Prabal Dutta is an Associate Professor at UC Berkeley with research areas in computer architecture and engineering (ARC); Design, Modeling and Analysis (DMA); Energy (ENE); and Operating Systems & Networking (OSNT).
Today, Dutta is known for elegant devices that obtain energy in surprising ways. For example, he built a system that plugs into the audio jack of smartphones, siphoning off the minuscule amount of energy that typically powers earbuds in order to run sensors that collect data. The technology has been used in everything from credit card readers to some of the more than 12,000 radiation sensors built by Japanese citizens after Fukushima.
Dutta’s other projects include a set of cameras only a few cubic millimeters in size and lapel pins that track how air temperature, humidity, and the distance between speakers affects the spread of flu. And he’s still working to create ever-better versions of his little energy scavengers.
He is a is a Sloan Research Fellow, recipient of the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER), and been awarded as a Brilliant 10.