About Me

MariaGorlatova_PhotoSternberg Family Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Department of Computer Science, Duke University

Office: 409 Wilkinson. Lab: 443 Wilkinson [lab info].

E-mail: maria.gorlatova /at/ duke.edu

Research focus: I am an expert in pervasive systems and augmented reality, specializing in the scientific and computer systems foundations of next-generation extended reality (XR) and pervasive AI. The core research goal of my lab is to enable safe and robust augmented reality and human-facing spatial AI in open-world settings. Our research integrates edge AI, sensing, networking, empirical measurement, and real-time evaluation to enable robust environmental and user-state awareness in AR/XR, safe AR-mediated human-robot collaboration, and human-centered XR systems for healthcare.  More about my current research and the lab I lead at Duke University.

Bio: Before joining Duke in 2018, I was an Associate Research Scholar and an Associate Director of the EDGE Lab at Princeton University Department of Electrical Engineering, where I worked with Prof. Mung Chiang. I earned my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University in the Wireless and Mobile Networking Lab led by Prof. Gil Zussman. My Ph.D. dissertation was recognized with the highest departmental distinction, the Jury Award for Outstanding Achievement in Communications. I earned the B.Sc. (Summa Cum Laude) and the M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ottawa, Canada. My outside-of-academia experience includes research, development, patent examination, and business strategy and execution, with roles at the Canadian Patent Office, Defense R&D Canada, Telcordia Technologies, Sirius Satellite Radio, Disney Research, D. E. Shaw Research, and IBM Corporate Headquarters Chief Economist’s Office.

My research has been recognized with the 2025 DARPA Director’s Fellowship Award, 2023 DARPA Young Faculty Award, the 2021 NSF CAREER Award, and the 2025 IEEE ISMAR Best Paper Award. among others. I have also received faculty research awards from IBM, Cisco, and Meta. I have served in major research-community leadership roles, including Steering Committee Member for ACM/IEEE SenSys and ACM/IEEE IPSN, TPC Co-Chair for ACM SenSys and ACM/IEEE IPSN, General Chair for ACM HotMobile, and organizer of workshops and special issues in trustworthy XR, immersive computing systems, edge computing, and networked sensing.

Industry and translational leadership: My industry and government experience helps me work across the academia–industry–government divide in XR, edge AI, IoT, and human-facing intelligent systems. At Duke, I serve as Associate Director for XR at the Center for Computational and Digital Health Innovation, helping connect immersive-systems research with healthcare and deployment-oriented applications. I have given invited talks for industry and government audiences including Augmented World Expo (AWE) USA, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health,  and Accenture Labs, and have participated in research gatherings hosted by Google, Meta, and Microsoft Research. My earlier industry leadership includes serving as elected co-chair of the OpenFog Consortium Communications Working Group, judging the Consumer Electronics Show Innovation Awards, and advising health and IoT startups.

I enjoy talking with teams tackling hard problems in trustworthy human-facing spatial intelligence, particularly next-generation smart glasses and AR/XR systems, their safety and real-time evaluation, context and situational awareness, situated human-AI and human-robot interaction, and healthcare XR applications. I also welcome conversations about adjacent challenges in edge AI, sensing, and networked systems.
MariaGorlatova_2
Outside of work: I am a runner and a triathlete. I competed in more than 80 races including 3 marathons, 3 Escape from Alcatraz triathlons, and an Ironman triathlon [blog post about the Ironman].  I have thrice qualified for, and once competed in, Triathlon Age Group National Championships [blog post about the nationals]. Fun fact 1: I ran at least one mile in 40 US states. [the map of the states and countries where I went running]. Fun fact 2: A motion trace of my 3-hour marathon preparation run appeared in my paper on harvesting energy of motion [Figure 6 in this paper] [related blog post].

Guiding principles: First and foremost: I aim to create technology I will be proud to leave to my children. As a mother of two young children, I am adamant that the technology I build should support their goals, help them notice and understand the world around them, connect them with others, and strengthen rather than outsource their thinking.

Second: we are not simply building technology. We are fortunate to work on an exciting frontier where technology does not exist in isolation, but is connected to the physical world and intimately interfaces with humans. At this frontier, we are reaching the limits of our scientific methods and our understanding, including our understanding of humans. We strive to push past the limits of existing methods and abstractions and advance the scientific foundations of this complex cyber-physical-human frontier.

I am always looking for creative, energetic, and hard-working BS, MS, and PhD students to join my Duke University lab. Please e-mail me your CV, transcripts, and a brief note about your research interests at maria.gorlatova /at/ duke.edu. [ More information about our current research projects ] [ Lab members ]

 Recent News and News Highlights

New July 2026: I am on sabbatical until January 2027, focusing on the next phase of my work in trustworthy human-facing spatial intelligence systems that bring together mixed reality, edge AI, sensing, communications, and networking. During this sabbatical, I am building new collaborations across academia, industry, and government. Please reach out if you are interested in shaping this emerging area together.

8/10/2026: Our paper Augmented Reality-based Contextual Guidance through Surgical Tool Tracking in Neurosurgery is recognized with the IEEE Computer Society 2025 Best Paper Award in the VR & AR category! Heartfelt congratulations to the lead author, Sarah Eom, and the rest of the team [ Paper PDF ] [ Award information ]

7/30/2026: We received a 4-year NSF FutureCore Award dedicated to making next-generation AR and AR-mediated human-robot collaboration more trustworthy. Joint work with Co-PI Miroslav Pajic. See more information here.

7/2/2026: Members of Duke I3T Lab presented a demonstration of a collaborative AR exergame we have been developing as part of our NSF Breaking Low effort at AWE USA and at UIUC Immerse Symposium. [ More information ]

7/1/2026: Duke I3T Lab paper on SLAM for AR-aided human-robot collaboration, SHARE: Towards Head-Mounted AR with User-Centric SLAM in Shared Human–Robot Workspaces, will be appearing at ACM IMWUT 2026. [ Paper PDF ]

6/26/2026: Two Duke I3T Lab papers on AI-aided AR for human-robot collaboration are coming out this summer: fARfetch: Enabling Collocated AR-HRC in Large Visually Diverse Environments with VLM-Driven AR Content Adaptation will be presented at IEEE RO-MAN 2026; ARTOO-DARTU: Studying AR-HRC With AR Obstruction Mitigation During a Warehouse Task will be appearing at ACM MobileHCI 2026.

5/1/2026: I was named the 2026 Bass Chair. This university-wide distinction recognizes excellence in research and undergraduate teaching.

3/2/2026: I am serving as the General Chair of ACM HotMobile 2027. Deadline October 9, 2026; submit your best, most interesting work!

2/28/2026: Duke I3T team won the ACM HotMobile 2026 Best Demo Award, for the demo titled Catch Smart Glasses If You Scan: Robot-Controlled vs. UI-Guided.

10/14/2025: Duke I3T Lab paper titled “Detecting Visual Information Manipulation Attacks in Augmented Reality: A Multimodal Semantic Reasoning Approach” received the IEEE ISMAR 2025 Best Paper Award.

9/14/2025: A new NSF TIP directorate Breaking Low Award will support our work on low-latency multi-user XR for rehabilitation. Project led by PI Jiasi Chen (U Michigan) with Co-PIs Maria Gorlatova (Duke), Ethan Katz-Bassett (Columbia University) and Nakjung Choi (Nokia). [Award information] [UMich news item] Duke team includes ECE (PI Gorlatova; SP T. Chen), OIT (SP Johnson; SP Brockelsby), and Duke School of Nursing (SP Granger).

Education

2008 – 2013 Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY

  • Thesis: Energy Harvesting Networked Nodes: Measurements, Algorithms, and Prototyping [Thesis PDF]. Jury Award for Outstanding Achievement in Communications.
  • Advised by Prof. Gil Zussman [Academic genealogy]
  • Columbia University Presidential Fellowship, Canadian Graduate NSERC CGS Fellowship
  • GPA: 4.18/4.0

2005 – 2006 M.Sc. Electrical Engineering, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

2000 – 2004 B.Sc. Electrical Engineering, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

  • Summa Cum Laude
  • GPA 92/100, Major GPA 98/100

Additional training: Micro-MBA (IBM), Project Management (NYU), Product Management (NY General Assembly), Proposal Writing (Princeton University). Certifications: Project Management Professional.

Positions: Research

  • Sternberg Family Associate Professor, Duke University Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Durham, NC, July 2026 – present
  • James N. & Elizabeth H. Barton Associate Professor, Duke University Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Durham, NC, 2025 – present
  • Nortel Networks Assistant Professor, Duke University Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Durham, NC, 2020 – 2025
  • Assistant Professor, Duke University Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science Departments, Durham, NC, 2018 – 2025
  • Associate Director, Princeton EDGE Lab, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 2017 – 2018
  • Associate Research Scholar, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 2016 – 2018
  • Postdoctoral Researcher, Columbia University, New York, NY, 2013
  • Presidential Fellow, Columbia University, New York, NY, 2008 – 2013
  • Research Assistant (Ph.D. internship), Disney Research, Zurich, Switzerland, 2011
  • Research Scientist, Telcordia Technologies, Piscataway, NJ, 2007 – 2008
  • Research Scientist, Defense R&D Canada, Ottawa, ON, 2004 – 2007

Positions: Other

Recent and Selected Publications

[ToAppearIMWUT26] T. Du, T. Hu, H. Ye, and M. Gorlatova, SHARE: Towards Head-Mounted AR with User-Centric SLAM in Shared Human–Robot Workspaces. To appear in ACM IMWUT 2026.

[ToAppearMobileHCI26] C. Fronk, H. Ye, Z. Qu, M. Gorlatova, ARTOO-DARTU: Studying AR-Assisted Human-Robot Collaboration with AR Obstruction Mitigation during a Warehouse Task. To appear in ACM MobileHCI, Aug. 2026.

[ToAppearRoMAN26] C. Fronk, H. Ye, D. Hunt, M. Pajic, M. Gorlatova, fARfetch: Enabling Collocated AR-HRC in Large Outdoor Environments with VLM-Driven AR Content Adaptation. To appear in IEEE RO-MAN, Aug. 2026.

[TVCG26] S. Eom, T. Hu, W. Xu, L. Zou, E. Escobar, G. Streisfeld, A. Mall, B. B. Granger, and M. Gorlatova. Rhythms of Recovery: Patient-Centered Virtual Reality Exergame for Physical Rehabilitation in the Intensive Care Unit. In IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 2026, with a presentation at IEEE VR 2026. [ Paper PDF ] [ More information ]

[HotMobile26] H. Ye, T. Hu, M. Gorlatova, No Guide, No Cheat: Detecting Smart Glasses via AR Optical Signatures. In Proc. ACM HotMobile, Feb. 2026. [ Accompanying demonstration – received the ACM HotMobile 2026 Best Demo Award ]

[IEEETVCG25a] Y. Xiu and M. Gorlatova. Detecting Visual Information Manipulation Attacks in Augmented Reality: A Multimodal Semantic Reasoning Approach. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, Vol. 31, No. 11, Nov. 2025. Presented at IEEE ISMAR 2025 (8% acceptance rate). IEEE ISMAR 2025 Best Paper Award  [ Paper PDF ] [ GitHub repo ]

[IEEETVCG25b] Y. Xiu, T. Scargill, and M. Gorlatova. ViDDAR: Vision Language Model-based Detrimental Content Detection for Augmented Reality. In IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 2025, with presentation at IEEE VR 2025. [ Paper PDF ] [ GitHub repo ] [ Accompanying demonstration ]