Eric Whitmire

ericwhitmire.com · emwhit@cs.washington.edu

I build input devices for mixed reality platforms with an emphasis on wearable systems andsensing techniques that enable subtle and natural interaction. I specialize in projects at theintersection of hardware and software and draw on my diverse skill set in rapid prototyping,signal processing, machine learning, and human-computer interaction. Currently, I’m aPhD student at the Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University ofWashington where I am advised by Shwetak Patel and work in the Ubiquitous Computing
Lab. I am currently seeking full-time opportunities after graduation in June 2019.

Mailing Address
Paul G. Allen CenterBox 352350
185 E Stevens Way NE
Seattle, WA, USA, 98195
Emailemwhit@cs.washington.edu

Education2014 – Present2010 – 2014

University of Washington (UW), Seattle, WA
PhD student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering
National Defense in Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellow
Advisor: Shwetak Patel
North Carolina State University (NCSU), Raleigh, NC
Park Scholarship Recipient
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering
Minor in Cognitive ScienceGPA: 4.00 / 4.00

Honors, Grants, and Awards
2018Best Paper Nominee at CHI 2018 for Haptic Revolver [C12]UW Reality Lab Grant Awardee
IEEE VR Best Doctoral Consortium Award

2017

Adobe Research Fellowship
Snap Research Fellowship Semi-Finalist
Runner-Up Research Prize from Madrona Ventures for IDCam project

2016

Best Paper Award at ISWC 2016 for EyeContact [C9]Best Paper Nominee at CHI 2016 for SpiroCall [C8]2015

Runner-Up Research Prize from Madrona Ventures for HyperCam Poster [C7]Best Paper Nominee at UbiComp 2015 for HyperCam [C7]2014

National Defense in Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship
National Science Foundation GRFP Honorable Mention
Best Student Poster Award at GOMACTech 2014 for [C2]2013

Barry M. Goldwater ScholarshipBest Poster Award at NCSU Undergraduate Research Symposium for [C1]
1st Place at NCSU Student Programming Competition

2012

NCSU Undergraduate Research Grant

2011

Donald Bitzer Creativity Award

2010

Park Scholarship (4 year award for scholarship, service, leadership, and character)

Eric Whitmire · Curriculum Vitae

Page 1 of 5		Research and Professional Experience2014 – present

Ubiquitous Computing Laboratory, University of Washington
Graduate Researcher (Advisor: Shwetak Patel)
Exploring wearable, on-body sensing for virtual and augmented reality

Summer, 2018

NVIDIA Research, New Experiences Group, Santa Clara, CA
Research Intern (Advisor: Kaan Akşit Michael Stengel)
Nontraditional sensing techniques for on-body tracking

Spring, 2018

Facebook Reality Labs, Redmond, WA
Contract Researcher (Advisor: Hrvoje Benko)
Input devices for augmented reality

Summer, 2017

Microsoft Research, Perception and Interaction Group, Redmond, WA
Research Intern (Advisor: Hrvoje Benko, Christian Holz, Eyal Ofek, Mike Sinclair)
Developed a handheld VR controller with haptic feedback

Summer, 2016

Oculus Research, Redmond, WA
Research Intern (Advisor: Laura Trutoiu, Kenrick Kin)
Explored alternative input techniques for augmented reality applications

Summer, 2015

Oculus Research, Redmond, WA
Research Intern (Advisor: Laura Trutoiu, Rob Cavin)
Developed a high-accuracy scleral coil eye tracking attachment for virtual reality displays

2012 – 2014

Integrated Bionic Microsystems Laboratory, North Carolina State University
Undergraduate Researcher (Advisor: Alper Bozkurt)
Developed automation platform using image processing and wireless communication to electricallystimulate and steer insects for search and rescue applications
Designed an insect-mounted microphone array for sound localization

Summer, 2013

Microsoft, Xbox One / Kinect Speech Platform Team, Redmond, WA
Software Development Intern (Supervisor: Jonathan Campbell)
Designed and implemented new API for multimodal Kinect interactions

Summer, 2012

Microsoft, Internet Explorer Web Programming Team, Redmond, WA
Software Development Intern (Supervisor: Harley Rosnow)
Designed and implemented HTML 5 Dataset feature that shipped in IE 11

Summer, 2011

IBM, IBM Systems Director Installation Team, Research Triangle Park, NC
Software Development Intern (Supervisor: David Cole)
Developed a cross-platform Python validation utility for IBM Systems Director

2010 – 2012

RiboLab, North Carolina State University
Undergraduate Researcher (Advisor: Donald Bitzer)
Developed optimization algorithms to test and improve computational model for protein translation

Refereed Journal Publications
2018		

J4.

CapHarvester: A Stick-on Capacitive Energy Harvester Using Stray Electric Field from AC Power Lines
Manoj Gulati, Farshid Salemi Parizi, Eric Whitmire, Sidhant Gupta, Amarjeet Singh, Shobha Sundar
Ram, Shwetak. Patel
IMWUT (Ubicomp) 2018

J3.

DigiTouch: Reconfigurable Thumb-to-Finger Input and Text Entry on Head-mounted Displays
Eric Whitmire, Mohit Jain, Divye Jain, Gregory Nelson, Ravi Karkar, Shwetak Patel, Mayank Goel
IMWUT (Ubicomp) 2017		
2017				Eric Whitmire · Curriculum Vitae

Page 2 of 52017		

J2.

PupilScreen: Using Smartphones to Assess Traumatic Brain Injury
Alex Mariakakis, Jacob Baudin, Eric Whitmire, Vardhman Mehta, Megan A Banks, Anthony Law, Lynn
McGrath, Shwetak Patel
IMWUT (Ubicomp) 2017

J1.

Sound Localization Sensors for Search and Rescue Biobots
Tahmid Latif, Eric Whitmire, Tristan Novak, Alper Bozkurt
IEEE Sensors Journal, Vol. 16, Issue 10		2016				Refereed Conference Publications
2017

C12.						C11.				Haptic Revolver: Touch, Shear, Texture, and Shape Rendering on a Reconfigurable Virtual Reality Controller
Eric Whitmire, Hrvoje Benko, Christian Holz, Eyal Ofek, Mike Sinclair
CHI 2018 Best Paper Nominee (Top 5%)
Carpacio: Repurposing Capacitive Sensors to Distinguish Driver and Passenger Touches on In-Vehicle
Screens
Edward Wang, Jake Garrison, Eric Whitmire, Mayank Goel, Shwetak Patel
UIST 2017		

C10.

Automatic Characterization of User Errors in Spirometry
Andrew Luo, Eric Whitmire, James W. Stout, Drew Martenson, Shwetak PatelIEEE EMBC 2017

2016

C9.

EyeContact: Scleral Coil Eye Tracking for Virtual Reality
Eric Whitmire, Laura Trutoiu, Robert Cavin, David Perek, Brian Scally, James O. Phillips, Shwetak Patel
ISWC 2016 (Acceptance Rate: 22%) Best Paper Award (Top Paper)

2015

C8.

SpiroCall: Measuring Lung Function over a Phone Call
Mayank Goel, Elliot Saba, Maia Stiber, Eric Whitmire, Josh Fromm, Eric Larson, Gaetano Borriello,Shwetak Patel
CHI 2016 (Acceptance Rate: 23%) Best Paper Nominee (Top 5%)

C7.

HyperCam: Hyperspectral Imaging for Ubiquitous Computing Applications
Mayank Goel, Eric Whitmire, Alex Mariakakis, Scott Saponas, Neel Joshi, Dan Morris, BrianGuenter, Marcel Gavriliu, Gaetano Borriello, Shwetak Patel
Ubicomp 2015. (Acceptance Rate: 22%) Best Paper Nominee (Top 5%)

C6.

Acoustic Sensors for Biobotic Search and Rescue
Eric Whitmire, Tahmid Latif, Alper Bozkurt
IEEE Sensors 2014

C5.

Microfabricated impedance sensors for concurrent tactile, biopotential, and wetness detection
Feiyan Lin, Michael McKnight, James Dieffenderfer, Eric Whitmire, Tushar Ghosh, Alper Bozkurt
IEEE Sensors 2014

C4.

Solar Powered Wrist Worn Acquisition System for Continuous Photoplethysmogram Monitoring
James P. Dieffenderfer, Eric Beppler, Tristan Novak, Eric Whitmire, Rochana Jayakumar, Clive Randall,Weiguo Qu, Ramakrishnan Rajagopalan, Alper Bozkurt
IEEE EMBC 2014		

C3.

Toward Fenceless Boundaries for Solar Powered Insect Biobots
Tahmid Latif, Eric Whitmire, Tristan Novak, Alper Bozkurt
IEEE EMBC 2014		

C2.

Cyber-physical Network of Terrestrial Insect Biobots
Eric Whitmire, Tahmid Latif, Alper Bozkurt
GOMACTech 2014 Best Poster Award (Top student poster)

2013

C1.

Kinect-based System for Automated Control of Terrestrial Insect Biobots
Eric Whitmire, Tahmid Latif, Alper Bozkurt
IEEE EMBC 2013																		2014																										Eric Whitmire · Curriculum Vitae

Page 3 of 5Invited Talks
2016

T2.

UW Computer Science & Engineering Industrial Affiliates
EyeContact: Scleral Coil Eye Tracking for Virtual Reality

2013

T1.

UNC and NCSU Annual BME Research Retreat
Kinect-based system for automated control of terrestrial insect biobots				

Patents
2017

P3

Patent application filed with USPTO in 2017 with Microsoft Research

2016

P2

Patent application filed with USPTO in 2016 with Oculus Research

2015

P1

Patent application filed with USPTO in 2015 with Oculus Research			Advising and Mentoring
Fall 2016 - Spr 2018

Spr 2017

Divye Jain, UW undergraduate in Computer Science & Engineering
Designing HoloLens framework for text entry experimentation
Dawn Liang, UW undergraduate in Electrical Engineering
Simulated and prototyped magnetic resonance coils

Win 2016 - Spr 2017

Michael Yi, UW undergraduate in Computer Science & Engineering
Designed teleportation strategies using an eye tracking HMD

Spr 2016 - Win 2016

Andrew Luo, UW undergraduate in Computer Science & Engineering
Developed automated analysis for quality control of spirometry efforts, see [C10]

Teaching Experience
Spring 2018

Teaching Assistant for UW EE 590 A: Ubiquitous Computing

Winter 2018

Designed and led Virtual and Augmented Reality Research Seminar

Winter 2018

Teaching Assistant for UW HCID 520: User Interface Software + Technology

Spring 2015

Guest lecturer in UW CSE 590P: Advanced Topics in Ubiquitous Computing
Designing an Enclosure using AutoDesk Inventor

Fall 2014

Tutor for UW CSE 312: Foundations of Computing II

Spring 2015

Tutor for UW CSE 312: Foundations of Computing II

Eric Whitmire · Curriculum Vitae

Page 4 of 5

Graduate Coursework
Natural Language Dialogue Systems (with Kristy Boyer, NCSU)
Bioelectricity and Neural Interfaces (with Alper Bozkurt, NCSU)		
Machine Learning (with Carlos Guestrin)
Security and Privacy (with Franziska Roesner)
Design and Analysis of Algorithms (with Anna Karlin)
Computer Graphics (with Brian Curless)
Advanced Topics in Human Computer Interaction (with James Fogarty)
Computer Networks (with Shyam Gollakota)
Deep Learning Systems (with Tianqi Chen, Haichen Shen)

Leadership, Service, and Outreach		
Reviewer

CHI (2016, 2017, 2018), EMBC (2015), IEEE Transactions on Sensors (2016), IEEE VR (2018, 2019),
IJHCI (2017), ISS (2017), ACM SAP (2016), Ubicomp/IMWUT (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019), UIST (2016,2018)
Student Volunteer
Ubicomp (2014), IEEE VR (2018), SIGGRAPH (2018)2015 – 2017

FIRST Technical Challenge High School Mentor
Coached a team of high school students in designing, building, and programming a robot

2010 – 2014

Service Raleigh Committee Head
Helped plan annual service event with 2000 volunteers in the Raleigh, NC area2010 – 2014

Mentor for Students in Programming Robotics and Computer Science
Developed and led weekend workshops and hands-on learning activities for middle school students

Technical Skills
DesignModeling
Libraries and Platforms
Programming
Fabrication

Adobe Suite, SolidWorks, Inventor, PCB Layout (Altium, Eagle)
Machine learning, Deep learning (TensorFlow, PyTorch), nonlinear optimization
Android, Unity, OpenCV, Embedded Systems (TI, PSoC, Nordic, Arduino), Bluetooth LE
C/C++, C#, Python, MATLAB, Java, VBA, Web development, Databases
3D printing, laser cutting, CNC machining, PCB etching

Eric Whitmire · Curriculum Vitae

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