Faculty

Kurtis Heimerl is Associate Professor at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, where he works with students in the Change and ICTD groups. He works broadly on the space of technology for poverty alleviation, specifically Internet Access. He has published widely, including conferences such as COMPASS, CHI, CSCW, MobiCom, PETS, and NSDI. Heimerl was a recipient of the 2014 MIT “35 under 35” award, the 2018 UW early career Diamond Award, and won “Best Paper” awards at CHI, COMPASS, PETS, and DySPAN and two “Community Awards” at NSDI. He occasionally publishes on the UW CSE ICTD Blog and is a technical advisor at Madrona Venture Labs. Lastly, he co-chairs the Global Alliance for Internet for All at the IETF.

Heimerl and his collaborators’ major research focus is on the topic of improving Internet access, with a focus on cellular technologies. Their goal is to empower communities to solve their own communication issues, be those issues of agency (as in community cellular, enabling local, community-owned cellular networks) or in repair (as in their work exploring repair ecosystems in the Philippines). This research is currently working on making LTE appropriate for community use, specifically in our home region of Puget Sound. In a past life he co-founded a company to commercialize this type of research, called Endaga, which then joined Facebook.

His group’s second research focus is on issues of environmental sustainability and conservation. They are currently working with a convervancy in Kenya on developing human-centered tools for community engagement.