Scholar
Cheng Zhang
Google Scholar ID: Lf5ShKkAAAAJ
Associate Professor, Cornell University
Citations & Impact
Citations
1,618
H-index
24
i10-index
38
Publications
20
Co-authors
30
list available
Publications
Resume (English only)
Academic Achievements
- His work has been recognized with awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, Ubicomp 10-year Impact Award, as well as several Best Paper Awards and Honorable Mentions. His research is regularly featured by global media outlets including BBC, Forbes, Engadget, Fast Company, CNET, Gizmodo, New Scientist, the Verge, Digital Trends, Popular Science, Designboom, and Mashable.
Research Experience
- His research has already had tangible real-world impact. His early work on BeyondTouch and BackTap was the first to demonstrate how tapping gestures on the phone can be recognized on off-the-shelf smartphones as input without additional hardware. Variants of this interaction are now available on millions of smartphones, including Apple’s Back Tap feature introduced in iOS 14 and later. In addition, another part of his prior research was licensed in 2016 to establish a Canadian startup ContextualHCI, based in Montreal, translating his academic innovations into practical technologies.
Education
- He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Ubicomp Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was advised by Dr. Gregory Abowd (CS) and Dr. Omer Inan (ECE). Currently, he is an Associate Professor (with Tenure) in Information Science and Computer Science (Field Member) at Cornell University, where he directs the Smart Computer Interfaces for Future Interaction (SciFi) Lab.
Background
- His research focuses on integrating human-centered AI with advanced sensing technologies to empower everyday wearables in comprehending human behavior in real-world environments. This work involves: (1) Creating low-power, minimally intrusive, and privacy-conscious everyday wearables that significantly lower the barrier to collecting high-quality human behavior data in natural settings; (2) Designing AI-powered sensing algorithms and systems that prioritize a human-centered understanding of behavior in everyday contexts; and (3) Advancing high-impact applications in areas like accessibility and health to better support users in their daily lives.
Miscellany
- Recent professional activities include serving as (Co-)Chair of the Steering Committee for the ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC) (2024-now), Steering Committee member for the ACM international joint conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp) (2024-now), (Co-)Chair of the Technical Program Committee for ISWC’23, Ubicomp’24, Associate Chair/Associate Editor for IMWUT (2019-now), CHI (2020, 2023, 2024, 2025).
