Research Talk by Zhihan Zhang
Abstract:
As computing becomes an increasingly integral part of modern life in everything, computing devices also pose significant environmental impacts, and are harmful to humans when they reach the end of their life cycle. In this talk, I will explain how by taking an interdisciplinary approach spanning novel materials, sensing, and design tools, we can create a fully circular electronics life cycle and pave the way for sustainability transitions in the electronics industry. I will present the first printed circuit boards (PCBs) that can be recycled, repaired, and reused repeatedly without performance degradations, leveraging emerging materials. I will then present the first design tool that integrates domain-specific knowledge to assess the environmental impact of electronics, and how this tool empowers designers to make informed sustainable decisions. Finally, I will discuss how to combine sustainable materials and life cycle thinking to create new passive, chip-less tactile interfaces, by encoding multidimensional information using inherent material properties and decoding through common off-the-shelf wearable sensors.
About the speaker:
Biography:
Zhihan Zhang is a second-year Ph.D. student at the University of Washington Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, advised by Prof. Vikram Iyer and Prof. Shwetak Patel. His research focuses on sustainable and ubiquitous computing. His research has been published in top scientific journals (Nature Sustainability, Nature Communications), and premier CS venues (CHI, IMWUT), and has been recognized by Clean Energy Institute Fellowship.
Prior to joining the Allen School, he did his M.S. in Quantitative & Computational Finance and received his B.S. in Computer Engineering with highest honors from Georgia Institute of Technology, where he worked with Prof. Thad Starner and Prof. Gregory Abowd at Georgia Tech Ubicomp Lab.
For more information, visit Zhihan Zhang’s homepage.
Time and Location:
Friday, May 10th, 2024
5:00pm – 6:00pm – Eng. Bldg. 2, Room 112C1
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