Joe Breda

About Me

I am on the Job Market

I am a final year PhD student advised by Shwetak Patel in the Ubiquitous Computing Lab at the University of Washington Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineer. I am also currently a student researcher at Google conducting large-scale evaluation of LLMs for medical diagnosis.

My research is on developing and deploying human-centric sensing and artificial intelligence for public health and societal well-being. I do this by leveraging and repurposing society-scale technology platforms like smartphones, wearables, and commercial AI for population-scale studies and interventions. I then deploy and evaluate these systems with real-populations, addressing the complexity of aligning these technologies with their collective needs. Some example applications I am most excited about include disease prevention, promoting sustainable and healthy behavior, AI for accessible primary care, and urbanism.

CV / Google Scholar / LinkedIn

Research Approach

My core technical expertise is in developing human-centric sensing and applied artificial intelligence. However, understsanding and addressing the human factors of the societal applications I work with typically calls for longitudinal deployment studies, collecting specialized evaluation datasets, deep empirical investigation, and human-centric methods. Because of this, I have significant experience designing complex, often "in-the-wild", experiments and full-stack development of end-to-end infrastructure in service of them. My participation in data collection and interaction with real populations informs how I approach AI development, and my experience in AI drivers the types of experiments and sensing systems I build.

Notable Experiences

I have collaborated with a variety of stakeholders and instutitions including: the National Institute of Health (NIH), UW Medicine Emergency Department, and local cycling and pedestrian activist organizations to deploy novel personal health and environmental sensing systems.

Previously, I was a Student Researcher at Google Research where I worked on geospatial computer vision models for forecasting driver safety to improve Google Maps.

I have also traveled to Bangkok and Chiang Mai Thailand to conduct a mixed-methods study and mobile sensor deployment to understand the experience of gig-workers in relation to severe pollution exposure.

I also founded and lead the Allen School Graduate Entrepreneurship Club and helped start the CS4Env cross-department collaborative initiative.

Personal Interests

Outside of research, I like to make CGI posters, compose and produce electronic music, play guitar, and take photos. I am particulary inspired by ambience, harsh noise, procedurally generated art, contrasting natural and synthetic textures, and the design of everyday things. I also like cycling, bouldering, creative writing, making iced pour-over coffee, and engaging with public space.

Publications

Lessons Learned From FeverPhone: Towards Scalable, Accessible At-Home Diagnostics via Fever Detection on Unmodified Smartphones

Joseph Breda, Mastafa Springston, Alex Mariakakis, Shwetak Patel

GetMobile: Mobile Computing and Communications, 2025 pdf

ProxiCycle: Passively Mapping Cyclist Safety Using Smart Handlebars for Near-Miss Detection

Joseph Breda, Keyu Chen, Thomas Plötz, Shwetak Patel

Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2025 pdf GeekWire

UW News Video | Appeared on NPR All Things Considered & Short Wave!

NightLight: A smartphone middleware application for passively mapping nighttime sidewalk light data for improved pedestrian routing

Joseph Breda*, Daniel Campos Zamora*, Shwetak Patel, Jon Froehlich

Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2025 pdf

* Indicates equal contribution

Exploring and characterizing large language models for embedded system development and debugging

Zachary Englhardt, Richard Li, Dilini Nissanka, Zhihan Zhang, Girish Narayanswamy, Joseph Breda, Xin Liu, Shwetak Patel, Vikram Iyer

Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI LBW 2024 pdf

"I will just have to keep driving": A Mixed-methods Investigation of Lack of Agency within the Thai Motorcycle Rideshare Driver Community

Nussara Tieanklin*, Joseph Breda*, Tim Althoff, Kurtis Heimerl

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW), 2024 pdf

* Indicates equal contribution

Thermal Earring: Low-power Wireless Earring for Longitudinal Earlobe Temperature Sensing

Qiuyue Shirley Xue, Yujia Liu, Joseph Breda, Mastafa Springston, Vikram Iyer, Shwetak Patel

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), 2024 pdf

FeverPhone: Accessible Core-Body Temperature Sensing for Fever Monitoring Using Commodity Smartphones

Joseph Breda, Mastafa M. Springston, Alex Mariakakis, Shwetak Patel

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), 2023 pdf Gizmodo

Won Distinguished Paper Award at Ubicomp 2024!

Understanding People's Concerns and Attitudes Towards Smart Cities

Pardis Emami-Naeini, Joseph Breda, Wei Dai, Tadayoshi Kohno, Kim Laine, Shwetak Patel, Franziska Rosener

Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2023 pdf

Passively Sensing SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Public Transit Buses

Jason Hoffman, Matthew Hirano, Nuttada Panpradist, Joseph Breda, Parker Ruth, Yuanyi Xu, Jonathan Lester, Bichlien H. Nguyen, Luis Ceze, Shwetak Patel

Science of the Total Environment, 2022 pdf

Phone-based ambient temperature sensing using opportunistic crowdsensing and machine learning

Amee Trivedi, Phuthipong Bovornkeeratiroj, Joseph Breda, Prashant Shenoy, Jay Taneja, David E Irwin

Sustainable Computing: Informatics and Systems, 2021 pdf

Hanging Gardens of Babylon: Reframing Urban Agriculture as an Opportunity for Social Engagement

Joseph Breda, Esther Jang, Kurtis Heimerl, Shwetak Patel

Self-Sustainable CHI'20 pdf

Hot or Not: Leveraging Mobile Devices for Ubiquitous Temperature Sensing

Joseph Breda, Amee Trivedi, Chulabhaya Wijesundara, Phuthipong Bovornkeeratiroj, David E Irwin, Prashant Shenoy, Jay Taneja

BuildSys'19 pdf

Staring at the Sun: A Physical Black-box Solar Performance Model

Dong Chen, Joseph Breda, David Irwin