Hale Ao o Ka Moamoa

A research lab at Northwestern University exploring energy efficient computing in the context of global scale applications ranging from healthcare to environmental engineering. Learn about the name

Recent Publications

More Publications

AdaSens: Adaptive Environment Monitoring by Coordinating Intermittently-Powered Sensors 27th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC) (ASP-DAC’22)

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Battery-free MakeCode: Accessible Programming for Intermittent Computing ACM Interactive Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technology (ACM UbiComp’22)

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FaceBit: Smart Face Masks Platform ACM Interactive Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technology (ACM UbiComp’22)

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BFree: Enabling Battery-Free Sensor Prototyping with Python ACM Interactive Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technology (ACM UbiComp’21)

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HeatSight: Wearable Low-Power Omni Thermal Sensing International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ACM ISWC’21)

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Prospective Students

Our lab is always looking for highly motivated, extremely curious students, with interesting and diverse backgrounds. After reading some of our papers, and looking at some of our projects, where do you see yourself?

  • Do you have serious hardware hacking skills? Are you a software guru?
  • Maybe you are interested in handling the massive amounts of lossy data these systems gather in an elegant way?
  • Perchance you think that all of this falls apart unless we study the human factors, and the sociological impact of trillions of always on devices interacting with us?
  • Or maybe you just really like to build things and see those things have an impact.

If you are any of these people, we might be interested in working with you as a graduate, or undergraduate student.

Before you contact us, It is highly recommended you read this advice , and this advice. Make sure to apply to Northwestern Engineering, and we can talk about working together. If you are already at Northwestern as an undergraduate or graduate student, email Prof Hester to schedule a time to talk in his office.

Prof Hester (a Native Hawaiian) is especially interested in engaging Native and Indigenous students and researchers in Computer Science and Engineering. Please reach out.

Fill out this form if you are interested in working with us.

Projects

Intermittent Computing: Batteries Not Included

Architecture, hardware, languages, and tools, for energy harvesting, intermittently powered computing devices.

Interactive, Programmable Battery-free Devices

Battery-free, interactive devices for a sustainable IoT.

Sustainable Cyberinfrastructure

Battery-free sensing foundations for a sustainable IoT.

Smart Personal Protective Equipment

Batteryless devices for smart personal protection

Circadian Computing

We develop wearable devices that can sense circadian phase and activity, then deliver interventions (via implantable) to entrain new circadian rythyms.

Mobile Health

We explore wearable computational methods to reduce the effect of structural, societal, monetary, or mental barriers to receiving healthcare treatment.

Beyond CMOS Computing

Architecture, languages, and tools, for spintronic computing devices.

Funding

Our lab is generously funded by the National Science Foundation under multiple awards:

We are also funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and 3M.

NSF
NIH
DARPA
3M
Sloan