AWARDS AND HONORS

• 2025 IIT Madras Young Alumni Award
• 2024 ACM SIGMOBILE Rockstar Award
• 2021 ACM SIGBED Early Career Researcher Award
• 2021 CIT Dean’s Early Career Fellow, CMU
• 2021 ACM/IEEE IPSN Best Paper Award
• 2020 ACM MobiSys Best Paper Honorable Mention and Best Demo
• 2020 ACM/IEEE IPSN Best Paper Award
• 2019 NSF CAREER Award
• 2018 ACM/IEEE IPSN Best Paper Award
• 2017 Google Faculty Research Award
• 2017 NSF CRII Award
• 2016 SIGCOMM Best Paper Award
• 2015 George M. Sprowls Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis in Computer Science, MIT
• 2014 Communications of the ACM (CACM) Research Highlight for MegaMIMO
• 2014 MobiCom Best Presentation Second Place Award
• 2014 MobiCom S3 Workshop Best Poster Award
• 2013 MobiCom S3 Workshop Best Elevator Pitch Award
• 2013 MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Contest: Finalist (Business Plan)
• 2012 MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Contest: Winning Team (Elevator Pitch)
• 2010 MIT Jacobs Presidential Fellowship
• 2010 Best Paper Award, SECRYPT
• 2010 Valedictorian & President of India Gold Medal for Highest CGPA, IIT Madras
• 2008 Prof. Narasihman Fellowship, IIT Madras
• 2006 Bronze Medal, International Olympiad on Informatics
• 2006 Invited to Republic Day parade from Prime Minister’s box for excellence in CBSE exams

RESEARCH GRANTS

Our sincere thanks to the National Science Foundation for supporting our research.

• NSF 2433903
  Towards Software-Defined Soft Robotic Antennas for Spectrum Era 4 (PI: Swarun Kumar, co-PI: Carmel Majidi)
• NSF 2111751
  CPS: Frontier: Software-Defined Nanosatellite Constellations: The Foundation of Future Space-Based Cyber-physical Systems (PI: Brandon Lucia, co-PIs: Swarun Kumar, Vyas Sekar, Zac Manchester, Gauri Joshi)
• NSF 2030154
  SWIFT: Large: Averting Wireless Spectrum Pollution in the Era of Low-Power IoT (PI: Swarun Kumar) — Project Website
• NSF 2106921
  CNS: Medium: Energy Centric Wireless Sensor Node System for Smart Farms (CMU Site PI: Swarun Kumar) — Project Website
• NSF 2007786
  CNS: Small: Harnessing Wireless Actuation (PI: Swarun Kumar) — Project Website
• NSF 1942902
  CAREER: Pushing the Limits of Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (PI: Swarun Kumar) — Project Website
• NSF 1718435
  NeTS: Small: Handheld mm-Accurate Positioning for Wearables (PI: Swarun Kumar) — Project Website
• NSF 1657318
  CRII: NeTS: A Wireless Sensing Platform for Safe Autonomous Driving (PI: Swarun Kumar) — Project Website
• NSF 1738114
  EAGER: SC2: A Systems Approach to Spectrum Collaboration (PI: Swarun Kumar, co-PIs: Anthony Rowe, Bob Iannucci)
• NSF 1837607
  CPS: Medium: Secure Computing and Cross-Layer Anomaly Detection in the IoT (PI: Soummya Kar, co-PIs: José Moura, Swarun Kumar)
• NSF 1823235
  CRI: II-New: Mobile Millimeter-Wave MIMO Network Based on CMU Chipscale Beamformers (Rick Carley, Jeyanandh Paramesh, Swarun Kumar — co-PI) — Project Website

Other Federal Sources

Industry Supporters

Research Centers

OPEN SOURCE CODE

• RadarHDHigh Resolution Point Clouds from mmWave Radar
• QuasarA Community-Driven Approach to Democratize Access to Satellite Ground Stations
• IntuWitionOn the Feasibility of Wi-Fi Based Material Sensing
• LTEyeLTE Radio Analytics Made Easy and Accessible
• OpenRFBringing Cross-Layer MIMO to Today's Wireless LANs

PRESS

• Pushing the Boundaries of Wireless Sensing Technologies July 2025 — Connectivity Technology Blog
• No, Oct. 4 National Emergency Alert Test Won’t Turn You into a Zombie. Here Are the Facts. Jeff Cercone, October 2023 — PolitiFact
• Phone Calls on Planes: Should They Be Allowed? 2023 — USA Today
• Why 5G Can Be Slower Than 4G Networks WTAE Pittsburgh
• This Fiber Can Turn Your Clothes into Listening Devices The Daily Beast
• Carnegie Mellon University’s Swarun Kumar On How 5G Technology May Improve and Impact Our Lives David Liu, 2021 — Authority Magazine
• Why Affordable 5G Is So Important 2021 — Lifewire
• Carnegie Mellon University’s Swarun Kumar: 5G Could Improve Our Lives in Many Ways 2021 — Thrive Global
• 5G: It’s Not Just for Your Smartphone 2021 — TechRepublic
• How True Wireless Headphones Work 2020 — Consumer Reports
• Empowering Low-Power Wide-Area Networks to Meet the IoT Challenge Alan Weissberger, May 2020 — IEEE ComSoc Tech Blog
• Bluetooth Contact Tracing Needs Bigger, Better Data Patrick Howell O’Neill, April 2020 — MIT Technology Review
• Pittsburgh Updates Its Infrastructure In Preparation For 5G Maria Scapellato, February 2020 — 90.5 FM WESA
• The Next Leap in Wireless Charging Bree Fowler, January 2020 — Consumer Reports
• The Future of Wireless Is Connecting Everyday Objects July 2019 — TED Talk (TEDxPittsburgh)
• Technology Hopes to End the Lost Luggage Blues Stephen Mraz, June 2019 — Machine Design
• 5G — A Homegrown Revolution May 2018 — Washington Post
• How Your iPhone Could Know When You’re in a Moving Car Rob Verger, June 2017 — Popular Science
• Wireless Networks That Follow You Around a Room, Optimize Themselves and Even Talk to Each Other Out Loud 2013 — NetworkWorld
• Making Driverless Cars Safer 2012 — Slashdot
• Driverless Car Is Wireless Star at MIT 2012 — NetworkWorld
• Talking Cars Help Each Other See Around Blind Corners 2012 — NewScientist
• Be Sensitive Thermometers if Not Thermostats 2010 — The Hindu
• Indian Students Are Set for Informatics Olympiad 2006 — The Hindu
• Planned Effort the Key for Chennai Students 2006 — NDTV

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE

• Chair / Co-chair: MobiSys 2025, COMSNETS 22-23, Workshop on Communication-aware Robotics in RSS 2014; WinTech 2018; MobiCom 2018 Posters
• Reviewer: SIGCOMM 2016; MobiCom 2016–Present; INFOCOM 2017–2019; CoNext 2018
• Associate Editor: IEEE Transactions on Sensor Networks (2018–Present)
• External reviewer: International Journal for Robotics Research; IEEE Transactions on Networking; IEEE Transactions on Wireless; IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing; INFOCOM; NSDI; IEEE Pervasive Computing