Welcome!

My name is Sam Nelson and I'm currently a 4th year PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  I'm working with Prof. Robin Kravets to develop effective routing protocols, security solutions, and mobility models for delay/disruption-tolerant networks (DTNs).

Contact

E-mail:
snelso20 at cs.illinois.edu 
Mail:
Siebel Center for Computer Science, 201 N. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Office:
3107 Siebel Center for Computer Science

Short Bio

I grew up in Sicklerville, NJ, a suburb of Philadelphia, and attended Overbrook Regional High School.  I did my undergraduate at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA, and double-majored in Mathematics and Computer Science.  Here I started doing research in wireless ad-hoc networks under the guidance of my advisor Prof. L. Felipe Perrone.  Continuing westward, I went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to pursue a PhD in Computer Science.  Under my advisor Prof. Robin Kravets, I have obtained an MS degree in Computer Science, and am currently in my 4th year of graduate school.  I am currently living in Champaign, IL with my wonderful wife Rachel and our dog Jasmin.

Education

• M.S. in Computer Science (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, January 2009)
  • M.S. Thesis: Encounter-based Routing in Disaster Recovery Networks
• B.S. in Computer Science (Bucknell University, May 2006), magna cum laude
  
  • Honors Thesis: A Simulation Study of Connectivity Metrics for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks
  • Minor in Physics
• B.A. in Mathematics (Bucknell University, May 2006)

Research

I am currently a member of the Mobius research group under Prof. Robin Kravets, and am affiliated with the Information Trust Institute.  My research interests include developing efficient routing protocols, security solutions, and mobility models for delay/disruption-tolerant networks.  This work, funded by Boeing Research Labs and the National Science Foundation, has lead directly to the following publications, as well as an MS degree:

• S. Nelson, M. Bakht, and R. Kravets. Encounter-based Routing in DTNs. In Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2009.
• S. Nelson, A. Harris III, and R. Kravets. Event-driven, Role-based Mobility in Disaster Recovery Networks. In Proceedings of the ACM MobiCom Workshop on Challenged Networks (CHANTS 2007).

For a full publication list, please click here.

Summer Internships

I had the great opportunity to intern with BBN Technologies in Cambridge, MA during the summers of 2008 and 2009.  In 2008, I was a member of the CORONET team aimed at developing a scalable architecture and protocols for next generation multi-terabit global core optical networks.  In 2009, I was a member of the SPINDLE team aimed at delivering data in a reliable and timely fashion, even under intermittent connectivity (DTN environments).

Curriculum Vitae

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