Professor
Computer Science

Heather Zheng

Research

Heather Zheng’s general research interests include wireless networking and systems, mobile computing and multimedia computing. She is also interested in security, distributed systems and social networks. As part of her work with the Greenscale Center for Energy-Efficient Computing, Zheng works to curb energy consumption in wireless networks through spectrum scavenging. Her current research focuses on designing robust and scalable systems to provide reliable and efficient spectrum usage to wireless networks. It combines multiple disciplines from algorithms and systems to economics and security.

Affiliations

Greenscale Center for Energy-Efficient Computing, Member
LINK Lab, UCSB

Biography

Zheng is currently a Professor of Computer Science at UC Santa Barbara where she leads the LINK Lab, part of the Next Generation Networking Group. Before coming to UCSB in 2005, she spent 6 years in industry research positions at Bell-Labs, Murray Hill and Microsoft Research Asia. In 2006, her work on Cognitive Radios was featured in MIT Technology Review as a Top-10 Emerging Technology, and she recently became a fellow of the World Technology Network. In 2005, she was one of MIT Technology Review's Top 35 Innovators under the age of 35 for her work on cognitive radios. She was admitted to the highly gifted class of Xi’an Jiaotong University, China at age of 15, and graduated with the highest honors.

Honors

2002 President's Gold Award, Bell Laboratories
1998-1999 George Harhalakis Outstanding Graduate Student Award, University of Maryland
World Technology Network Fellow

Education

Heather Zheng received Ph.D. (1999) and M.S.E. (1998) degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park and a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China (1995).

Lab Websites

IEE Research Areas