Saif Mahmud
Ph.D. Candidate · Cornell University · SciFi Lab
Advised by Prof. Cheng Zhang
Committee: Prof. Tanzeem Choudhury, Prof. Deborah Estrin
I build wearable systems that combine acoustic sensing, inertial sensors (IMU), and egocentric vision with machine learning to understand fine-grained human behavior, from full-body pose tracking to everyday activity recognition, on devices like smartglasses, smartwatches, rings, and clothing.
News & Updates
- May 2026 new role Started as a Research Intern on the founding team at BehaviorAI in NYC. We are building state-of-the-art wearable systems to understand fine-grained human behavior.
- Apr 2026 service Serving as a Technical Program Committee member at UbiComp / ISWC 2026.
- Nov 2025 milestone Passed my Admission to Candidacy (A Exam). Now officially a Ph.D. Candidate.
- Oct 2024 award "EchoGuide" wins Best Paper Honorable Mention at UbiComp / ISWC 2024.
- Sep 2024 paper "ActSonic", "Ring-a-Pose", and "SonicID" accepted at IMWUT / UbiComp 2025.
- Jul 2024 paper "MunchSonic" and "EchoGuide" accepted at UbiComp / ISWC 2024.
- Jul 2024 paper "SeamPose" accepted at UIST 2024.
- Jan 2024 paper "STLGRU" accepted at PAKDD 2024.
- Nov 2023 paper "GazeTrak" accepted at MobiCom 2024.
- Jul 2023 paper "PoseSonic" accepted at IMWUT / UbiComp 2023.
SEE OLDER UPDATES
- Aug 2022milestone Started my Ph.D. at Cornell University.
- Feb 2021paper "Hierarchical Self Attention Based Autoencoder" accepted at PAKDD 2021.
- Jan 2020paper "Human Activity Recognition Using Self-Attention" accepted at ECAI 2020.
Research
Publications
Acoustic Sensing on Smart Glasses
7 papersActive sonar on glasses for fine-grained, camera-free sensing of the body, face, and everyday behaviors. From recognizing daily activities and dietary actions to tracking 3D pose and gaze.
SonicGlasses: Smart Glasses Platform for Multi-Task Human Activity Tracking with Acoustic Sensing
Preprint · Under Review
MunchSonic: Tracking Fine-grained Dietary Actions through Active Acoustic Sensing on Eyeglasses
UbiComp / ISWC 2024
EchoGuide: Active Acoustic Guidance for LLM-Based Eating Event Analysis from Egocentric Videos
UbiComp / ISWC 2024
Wearable Sensing on Smartwatches, Rings & Clothing
4 papersExtending acoustic, inertial, and capacitive sensing beyond glasses, into commercial smartwatches, rings, and clothing, to enable full-body pose tracking and continuous hand pose recognition on devices people already wear.
EchoMotion: Towards Full-Body Pose Tracking with a Single Smartwatch Using Active Acoustic Sensing
Preprint · Under Review
SonicFit: Cross-User Full-Body Pose Tracking for Fitness Exercises Using Active Acoustic and Inertial Sensing with a Single Commercial Smartwatch
Preprint · Under Review
Machine Learning for Sensor Data & Activity Recognition
4 papersSelf-attention, autoencoder, and graph-based sequence models for human activity recognition and spatio-temporal prediction tasks on wearable and IoT sensor data.
Patents
Wearable Devices with Wireless Transmitter-Receiver Pairs for Acoustic Sensing of User Characteristics →
Press & Media
In the press
Glasses use sonar, AI to interpret upper body poses in 3D →
These sonar-equipped glasses could pave the way for better VR body tracking →
Spec-tacular Body Pose Estimation →
Smart glasses could boost privacy by swapping cameras for this 100-year-old technology →
Show 12 more
Glasses use sonar, AI to interpret upper body poses in 3D →
PoseSonic: Sonar, AI Powers Glasses to Track Upper Body Movements in 3D →
Glasses use sonar, AI to interpret upper body poses in 3D →
New sonar-equipped glasses use AI to interpret upper body poses in 3D →
Naočale sa sonarom za bolje praćenje tijela →
AI-powered 'sonar' on smartglasses tracks gaze and facial expressions →
No-Camera Eye Tracking: Cornell Invents Tech To Track Gaze Minus Surveillance →
Smart glasses use sonar to work out where you're looking →
Odd-looking glasses track your eyes and facial expressions without cameras →
AI-powered 'sonar' on smartglasses tracks gaze, facial expressions →
AI-Powered Sonar on Smartglasses Promises to Monitor Gaze and Facial Expressions →
Service
- TPC ACM UbiComp / ISWC 2026
- Reviewer ACM IMWUT / UbiComp · 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 🏆 Outstanding Review (2023)
- Reviewer ACM CHI · 2024, 2025, 2026
- Reviewer ACM UIST · 2025, 2026
- Reviewer ACM UbiComp / ISWC · 2023
- Reviewer ACM Transactions on Internet of Things · 2023
Contact
Email: sm2446@cornell.edu
Office: 239 Gates Hall [map],
Cornell University, 107 Hoy Rd, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA