Neal Patwari

Research

Professor Patwari performs research in wireless networking and in the inequity of engineered and automated sensing and decision systems.

Biography

Neal Patwari is a professor at Washington University in St. Louis in the Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering and the Department of Computer Science & Engineering. He directs the Sensing and Processing Across Networks (SPAN) Lab, which develops new technologies for wireless networks, and to aid in the design of equitable engineered and automated decision and sensing systems.  Prior developments have improved privacy in wireless networks, and capabilities for using a wireless network as a sensor. His work on inequity investigates pulse oximeter bias, automatic speech recognition bias, and how to model feedback in inequitable systems so that we can evaluate how to design mechanisms that lead to, and preserve, equity between groups. His research perspective was shaped by his BS (1997) and MS (1999) in EE at Virginia Tech, his research work at Motorola Labs, and his PhD in EE at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor (2005).

He received the NSF CAREER Award in 2008, the 2009 IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Magazine Paper Award, and the 2011 University of Utah Early Career Teaching Award.  He has co-authored papers with best paper awards at IEEE SenseApp 2012 and at the ACM/IEEE IPSN 2014 conference. Patwari served as the TPC chair of IPSN 2020 and SenSys 2023, and has served as member of the TPC of conferences in wireless and sensor networking such as IPSN, MobiCom, SECON, and SenSys.