Julia Gersey

About Me

I’m a first-year Electrical & Computer Engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, advised by Pei Zhang. I am passionate about building embedded sensing systems to solve unique environmental and community issues. I also love to use IoT for various smart home projects, design and print various 3D models, upcycle old devices into PCB art + wearables, and build iOS apps using fun API’s. I currently serve as the ‘Labz’ Department Editor for the student-led ACM XRDS Magazine (email me if you are interested in having your research highlighted!).

Previously, I got my B.Sc. in both Computer Science and Applied Math at Baldwin Wallace University where I was a member of the Mobile & IoT for Planet and Society (MOPS) Research Group under my advisor, Brian Krupp. (bonus: he created Ducky Weather, a simple yet elegant weather app that doesn’t sell your location data ☺ )

Research Interests

• Embedded Systems: internet-of-things, mobile computing, ubiqutious sensing
• Sensing Networks: wireless networks, environmental sensing, mobile health sensing
• Machine Learning: applied models, classification algorithms, image classification
• Human-Computer Interaction: interaction techniques, community empowerment

My undergraduate research focused on a low-cost, low-power solution for Air Quality sensing with Internet-of-Things (AQIoT), a mobile application to promote food recovery and reduce food waste, food insecurity, and student hunger on college campuses (Campus Plate), and combining machine learning models with audio/visual data to enhance a smart classroom sensing system (EduSense).

Publications

Peer-Reviewed

Other Articles

News

• June 10, 2024: Accepted into @_buildspace nights & weekends season 5 (s5)
• May 15, 2024: Award the Charles & Elsie Little Graduate Award
• May 3, 2024: Speaking about AQIoT project at the ACM SIGCAS Work in Progress event
• April 4, 2024: Received Honorable Mention for the 2024 NSF GRFP
• January 8, 2024: Selected as 1 of 55 Finalists for the NCWIT AiC Collegiate Award
• September 2023: Joined the student-run ACM XRDS Magazine as the ‘LABZ’ Department Editor
• August 2023: Awarded the largest CIO Tomorrow Scholarship at $3,590
• July 2023: Paper on Air Quality Deployment results accepted to ACM CCSC Midwest Conference
• March 2023: Awarded a NASA Ohio Space Grant Consortium Research Scholarship for 2023-24
• March 20, 2023: Speaking at Cleveland’s Big Data Meetup
• March 8, 2023: Accepted into Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute REU
• Feburary 24-25, 2023: Presented Air Quality Research at OCWiC Conference
• December 2022: Featured in BW Science Happens Here: Meet Julia
• November 9, 2022: Awarded a Women for BW Grant to support my trip to Guatemala to deploy BW’s student-built Medical Software System
• November 6-9, 2022: Received an ACM Student Travel Grant for ACM SenSys in Boston
• October 22, 2022: Accepted into Carnegie Mellon’s OurCS conference and researched Congestion Control with TCP Hybla
• October 2022: Air Quality poster was accepted to ACM SenSys 2022
• September 2022: Campus Plate paper was accepted to ACM RACS 2022
• April 2022: Awarded a NASA Ohio Space Grant Consortium Research Scholarship for 2022-23
• April 2022: Completed a Representation in STEM Research Project with BW STEM Scholars
• Feburary 2022: Featured in Cleveland Magazine’s article Baldwin Wallace Steps Up to the Plate
• January 2022: Selected for BW STEM Student Spotlight about my Campus Plate research
• September 2021: Featured in BW student-faculty computer science research group on a roll

Affiliations

• buildspace nights&weekends s5
• Mobile & IoT for Planet and Society Research Group (MOPS)
• CS+ Outreach Group
• Baldwin Wallace ACM/ACM-W
• Baldwin Wallace Upsilon Pi Epsilon
• Carnegie Mellon HCII REU
• Carnegie Mellon OurCS Women in Tech
• NASA Ohio Space Grant Consortium
• ACM XRDS Magazine
• Hack Club Summer of Making