Pei Zhang is an associate research professor in the ECE departments at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his bachelor's degree with honors from California Institute of Technology in 2002, and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 2008. While at Princeton University, he developed the ZebraNet system, which is used to track zebras in Kenya. It was the first deployed, wireless, ad-hoc, mobile sensor network for which he received the Test-of-Time award. His recent work focuses on utilizing the physical properties of devices and structures as a sensor to discover physical information that surrounds them. As part of this, his work combines machine learning-based data models, physics models, as well as heuristic models to improve the understanding of the sensing system. His approach is applied to the field of medicine, drones, farming and was part of a startup. His work has been featured in popular media including CNN, Science Channel, Discovery Channel, CBS News, CNET, Popular Science, BBC Focus, etc. In addition, he has won several awards including the NSF CAREER award, SenSys Test of Time Award, Google faculty award, and a member of the Department of Defense Computer Science Studies Panel.
