The Mobile X Laboratory is directed by Professor Xia Zhou at Columbia University. Our research topics lie broadly in mobile computing. We currently focus on developing next-generation communication and sensing systems using light and fabrics, and examining their applications in health, robotics, HCI, and security. Lab members include PhD and Master students, undergraduate researchers, and visiting scholars. We are part of the Columbia HCI group. We used to be part of the DartNets lab at Dartmouth.
We are actively looking for motivated students to join our lab. If you are interested in mobile computing research, please email us your CV.
Combating speech video falsifications with imperceptibly modulated light.
PillowSense embeds fabric sensors into everyday pillowcases to monitor sleeper's vital signs, sleep poses, and body movement.
Simultaneous, wireless power delivery and data communication using laser light.
A soft fabric necklace monitoring Kangaroo Mother Care.
Maintaining laser light alignment with a highly mobile object.
Direct 3D localization of underwater robots from an aerial drone with laser light
Sensing blood glucose level noninvasively with polarized light.
Aug. 2025:Our collaborative work with Prof. Pediredla's team at Dartmouth on underwater optical backscatter communication has been accepted by SIGGRAPH Asia!
Jul. 2025:PillowSense is accepted by IMWUT 2025, thanks to all the hard work led by Qijia!!
Jul. 2025:VeriLight is accepted by CCS 2025. Super cool work led by Hadleigh!!
Jun. 2025:Phaser is accepted by IROS 2025. Check out the demo video. Congratulations team!!
Jun. 2025:Welcome Ashley Chen and Tomer Nahum to join us as research interns this summer! They are supported by the Google Cyber NYC REU program. We are also excited to welcome Kyle Tong as an undergraduate research intern in our lab!
May 2025:Charlie's PhD dissertation won the 2025 ACM SIGMOBILE Dissertation Runner Up Award. Richly deserved, Charlie!
May 2025:Congratulations to Hadleigh for winning the Amazon CAIT PhD Fellowship!! More exciting work on AI security to come!
Feb. 2025:Our year-long clinical pilot study of our noninvasive glucose sensing system has been accepted by Scientific Reports. Congratulations team!
Dec. 2024:Congratulations to Kechen for being selected for Honorable Mention of CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award!!
Sep. 2024:StudentLife won the UbiComp 10-Year Impact Award. Fortunate to be part of the project team led by Prof. Andrew Campbell at Dartmouth.
Sep. 2024:Congratulations to Qijia for being the finalist of the Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award at UbiComp 2024!! Proud of you!
Sep. 2024:We are thrilled to have Lex joining us. He has won the presidential fellowship at Columbia. Congratulations Lex!!
Jul. 2024:Charlie has also successfully passed his PhD defense!! He will be a researcher at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Mobile X is never going to be same without you, Charlie!
Jul. 2024:Qijia has passed his PhD defense with flying colors!! He will be an assistant professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. You will be dearly missed, Qijia!
Jun. 2024:Joey won the best paper award and people's choice demo award at MobiSys'24! Qijia also won the best presentation award at the Rising Stars Forum. Proud of you Qijia! See Joey in the press.
Jun. 2024:We are excited to have Iris Xu, Julia Quinn, and Raunak Agrawal as research interns this summer!
Mar. 2024:Joey is accepted by MobiSys '24. Congratulations team!
Mar. 2024:Charlie successfully passed his PhD proposal!
Dec. 2023:Qijia successfully passed his PhD proposal. Well done Qijia!
Oct. 2023:Toma's demo of a talking Pikachu won People's Choice Award at UIST. Congratulations Toma!
Oct. 2023:Lasertag won the second-place prize in the student research competition at MobiCom '23. Congratulations Hadleigh!
Oct. 2023:Qijia presented his Snap internship work at UbiComp 2023 and won the Best Teaser Award! So proud of you Qijia!
Oct. 2023:Lasertag won the Best Demo Award at MobiCom 2023. Kudos to Hadleigh and Charlie who have done all the hard work to make the demo possible!
Sep. 2023:We are excited to have Toma and Xiaofeng joining us as PhD students, and Lisa joining as the Bridge-to-PhD scholar! Welcome folks!!
Jul. 2023:Lasertag is accepted by NSDI 2024. Congratulations team!
Jun. 2023:Kechen Liu, Kelly Yen, and Krithika Subramanian will work in the lab as undergraduate interns in the summer. Kechen is supported by the SEAS fellowship. Kelly and Krithika are SURE fellows. Welcome to you all!
May 2023:Our laser communication project in collaboration with Tencent Pixel lab and Prof. Fred Jiang has won the best demo at IPSN 2023!
May 2023:Qijia and Charlie has passed their PhD candidacy exams and are officially PhD candidates. Congratulations!
Jan. 2023:Qi Zhao and Jiting Liu both will participate in our fabric sensing projects. Great to have you Qi and Jiting!
Sep. 2022:We are thrilled to have Hadleigh joining us, who has won the presidential fellowship at Columbia. Congratulations Hadleigh! You are off to a great start!!
Sep. 2022: Mobile X Lab is founded at Columbia! Previously we were part of the DartNets lab at Dartmouth College.
Our research is generously supported by the following sources. We sincerely thank you for the support!
