{"679678":{"#nid":"679678","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Biden Administration Names Interactive Computing Researcher as PECASE Recipient","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA researcher in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing has received the nation\u2019s highest honor given to early career scientists and engineers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAssociate Professor Josiah Hester was one of 400 people awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the Biden Administration announced in a\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/ostp\/news-updates\/2025\/01\/14\/president-biden-honors-nearly-400-federally-funded-early-career-scientists\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E press release\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E on Tuesday.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe PECASE winners\u2019 research projects are funded by government organizations, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and NASA. They will be invited to visit the White House later this year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHester joins Associate Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.mse.gatech.edu\/news\/juan-pablo-correa-baena-named-pecase-recipient-president-biden\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJuan-Pablo Correa-Baena\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E from the School of Materials Science and Engineering as the two Tech faculty who received the honor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHester said his nomination was based on the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.mccormick.northwestern.edu\/news\/articles\/2022\/02\/josiah-hester-receives-prestigious-nsf-career-award\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ENSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E) award he received in 2022 as an assistant professor at Northwestern University. He said the NSF submits its nominations to the White House for the PECASE awards, but researchers are not informed until the list of winners is announced.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFor me, I always thought this was an unachievable, unassailable type of thing because of the reputation of the folks in computing who\u2019ve won previously,\u201d Hester said. \u201cIt was always a far-reaching goal. I was shocked. It\u2019s something you would never in a million years think you would win.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHester is known for pioneering research in a new subfield of sustainable computing dedicated to creating battery-free devices powered by solar energy, kinetic energy, and radio waves. He co-led a team that developed the first \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.mccormick.northwestern.edu\/magazine\/spring-2021\/future-played-without-batteries\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003Ebattery-free handheld gaming device\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELast year, Hester co-authored an \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cacm.acm.org\/research\/the-internet-of-batteryless-things\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003Earticle published\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E in the Association of Computing Machinery\u2019s in-house journal, the Communications of the ACM, in which he coined the term \u201cInternet of Battery-less Things.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Internet of Things is the network of physical computing devices capable of connecting to the internet and exchanging data. However, these devices eventually die. Landfills are overflowing with billions of them and their toxic power cells, harming our ecosystem.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn his CAREER award, Hester outlined projects that would work toward replacing the most used computing devices with sustainable, battery-free alternatives.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI want everything to be an Internet of Batteryless Things \u2014 computational devices that could last forever,\u201d Hester said. \u201cI outlined a bunch of different ways that you could do that from the computer engineering side and a little bit from the human-computer interaction side. They all had a unifying theme of making computing more sustainable and climate-friendly.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHester is also a Sloan Research Fellow, an honor he received in 2022. In 2021, Popular Sciene named him to its \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/science\/brilliant-scientists-2021\/#Josiah%20Hester\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBrilliant 10\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E list. He also received the Most Promising Engineer or Scientist Award from the American Indian Science Engineering Society, which recognizes significant contributions from the indigenous peoples of North America and the Pacific Islands in STEM disciplines.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPresident Bill Clinton established PECASE in 1996. The White House press release recognizes exceptional scientists and engineers who demonstrate leadership early in their careers and present innovative and far-reaching developments in science and technology.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EHester joins Associate Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.mse.gatech.edu\/news\/juan-pablo-correa-baena-named-pecase-recipient-president-biden\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJuan-Pablo Correa-Baena\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E from the School of Materials Science and Engineering as the two Tech faculty who received the honor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe PECASE winners\u2019 research projects are funded by government organizations, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and NASA. They will be invited to visit the White House later this year.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Interactive Computing Associate Professor Josiah Hester is one of 400 people to be awarded the Presidential Early Career Award For Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the nation\u0027s highest honor for early career researchers."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2025-01-16 19:19:32","changed_gmt":"2025-01-16 19:21:19","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2025-01-16T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2025-01-16T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"676048":{"id":"676048","type":"image","title":"EECS_86A9315-Enhanced-NR.jpg","body":null,"created":"1737055188","gmt_created":"2025-01-16 19:19:48","changed":"1737055188","gmt_changed":"2025-01-16 19:19:48","alt":"Josiah Hester","file":{"fid":"259752","name":"EECS_86A9315-Enhanced-NR.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2025\/01\/16\/EECS_86A9315-Enhanced-NR.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2025\/01\/16\/EECS_86A9315-Enhanced-NR.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":105806,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2025\/01\/16\/EECS_86A9315-Enhanced-NR.jpg?itok=i8gfRKxZ"}}},"media_ids":["676048"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"172013","name":"Faculty Awards and Honors"},{"id":"1740","name":"National Award"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"},{"id":"39471","name":"Materials"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"},{"id":"39491","name":"Renewable Bioproducts"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENATHAN DEEN\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECOMMUNICATIONS OFFICER\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESCHOOL OF INTERACTIVE COMPUTING\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}