Missouri S&T professor Sajal K. Das is the co-chair of SMARTCOMP 2016 May 18-20 in St. Louis. The conference about smart computing tackles themes such as smart energy and smart cities.

ROLLA, Mo. — Smart computing has weaved its way into people’s everyday lives, from heathcare to transportation, from security to social media, and Missouri University of Science and Technology is a leader in this growing field.

Missouri S&T is a co-sponsor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Conference on Smart Computing (SMARTCOMP 2016) held May 18-20 in St. Louis. Dr. Sajal K. Das, the Daniel St. Clair Endowed Chair and department chair of computer science at Missouri S&T, is on the steering committee and is the conference’s co-chair.

“We wanted to bring IEEE SMARTCOMP 2016 to St. Louis because Smart Living is one of our signature areas, and I think this will give Missouri S&T a lot of visibility,” says Das, who attended the first IEEE SMARTCOMP conference in 2014 in Hong Kong. “This conference will continue to grow over time.”

Multidisciplinary smart computing has two major topics, designing and building smart systems and using computing to improve the human experience.

Topics at the conference include all aspects of smart computing such as smart healthcare, smart energy, smart cities and connected communities, mobile and sensor networks, the internet of things, big-data analytics, pervasive and cloud computing, security and privacy, social informatics, and cyber-physical systems.

Workshops are planned for the first day, and there is one keynote talk and four sessions on each of the next two days. Topics to be featured include smart mobility, smart healthcare, smart sensing and smart cities. The conference program also includes a cutting-edge panel on the challenges and opportunities of connected communities, a Ph.D. forum, and a National Science Foundation-sponsored special session on smart service systems.

As a co-sponsor along with the NSF, the IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE St. Louis Section, Missouri S&T is sending a contingent to the conference: registration and finance chair is Dr. Maciej Zawodniok, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; technical program committee members include Dr. Sanjay Madria, associate chair for undergraduate studies and professor of computer science; Dr. Abusayeed Saifullah, assistant professor of computer science; Dr. Simone Silvestri, assistant professor of computer science; and Debraj De, a post-doctoral fellow in computer science; and web chair is Dawn Davis, a computer science department office support assistant.

In addition, Yoelit Hiebert, EE’81, MS EE’89, and Dr. Prasenjit Shil, MS EMgt’04, Ph.D. EMgt’08, are the local arrangement co-chairs. An NSF grant is paying for 29 students from around the U.S. to attend the conference, including six from Missouri S&T, Das says.

Keynote speakers are Dr. Raj Rajkumar, George Westinghouse Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, and Kent Larson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.