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 mobile personal sensing systems, leveraging the location, acoustic, image, and attached-sensor data streams increasingly available globally from mobile phones. Ongoing projects include Personal Environmental Impact Report, Participatory Sensing campaigns for communities, and self–monitoring applications in support of health and wellness (http://urban.cens.ucla.edu, http://peir.cens.ucla.edu).
Estrin has been a co-PI on many NSF and DARPA funded projects and has been an active participant in numerous government sponsored studies. 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 later chaired the Sensors and Sensor Networks subcommittee of the NEON Network Design Committee (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 Research Council (NRC).
Estrin 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 ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks.
Estrin is a fellow of the ACM, AAAS and the IEEE. She was selected as the first ACM-W Athena Lecturer in 2006, was awarded the Anita Borg Institute’s Women of Vision Award for Innovation in 2007, inducted into the WITI hall of fame in 2008, and awarded Doctor Honoris Causa from EPFL in 2008. Professor Estrin was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007 and into the National Academy of Engineering in 2009.