Gregory D. Abowd
Dean of the College of Engineering, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Khoury College Courtesy Appointment
Research interests
- Human–computer interaction
- Ubiquitous computing
- Software engineering
Education
- PhD in computation, University of Oxford — United Kingdom
- MSc in computation, University of Oxford — United Kingdom
- BSc in mathematics, University of Notre Dame
Biography
Gregory D. Abowd is dean of the College of Engineering and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University. He holds a courtesy appointment in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences.
Prior to joining Northeastern in March 2021, Abowed was a Regents’ Professor and held the J.Z. Liang Chair in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, where he also served as associate dean of research and space for the College of Computing. Abowd is an internationally renowned and highly cited scientist known for his contributions to human–computer interaction, specifically to ubiquitous computing.
In more than 26 years at Georgia Tech, Abowd initiated bold and innovative research efforts such as Classroom 2000 and the Aware Home, and pioneered innovations in autism and technology, health systems, CampusLife, and a joint initiative with engineering in computational materials. He was on the founding editorial board of IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine and was founding Editor-in-Chief of Foundations and Trends in HCI and The Proceedings of the ACM in Interactive, Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technologies. He also founded the nonprofit Atlanta Autism Consortium in 2008 to serve and unite local stakeholders in autism research and services.
Abowd’s contributions to human–computer interaction and ubiquitous computing have been recognized by numerous awards. In 2008, he was named a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. That same year, he was inducted into the ACM CHI Academy, the most prestigious honor for researchers in HCI. In 2009, he received the ACM Eugene Lawler Humanitarian Award for his work in autism and technology. As of 2020, Abowd had graduated 30 Ph.D. students, 20 of whom have gone on to successful careers at top universities around the world.
