Nakul Garg, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice University, has received the 2026 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGMOBILE Dissertation Award for his doctoral thesis, “Toward Integrating Intelligence into Everything Around Us.”
ACM SIGMOBILE is the premier professional organization for researchers and practitioners, in mobile systems, wireless networking, sensing, and ubiquitous computing. Garg conducted this award-winning research at the University of Maryland under the guidance of Professor Nirupam Roy, prior to joining Rice as faculty in July 2025.
Rethinking ambient intelligence
Garg’s research tackles a fundamental challenge: making smart low-power technologies that continuously sense and respond to the environment. By blending hardware design, physics-based computing paradigms, and AI, he created tiny, highly efficient, and powerful sensors and computing technologies that seamlessly integrate into the physical environment.
“This work started from a simple question: How do we make intelligence available in places where traditional computing platforms simply cannot operate?” Garg said. “The vision of ambient intelligence has always been compelling, but existing systems remain too power-hungry and expensive to scale broadly. I wanted to rethink these architectures from first principles and explore how the physical world itself could participate in computation. It’s incredibly meaningful to see that work recognized by the SIGMOBILE community.”
An integrated approach to ambient intelligence
Ambient intelligence are emerging technologies that work silently in the background using sensors and AI to learn inhabitants’ habits, adapt to their needs, and anticipate what they want. To develop smaller, cheaper, and more efficient ambient intelligent devices, Garg transformed the fundamental paradigms by which devices sense sound and wireless signals. A few innovations described in his thesis cover:
- Acoustic sensing: Garg engineered custom metamaterial structures that alter sound waves in unique ways, allowing a single microphone to infer spatial information that would normally require multiple microphones.
- Wireless tracking: He replaced bulky, power-hungry antenna systems with sticker-sized tracking devices that can determine their own location and operate for years on minimal energy.
- Food quality control: He developed non-invasive, infrastructure-free tools to track food quality globally. The technology monitors freshness through the packaging without needing expensive networks or physical contact, expediting the process and preventing food spoilage.
Shifting the AI paradigm
As a Rice faculty member at Rice, Garg continues to extend this work through the Physical Intelligence Lab, where his group develops wireless and acoustic sensing systems for robotics, digital health, smart cities, and the Internet of Things. The broader goal is to move intelligence closer to the physical world, into devices and environments that cannot rely on large batteries, heavy computation, or constant cloud connectivity.
“We are excited to have Nakul leading the Physical Intelligence Lab at Rice,” said Ashok Veeraraghavan, chair of the electrical and computer engineering department. “Working at the frontiers of sensing, mobile computing and embedded AI, he is creating intelligent systems that can sense, understand and operate in the real world. His research is moving intelligence beyond screens and servers into real-world applications—such as AI earbuds for focused hearing, smart AR glasses that can see through smoke and darkness, ultra-low-power sonar for micro-robots, and battery-free wireless trackers—that can transform lives.”
Adapted from University of Maryland’s news release