Professor, Department of Computer Science
Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, College of Engineering
University of California
Santa Barbara, California 93106
Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of California, Santa Barbara 2000.
Here is my CV (updated July 2024).
Associate Director for the Center for Information Technology and Society (2012 - 2015)
Elizabeth M. Belding is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Prof. Belding's research focuses on mobile and wireless networking, including network performance analysis, and information and communication technologies for development (ICTD). She is a co-developer of the AODV routing protocol for mobile networks, on which 802.11s and Zigbee technologies are based in part. The original AODV paper published in WMCSA'99 received the 2018 ACM SIGMOBILE Test of Time Award. Prof. Belding applies her wireless network expertise to a wide range of contexts, and is particularly interested in measuring, mapping, and improving fixed and mobile Internet accessibility in unserved and underserved communities in the US and worldwide. Her past ICTD projects have included work in Zambia, South Africa, Mongolia, refugee camps and Native American communities around the US. In addition to this work, she is currently very interested in and engaged with efforts to accurately measure and quantify fixed and mobile broadband deployments in the U.S. She is the founder and director of the Mobility Management and Networking (MOMENT) Laboratory. Prof. Belding is the author of over 170 technical papers on wireless networking and has served on over 80 conference technical program committees. She was Vice Chair of the UCSB Computer Science department 2009-15 and 2017-19. She is currently the inaugural Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the UCSB College of Engineering. Prof. Belding is an ACM Fellow, AAAS Fellow and IEEE Fellow. She is particularly proud of receiving the UCSB Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award in 2012 and the NCWIT Harrold and Notkin Research and Graduate Mentoring Award in 2015 for her mentorship of graduate students.
Prof. Elizabeth Belding's goal is to connect you with the world, no matter who you are, where you live, and what is happening around you. As a professor of Computer Science with over 25 years of experience in wireless networking, she applies her technical skills to socially impactful research to improve the safety and well-being of those who are underrepresented. In particular, she develops innovative communication solutions to improve Internet access in marginalized communities and after natural disasters, she studies Internet use and performance in developing regions, and she is developing better strategies for measuring and mapping fixed and mobile broadband access. Along the theme of computing for social good, for a few years she collaborated with other researchers on the study of social networks, focusing on hate speech and gender-based violence. With a motto of “creating opportunity and empowering others to reach their potential,” Prof. Belding enjoys developing research visions and then creating and leading research teams to accomplish them. A critical component of her work is her passion for student mentorship; she is particularly proud of receiving graduate student mentorship awards from both UCSB and the National Center for Women & Information Technology. Through her research and service leadership at UCSB, Prof. Belding is committed to empowering and advocating for others and making a positive impact locally and globally.
The Belding Bridge of wireless connectivity.
We are excited to announce the acceptance of our ACM Sigcomm'24 paper titled "The Efficacy of the Connect America Fund in Addressing US Internet Access Inequities". This paper evaluates the efficacy of the Connect America Fund (CAF), a key policy intervention aimed at addressing disparities in US internet access. CAF subsidizes the creation of new regulated broadband monopolies in underserved areas, thereby aiming to provide comparable internet access, along dimensions of price and speed, to that which is available in urban...
moreHuge congratulations to MOMENT Lab alum Udit Paul for receiving the 2024 ACM SIGCOMM Doctoral Dissertation Award for his dissertation titled "Towards Bridging the Divide: Enhancing Understanding of Digital Equity". His thesis and supporting publications made fundamental contributions to addressing Internet access inequality, providing policymakers with desperately needed information about broadband access, affordability and performance across the U.S. This award acknowledges the originality, rigor, and impact of a dissertation in the field of...
moreI am happy to announce that our NSF Hispanic-Serving Institution proposal title " Integrated Networking, Scholarship, and Peer Mentoring of Freshmen Engineers for Increased Academic Success and Graduation Rates" has been funded by NSF! The grant will create the new INSPIRE program, a program for first-year UCSB College of Engineering students designed to better welcome new students to the college, increase community and sense of belonging, and academic success through structured peer...
moreThe UCSB Convergence magazine recently had an article about my latest research and funding from NSF and the Rockefeller Foundation on mapping fixed and mobile broadband.
HUGE Congratulations to MOMENT Lab members Udit Paul and Jiamo Liu on receiving the Distinguished Paper Award (Best Long Paper) at ACM IMC'22! Wow!!! This work is so important and timely given the recent focus on crowdsourced speed test measurements for policy-related decision-making. Our paper argues that using these measurements without understanding their context is problematic. Though the community had internalized that speed-test results can be misleading, no one knew the extent of skews in such crowdsourced datasets. One significant roadblock in contextualizing these measurements...
moreOur group recently had two Internet Measurement Research proposals funded by NSF. One focuses on improving crowdsourced measurements of fixed broadband in order to better characterize Internet access (and is joint with other UCSB researchers). The other focuses on statistical techniques for better modeling and mapping of mobile broadband coverage and quality (and is joint with researchers at Georgia Tech). We are very excited to embark on these important projects. Thank you so much to NSF for funding this work!
