Better Technology for Future Generations

Ode to the 5th Week of a Training Program

Posted on August 17, 2013 by admin

Being a total data geek, I keep detailed digitized training logs that go back to December of 2009. I write down what I did – in running, cycling, hiking – everything, – and how it felt, keep track of benchmark times and my concerns about them. I also keep track of key summary statistics and analyze them with MATLAB scripts I’ve perfected over the years (told you I was a data geek). These logs tell many stories – of sports performance, and also of work, life, travel, adventures, occasional real stupidity ( you ran a fast mile in the middle of a long run and three days later somehow your shin hates you, huh! – well, I wonder why that is… ) – a trove of marvelous longitudinal data.

Continue reading →

Posted in Running, Sports, Training | Comments Off

Visualizations: my CV and my Research Statement as Word Clouds

Posted on July 30, 2013 by admin

As far back as I remember, I was a fan of clear, catchy, and entertaining visual data representations. Like those that often appear in the National Geographic or the Economist – the engaging ways of presenting scientific facts and data.

Its amazing to live in the world where tools for advanced visualizations are becoming available to the mere mortals. Thank goodness that one no longer needs to be a designer to create them! For example, below are sample word clouds of my CV and my research statement. I love them because they convey the long detailed documents’ feel visually and concisely.

A CV word cloud. Publications included in the CV – hence the predominant role of the IEEE and ACM in the visual.

A research statement word cloud.

Posted in Career and Leadership, Consumer technology, Data science, Data visualization, Internet of Things, Mobile computing, Ph.D., Technology, Wearable computing | Comments Off

Mount Washington Road Race

Posted on June 25, 2013 by admin

Last weekend I conquered Mount Washington Road Race, which has long been on my bucket list. This well-organized, unusual race did not disappoint; I would highly recommend it to folks that are up for its challenges.

While only 7.6 miles long, the route’s average incline is 12%, and peak incline is 22%. There are no breaks from the incline at any points in the race — the mountain road goes up and up and up. There are stickers for cars that take on the challenge of climbing the route of this race. Of course I had to run it. Continue reading →

Posted in Achievement, Highlights, Races, Running, Sports | Comments Off

Beautiful Pervasive World: Wearable Devices

Posted on June 7, 2013 by admin

Having seen nothing but my dissertation in the last 6 months, I have been tremendously enjoying an opportunity to scale back on writing and to catch up with the state of the world of innovative pervasive and mobile technology.

Oh, what a beautiful world it is! In the wearable space alone, Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Consumer technology, Highlights, Industry, Internet of Things, Mobile computing, Ph.D., Wearable computing | Comments Off

Convocation and Commencement

Posted on May 26, 2013 by admin

Our Columbia graduation ceremonies took a substantial part of this week and were amazing.

I love graduating from Columbia. Growing up in the direst poverty and deprivation in the 1990s Russia, I could not dare to dream of getting to this amazing day. It feels truly extraordinarily; my heart is filled with deep gratitude to everybody who helped me get to this amazing day.

With my adviser Gil Zussman and close collaborator John Sarik.

With mom and dad.

Now, with the ceremonies behind me, I am in full swing of exploring the paths to my next adventure. The adventure needs to be big, no, HUGE — something that seems as insurmountable to me now as a Columbia University Ph.D. seemed mere years before this week.

Posted in Academia, Achievement, Career and Leadership, Graduate school, Highlights, Ph.D. | Comments Off

Proud Academic Heritage

Posted on May 15, 2013 by admin

Thanks to the Mathematics Genealogy Project, my labmates and I have recently compiled a chart of our academic ancestors, which traces Ph.D. advisor-advisee relationships back to the 1600s. We compiled the chart and got it framed for our advisor’s Gil Zussman‘s birthday – had a lot of fun with that.

Here it is: the pdf of my academic genealogy tree. Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Data visualization, Graduate school, Ph.D. | Comments Off

WimNet’s Columbia University Electrical Engineering Department Awards

Posted on May 10, 2013 by admin

My research group (that is, professor Gil Zussman‘s WimNet lab) has had a very good day today, at the Columbia University Electrical Engineering Department BBQ where this year’s graduate student awards were announced.

Saleh Soltan received the Armstrong Memorial Award, an award for an outstanding M.S. student. This is the highest award for an M.S. student in the department.
Jelena Marasevic received the Millman Award for the Outstanding TA (which Berk Birand received in 2010), and an M.S. Award of Excellence, given to less than top 3% of the M.S. students in the department (and which Rob Margolies received last year).
I received the Jury Award, an award for outstanding achievement by a graduate student in the areas of system communication or signal processing. This is the highest award for a Ph.D. student in the department. I sincerely thank the department for this award — I am really honored by the recognition.

WimNet rocks! It feels incredible to be a part of such an awesome group.

Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Achievement, Graduate school, Highlights, Ph.D. | Comments Off

Mentoring Students

Posted on May 8, 2013 by admin

While much is written about various approaches and activities grad students can use to keep engaged and motivated and to succeed (such as wonderful advice provided here, here, here, here, and in many other articles and posts), one particular useful activity that is often overlooked is mentoring junior students.

Nearly always, there are undergrads (and professional Masters students) looking for research experience. Nearly always, a graduate student can define a research project within their own larger-scale research that is perfectly suitable for an undergrad to play with. A graduate student that takes on this challenge does a lot of good not only for the undergraduates, PIs, school (and the society in general), they also stand to gain much from it themselves.

There are many obvious benefits to mentoring students: Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Career and Leadership, Graduate school, Management, Ph.D., Skills, Tips and tricks | Comments Off

My favorite collection: running countries and states

Posted on May 6, 2013 by admin

When I was in grad school, I started a bit of a game with myself, keeping track of countries, states, and provinces where I went running. The rules of this game are simple: a country, a state, or a province gets added to this collection if I go running there, and run at least 1 mile. The current collection of countries and states, for the most part accumulated over the years of the Ph.D. program, is here:

My most prized item in the current collection is China, where I ran a few kilometers in the Olympic Complex one smoggy morning while visiting for the ACM MobiCom’09. Expanding the collection is on the to-do list for the next few years.

Posted in Achievement, Data visualization, Ph.D., Running, Sports, Travel | Comments Off

Ph.D. Dissertation Defended

Posted on April 25, 2013 by admin

Yes, I did it!

Wednesday April 24th, 4pm EST, following a presentation attended by many of my fellow WimNet group members and coauthors from other groups, and following an intense and engaged period of questioning by the committee, I was pronounced Dr. Gorlatova. It was exhilarating. An exciting culmination of a 5-year Ph.D. journey and a wonderful ending of a brutal semester with a relentless series of deadlines.

Many thanks to my committee members, Professors Chaintreau, Kymissis, Maxemchuk, and Mitra. Unending thanks to my adviser, Professor Zussman, for all his support throughout the last 5 years. Many thanks to all my coauthors and colleagues throughout the years, with very special thanks to John Sarik, Aya Wallwater, Andrey Bernstein, Robert Margolies, Baradwaj Vigraham, Jianxun Zhu, Marcin Szczodrak, Mina Cong, and Sonal Shetkar.

To all the Ph.D. students out there — keep reaching for that rainbow!

Posted in Academia, Achievement, Career and Leadership, Energy harvesting, Highlights, Ph.D. | Comments Off