Research Interests

Wireless networking, pervasive and mobile computing, social networks, cyber-physical systems, mobile communication systems, wireless security and privacy

Education

Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

Ph.D., Computer Science, expected August 2012
Dissertation: Social-Aware Data Dissemination in Opportunistic Mobile Networks
Advisor: Prof. Guohong Cao

University of Science and Technology of China

B.E., Electrical Engineering, with Honors, July 2005

Research Experience

Research Assistant, The Pennsylvania State University, 2008-present

Exploited various aspects of social behavior patterns of mobile users to synergistically improve the performance of emerging opportunistic mobile networking systems with intermittent network connectivity. Funded by NSF CNS-0721479, Network Science CTA W911NF-09-2-0053.

Lead Graduate Student, Mobile Computing and Networking (MCN) Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, 2010-2011

Administrative and logistical lead student in the MCN lab. Met with students individually for mentoring, development of leadership, and motivating students' research ideas and technical solutions. Responsible for most daily operational activities in the lab.

Research Assistant, Arizona State University, 2005-2007

Research on mobile ad-hoc networks, service-based software systems and semantic web mining.

Teaching Experience

co-Instructor, Computer Networks, The Pennsylvania State University, Aug.-Dec. 2011

co-Instructor for CSE514, the senior graduate course on computer networking.

co-Instructor, Wireless Networking and Mobile Computing, The Pennsylvania State University, Jan.-May. 2011

co-Instructor for CSE598D, a graduate seminar on wireless networking and mobile computing.

Teaching Assistant, Communication Networks, The Pennsylvania State University, Jan.-May. 2010

Teaching assistant for CMPEN/EE 362, the undergraduate course on computer networking.

Industrial Experience

Research Intern, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Hawthorne, NY, Summer 2011

Mentor: Mudhakar Srivatsa

Research on distributed maintenance of cache freshness in opportunistic mobile networks, based on experimental investigations on the refreshing patterns of realistic web media contents.

Research Intern, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Hawthorne, NY, Summer 2010

Mentor: Arun Iyengar

Developed social-aware techniques for supporting cooperative caching in opportunistic mobile networks. These techniques have been implemented as a prototype testbed for caching provenance information in military applications.

Selected Publications

Conference Papers

• Distributed Maintenance of Cache Freshness in Opportunistic Mobile Networks [pdf]
  Wei Gao, Guohong Cao, Mudhakar Srivatsa, and Arun Iyengar, in Proceedings of the 32nd Int'l Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2012.
  (Acceptance Ratio: 71/515=13.7%)

• Supporting Cooperative Caching in Disruption Tolerant Networks [pdf]
  Wei Gao, Guohong Cao, Arun Iyengar, and Mudhakar Srivatsa, in Proceedings of the 31st Int'l Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2011.
  (Acceptance Ratio: 15%)

• User-Centric Data Dissemination in Disruption Tolerant Networks [pdf]
  Wei Gao and Guohong Cao, in Proceedings of the 30th IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2011.
  (Acceptance Ratio: 291/1823=15.9%)

• On Exploiting Transient Contact Patterns for Data Forwarding in Delay Tolerant Networks [pdf]
  Wei Gao and Guohong Cao, in Proceedings of the 18th IEEE Int'l Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP), 2010.
  (Acceptance Ratio: 31/170=18.2%)

• Fine-Grained Mobility Characterization: Steady and Transient State Behaviors [pdf]
  Wei Gao and Guohong Cao, in Proceedings of the 11th ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (MobiHoc), 2010.
  (Acceptance Ratio: 26/154=16.9%)

• Multicasting in Delay Tolerant Networks: A Social Network Perspective [pdf][citations]
  Wei Gao, Qinghua Li, Bo Zhao, and Guohong Cao, in Proceedings of the 10th ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (MobiHoc), 2009.
  (Acceptance Ratio: 31/175=17.7%)

• Towards Scalable and Robust Service Discovery in Ubiquitous Computing Environments via Multi-hop Clustering [pdf]
  Wei Gao, in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services (MobiQuitous), 2007.
  (Acceptance Ratio: 27/119=22%)

Journal Papers

• Social-aware Multicast in Disruption Tolerant Networks [pdf]
  Wei Gao, Qinghua Li, Bo Zhao, and Guohong Cao, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, to appear.

• On Exploiting Transient Social Contact Patterns for Data Forwarding in Delay Tolerant Networks [pdf]
  Wei Gao, Guohong Cao, Thomas F. La Porta, and Jiawei Han, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, to appear.

• A Routing Protocol for Socially Selfish Delay Tolerant Networks [pdf]
  Qinghua Li, Wei Gao, Sencun Zhu, and Guohong Cao, Ad Hoc Networks, Elsevier, to appear.

Honors

• Graduate Research Assistant Award, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, April 2011.
• Award Finalist, IBM Ph.D. Fellowship, Feb 2011.
• IEEE Student Travel Grant, IEEE ICNP, Aug 2010.
• ACM Student Travel Grant, ACM MobiCom/MobiHoc 2010; ACM MobiHoc 2009.
• Honorable Mention Prize, Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM), Feb 2005.

Public Speaking

Invited Talks

• Data Dissemination in Opportunistic Mobile Networks. State Key Laboratory of Industrial Control Technology, Zhejiang University, China, October, 2010.
• Data Dissemination in Opportunistic Mobile Networks. The 2nd ACM MobiHoc S3 Workshop, Chicago, IL, September, 2010.
• Social-aware Data Dissemination in Opportunistic Mobile Networks. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Hawthorne, NY, July, 2010.
• Social-based Multicast in Delay Tolerant Networks: A Social Network Perspective. The 1st ACM MobiHoc S3 Workshop, New Orleans, LA, May, 2009.

Presentations

• Provenance-driven Data Dissemination in Disruption Tolerant Networks. The 14th Int'l Conference on Information Fusion, Chicago, IL, July 2011.
• Supporting Cooperative Caching in Disruption Tolerant Networks. The 31st Int'l Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Minneapolis, MN, June 2011.
• User-Centric Data Dissemination in Disruption Tolerant Networks. The 30th IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Shanghai, China, April 2011.
• On Exploiting Transient Contact Patterns for Data Forwarding in Delay Tolerant Networks. The 18th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP), Kyoto, Japan, October 2010.
• Fine-Grained Mobility Characterization: Steady and Transient State Behaviors. The 11th ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (MobiHoc), Chicago, IL, September 2010.
• Social-based Multicast in Delay Tolerant Networks: A Social Network Perspective. The 10th ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (MobiHoc), New Orleans, LA, May 2009.
• Towards Scalable and Robust Service Discovery in Ubiquitous Computing Environments via Multi-hop Clustering. The 4th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services (MobiQuitous), Philadelphia, PA, August 2007.
• Multi-hop Clustering based on Neighborhood Benchmark in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks. The 4th International Conference on Quality, Reliability, Security and Robustness (QShine), Vancouver, Canada, August 2007.
• A Location-based Directional Route Discovery (LDRD) Protocol in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks. IEEE Globecom, San Francisco, CA, November 2006.

Professional Activities

Conference and Workshop Organization

• IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), TPC Member, 2013.
• International Conference on Mobile Web Information Systems (MobiWIS), PC Member, 2012.
• International Conference on Communications, Mobility and Computing (CMC), PC Member, 2012.
• IEEE NSS Workshop on Mobile and Online Social Networks(MOSN), PC Member, 2011.

Reviewer

Reviewer (Journal): IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 2011; IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2010, 2011; IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Dependable Systems, 2008, 2010, 2011; IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 2009, 2010, 2011; IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2010, 2011; IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 2011; Elsevier Journal of Ad Hoc Networks, 2011; Elsevier Journal of Computer Networks, 2009, 2010, 2011; Elsevier Journal of Computer Communications, 2010, 2011; Wiley Int'l Journal of Communication Systems, 2010; Wiley Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, 2011; Int'l Journal of Communications Networks and Distributed Systems, 2010.

Reviewer (Conference and Workshop): IEEE Int'l Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom), 2009, 2010; ACM Int'l Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (MobiHoc), 2009; IEEE Int'l Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP), 2009; IEEE Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON), 2009, 2010, 2011; IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2009; IEEE Globecom, 2007; IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), 2007.