Deborah Estrin

Deborah Estrin is a computer scientist whose work focuses on technology, health, and the public good. She holds the Robert V. Tishman Professorship in Computer Science at Cornell Tech and the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. At Cornell Tech, Estrin serves as Associate Dean for Impact and is an affiliate faculty member at Weill Cornell Medicine. Her research includes sensor networks, participatory sensing, mobile health, and small data, and her work has been cited extensively in the computer science community.

After completing graduate studies at MIT, Estrin began her academic career as a professor of computer science at the University of Southern California. She later focused on designing network and routing protocols for large global networks such as the Internet. Estrin played a key role in the development of embedded networked sensing, securing a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center grant to establish the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS), where she served as the first director. At UCLA, she contributed to the advancement of mobile and wireless systems for collecting and analyzing real-time data about the physical world.

At Cornell Tech, Estrin founded the Health Tech Hub and directs the Small Data Lab, which develops personal data APIs and applications to help individuals utilize the small data traces generated in daily life. She co-founded the nonprofit startup Open mHealth and has served on scientific advisory boards for mobile health startups, as well as working as an Amazon Scholar. Estrin also established the Public Interest Technology Initiative at Cornell Tech, which integrates public impact into student training and career development. Her concept of small data—using digital traces to improve personal health outcomes—has influenced the digital health field and was featured in a TEDMED talk.

Estrin's work has been recognized with honors including the IEEE Internet Award, the MacArthur Fellowship, and the IEEE John von Neumann Medal. She was cited for the von Neumann Medal for leadership in mobile and wireless sensing systems technologies and applications, including personal health management. Estrin is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and received the ACM Athena Lecturer Award. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine, and has received honorary doctorates from EPFL, Uppsala, and Concordia. Estrin communicates her research to audiences across academia, industry, and the public sphere, contributing to ongoing discussions about digital health, computer science, and technology's role in society.