Partnerships between universities and industry can yield important research and commercial breakthroughs. ATLAS professor Ellen Do has worked to cultivate relationships between CU Boulder and industry players, including as a member of the Pervasive Personalized Intelligence (PPI) Center, to support graduate students and enhance opportunities for commercialization of ATLAS research.
The , which recently concluded its tenure, was founded “with a mission of bringing industry and university talent together to solve the intelligence challenges faced by software and computer engineers in Internet of Things systems.” It operated under the supervision of the National Science Foundation and included members from NEC, Intel and Trimble.
“It’s been such a good experience. We’ve learned a lot. Ellen Do and her team have helped to expand our thinking and encouraged us to explore new areas.” – Dr. Haifeng Chen, Head of Data Science Department at NEC Laboratories, and his colleague Kai Ishikawa, Principal Researcher (PPI Center event recap)
The PPI Center’s in Portland, OR, included a research poster session, and ATLAS students were honored with three of the four awards industry attendees voted on at the event.
- Suibi Che-Chuan Weng, PhD student, won “Most Industry Ready” for .
- Rishi Vanukuru, PhD student, won “Most Impactful” for .
- Ada Zhao, MS student, won “Most Impactful” for .
2 more ATLAS PhD students participated: Krithik Ranjan presented and David Hunter presented .
As for the experience participating in the PPI Center, Do says, “it is good to know that the industry is interested in supporting research and considers our research relevant.” She sees ways ATLAS could form partnerships within several industry sectors on a range of themes due to the multidisciplinary nature of the research conducted here.
Since their involvement in PPI started, Do and her team have had a series of meetings with mentors from global technology firms, discussing collaborative research opportunities.
Vanukuru is currently doing an internship at Microsoft Research Cambridge focused on spatial computing in its VR/AR group. Weng and Zhao are working on research in the ACME Lab this summer, extending the Editing Reality (and PuppetGuide), and WizARd and Apprentice projects with interns from the . Zhao is also conducting a pilot study, interviewing laser cutter operating experts about how they would demonstrate operations and how they can annotate their demonstration using the WizARd prototype for novice learners. Hunter has embarked on an internship with Trimble this summer, while he and Ranjan are also working in the ACME Lab.