the progress of a research platform and middleware that enables opportunistic communication and in vivo evaluation of delay tolerant routing schemes when the Internet is interrupted or unavailable by leveraging node relationships to create a delay tolerant social network. The solutions discussed in this talk further include applications related to IoT, mobile healthcare, and smart city environments.
Biography: Corey Baker, Ph.D., is a University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of California, San Diego and is mentored by Professor Ramesh Rao. Dr. Baker's research interests are in the area of cyber physical systems specializing in opportunistic wireless communication for the Internet of Things (IoT), smart cities, smart homes, and mobile health environments. Particularly, Dr. Baker is interested in pragmatic applications and the fundamental issues related to real-world resource availability in today's operating systems for opportunistic wireless communication. Dr. Baker was a recipient of the GEM Ph.D. Fellowship, Intel Scholarship, McKnight Dissertation Fellowship, and the NSF LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship. He received a B.S. degree in Computer Engineering from San Jose State University, a M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from California State University, Los Angeles, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Florida, where he was advised by Professor Janise McNair. Corey has served on the board of directors of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) numerous times as a two term National Treasurer and CFO, two term National Treasurer Emeritus, and as the Region 6 Chairperson. Dr. Baker is currently a NSBE Region 6 Finance Zone Advisor. Formerly, Dr. Baker was the official blogger for GEM and blogged about topics to promote success amongst STEM graduate students which included securing graduate school funding, navigating Ph.D. programs, and publishing. His blogs can be found at http://coreybaker.com