PI Nivedita Arora is the Breed Chair Assistant Professor in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Computer Science (CS) at Northwestern University. She pioneers the next generation of embodied systems that are self-powered, embodied, and ubiquitous; drawing from computer science, engineering, and the natural sciences. She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Masters in Human Computer Interaction from Georgia Tech in 2023 and 2016 respectively. Her Ph.D. dissertation received the ACM Best Doctoral Dissertation Award. Her work has also been featured in People of ACM and recognized with the IEEE Pervasive Computing Emerging Rockstar honor.
Awards
Global
- 2024 Work highlighted in People of ACM
- 2024 IEEE Pervasive Computing Emerging Rockstar
- 2023 ACM Best Dissertation Award
- 2022 Fast Company Design Innovation Competition in Experimental Category Finalist
- 2021 ACM Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Ubiquitous Computing Student Award
- 2021 EECS Rising Stars, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- 2021 Fast Company Design Innovation Competition in Experimental Category Honoree
University
- 2023 Breed Junior Chaired Professor
- 2023 Outstanding Dissertation, Georgia Tech College of Computing
- 2022 Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant Award in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing
- 2021 GVU Foley Scholar, Georgia Institute of Technology
Service
- Associate Editor
2024–Present: Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT) - Organising Committee
2026: Sustainability Chair, ACM TEI
2024: Sustainability Competition Chair, ACM Embedded Wireless Systems and Networks; Workshop Chair, IEEE BSN
2023: Publicity & Social Media Chairs, ACM Ubicomp
2020: Workshop Co-Organiser, ACM CHI Virtual, Self-Sustainable CHI: Sustainable Self-Powered Interfaces and Interactions 2018: Workshop Co-Organiser, Broadening Participation Workshop, ACM Ubicomp - Technical Program Committee
2025: ACM TEI, IEEE Pervasive Computing, ACM Ensys-Sensys
2024: ACM CHI – Building Devices Subcommittee, IEEE International Green and Sustainable Computing Conference
2023: ACM SenSys – EnSys Workshop, IEEE International Green and Sustainable Computing Conference
2022: ACM MobiSys Workshop Digibiom, CHI Late-Breaking Work
2021: Work-in-Progress, ACM Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI) - Conference Session Chair
2021: ACM UIST On-Body Interaction - Northwestern University Service
2024: Faculty Advisor NU Solar - Paper Reviewer
UbiComp (2016, 2017, 2019)
Mobile HCI (2018)
ISWC (2017, 2022)
CHI (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022)
UIST (2020, 2023, 2024)
IUI (2021)
TEI (2021)
IEEE Sensors Letters (2024) - Student Volunteer
ACM UbiComp Conference, Virtual Event (2020)
Ubiquitous Computing Conference in Osaka, Japan (2015) - Panelist for Georgia Tech MS HCI Seminar, Getting a Ph.D. 2019
- Georgia Tech Grad Group Leader 2018
- Instructor, Girls Who Code Georgia Tech Chapter 2017
- Group Meeting Coordinator, Ubiquitous Computing Lab, Georgia Tech 2016–2018
- Founder, Mobile Development Group, Delhi University 2011–2012
Grants
- $8,500 — PI, American Association of Plant Biologists Bloom Education Grant, 2025
- $25,000 — PI, Ansys, Inc. Research Gift, 2025
- $15,000 — PI, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, 2024
- $4,500 — PI, NU Alumni for Sustainable Quantum Computing, 2024
- $15,000 — PI, Breed Junior Chaired Professor Endowment, 2023
- $550 — Student Travel grant by GT’s GVU and SGA for attending ACM MobiSys Conference, 2022
- $30,000 — Graduate research assistant position sponsored by HEERF Covid funds, Georgia Tech, 2022
- $180,000 — Cisco research grant for Ph.D. dissertation, 2021
- $1,000 — Travel Scholarship by College of Computing, Georgia Tech, 2019
- $50,000 — NSF I-Corps Commercialization grant for Self-sustainable Building Water Leak Detection project, 2019
- $2,000 — Provost travel grant, Career Research and Innovation Development Conference (CRIDC), Georgia Tech, 2019
- $1,500 — Travel grant by Career, Research, and Innovation Development Conference (CRIDC), Georgia Tech, 2018
- $20,000 — International research fellowship, American Association of University Women (AAUW), 2016
Invited Talks
- Sustainable Internet of Things for Agriculture and Conservation
Chicago Botanical Garden Feb 2025 - Sustainable Robotic Textiles
Ansys, Inc (Host: Prith Banerjee) Aug 2024 - Sustainable Computational Materials:
Rethinking the Electronic Lifecycle from an Environmental Lens
11th Greater Chicago Area Systems Research Workshop (GCASR) May 2024 - Sustainable Quantum Technologies:
Quantum for Sustainability and Sustainability of Quantum
The Quantum Economic Development Consortium Annual Meeting March 2024 - Sustainable Internet of Things: Rethinking the Lifecycle of Electronics
from an Environmental Lens
Computer Science Department, Northwestern University Feb 2024 - Sustainable IoT: Rethinking Materials to Applications
5th Annual Joint Meeting of the IEEE Magnetics Society and Nanotechnology Council Chicago Chapters Nov 2023 - Building Sustainable Computational Materials
UIUC CS (Host: Robin Hillary Kravets) April 2023
UVA CS & ECE (Host: Brad Campbell) April 2023
UMass CS (Host: Ravi Karkar and Prashant Shenoy) April 2023
CMU ECE and S3D (Host: Mayank Goyal) March 2023
UCSD CSE and Design Lab (Host: Nadir and Edward Wang) March 2023
UC Berkeley EECS (Host: Sarah Chasins) Feb 2023
University of Chicago CS (Host: Pedro Lopez) Feb 2023
Northwestern University ECE (Host: Russ Joseph) Feb 2023
University of Michigan EECS (Host: Alanson Sample) Feb 2023
Tufts University ECE (Host: Thomas Vandervelde) Feb 2023
North Carolina State University CS (Host: Muhammad Shahzad) Feb 2023 - Designing Sustainable Computational Things
9th International Conference on Networking, Systems and Security
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology Dec 2022 - Circularity in Energy Harvesting Computational “Things”
10th International Workshop on Energy Harvesting & Energy-Neutral Sensing Systems, Boston Nov 2022 - Self-powered Acoustic Vibration Sensing Stickers: Devices, Systems and Applications
Amazon Lab 126 (Host: Wontak Kim) Aug 2022 - Towards Self-powered Interactive Material for Mixed Reality Experiences
HCI Seminar Series, Meta Reality Labs (Host: Kashyap Todi) July 2022 - Self-powered Acoustic Vibration Sensing Material
1st ACM International Workshop on Intelligent Acoustic Systems and Applications Workshop, MobiSys, Portland July 2022 - Designing for Sustainability in Computing: Self-Powered Computational Material
Brown Bag, GT’s GVU Center May 2022 - Self-Powered Vibration Sensing Material
Emerging Tech and Incubation Group, Cisco (Host: Ramana Kompella) May 2022 - Self-sustainable Wireless Interface Stickers
Systems and Networking Research Group (SyNRG), UIUC (Host: Romit Roy Choudhury) Dec 2021 - Self-sustainable Computational Stickers
Responsive Environment Group, MIT Media Lab (Host: Joe Paradiso) Oct 2021
HCI Engineering Group, MIT CSAIL (Host: Stefanie Mueller) Oct 2021 - Building Self-sustainable Gas Sensing Material
Molecular Information Systems Lab, University of Washington (Host: Luis Ceze) Oct 2019 - How to Give Good Poster Presentations
Ubicomp Lab, Georgia Tech Sept 2019 - 5th Generations of Computing: Computational Materials, Guest Lecture
Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing, Georgia Tech April 2019 - Towards Printable Self-sustainable Sensing
HP Labs (Host: Tico Ballagas) Jan 2019
Committee Member
-
Harsh Kumar Varma, Masters material science, Georgia tech
B.A.T.S. – Biodegradable Acoustic Triboelectric Nanogenerator Sensors Aug2023–June 2024 - Mehmet Kerem Aydin, NU CS PhD Qualifier Dec 2024
- Sanjana Subramanium, NU MechE PhD Proposal Dec 2024
- Sayak Chakrabarty, NU ECE PhD Proposal Aug 2025
People of ACM
VAK Embodied System Lab 