Dina Katabi

Dina Katabi (دينا قَتابي; born 1970) is the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and the director of the MIT Wireless Center. She was designated as one of the world’s most influential women engineers by Forbes magazine.

Early life
Katabi was born in Damascus, Syria, in a family of doctors. Though her initial plan was to follow this same career path, she discovered a new passion in college: computer science.

Academic biography
Katabi received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Damascus in 1995, then an M.S in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Computer Systems Networking and Telecommunications from MIT in 1998 and 2003, respectively. In 2003, Katabi joined MIT, where she holds the title of Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She is the co-director of the MIT Center for Wireless Networks and Mobile Computing and a principal investigator at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Research and career
Katabi's research focused on signals, machine learning and health. Her work started in networks (especially the congestion control challenge), where she found solutions for a better reliability of networks. Then, with her team, she used machine learning and signals to analyze the human body. Based on how RF signals bounce off our bodies, the researchers could measure human breathing, heart rates, emotion and sleep stages, without having the "patient" wear any sensor. Her most recent research combined medicine with AI, where she developed with her team a system capable of diagnosing Parkinson's Disease.

Awards
In 2013, Katabi won the Grace Murray Hopper Award, recognizing her as the outstanding young computer science professional.

In 2012, her work on Sparse Fourier Transforms was chosen as one of the top 10 breakthroughs of the year by Technology Review.

In September 2013, Katabi was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for her work. In 2013 she also became a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.

In 2014, on the celebration of Project Mac's 50th anniversary, her work on X-ray vision was chosen as one of the "50 ways that MIT has transformed computer science."

In 2015, Katabi presented her startup idea to President Obama at White House demo day.

In 2017, she was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to network congestion control and to wireless communications.

In 2017, Katabi was awarded the ACM Prize in Computing, recognizing her as "one of the most innovative researchers in the field of networking, Katabi applies methods from communication theory, signal processing and machine learning to solve problems in wireless networking".

In 2022, Katabi was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 2023, Katabi was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and awarded with an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from the American University of Beirut for her significant contribution to researcher and innovation in wireless networks.