Dr. Elena Gaura is a Professor in Pervasive Computing and Director of the Cogent Computing Applied Research Centre at Coventry University. She received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from Coventry University, UK, in 2000 and B.S. and M.S. Degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Cluj Napoca, Romania, in 1989 and 1991 respectively. Dr. Gaura worked at the Technical University of Cluj Napoca, Romania, Brunel University, Uxbridge, and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxford, before joining the Computer Science Department at Coventry University in June 1999 as a Senior Lecturer.
Her research career began in 1991, in the field of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) with a particular focus on VLSI implementations. By 1996, her work had led to a number of conference and journal publications and a MSc level course for the Technical University of Cluj Napoca. She developed a novel software environment for the modeling and simulation of several types of ANNs and software for ANN-based character recognition. Both packages were adopted by a number of other universities and used as a teaching and research aid. In 1995 she was awarded an Individual Tempus Grant for furthering development of the ANN course.
Dr. Gaura's research interests expanded into the area of simulation and control of microsystems using artificial intelligence methods and sigma-delta modulation, ANN architectures and training algorithms for sensor signal processing. Her PhD thesis entitled: 'Neural Network Techniques for the Control and Identification of Acceleration Sensors focused on the integration of artificial intelligence (in particular neural networks) and MEMS sensors to produce enhanced performance microsystems.
Her current research explores issues in the fields of microsensor integration and large-scale wireless sensor networks, including: sensor fault detection, network self-organisation and autonomy, self-diagnosis and hardware/software integration. The work explores new avenues brought about by MEMS technology to enhance the functionality of micromeasurement systems, develop new techniques for integrating sensors, actuators and networking functions and ultimately aims at designing autonomous systems capable of large scale field sensing. Her research is experimentally led and, by and large, focuses on deployable WSNs.
Dr. Gaura has over 100 refereed publications and is a reviewer for the Journal of NeuroComputing (Elsevier Science), the Mechatronics journal (Pergamon Press, Oxford, U.K.), IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology and IEEE Sensors. She has organised the Smart Sensors and Systems Symposium at the largest international nanotechnology conference, NanoTech, (NSTI) for the last five years (2008,2007,2006,2005,2004) and has been a member of a number of microsystem advisory bodies and a member of the EPSRC College of Peers since 2002. In 2007 she became the Co-chair of the UK Wireless Intelligent Sensing Interest Group (WiSIG).