Mariya Zheleva
Consultant
Mariya Zheleva brings over 15 years of experience in computer communication technologies with specialization in wireless communications, emerging networks with dynamic spectrum access and networking for infrastructure-challenged areas. Currently, she is an assistant professor in Computer Science at the University at Albany — SUNY where she directs the Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory (The UbiNET Lab). Prior to this, Mariya completed her PhD in Computer Science at the University of California Santa Barbara where she concentrated on evaluating and bridging the rural digital divide by designing and deploying novel mobile wireless network solutions. Mariya also brings experience from the industry having worked at a national Internet Service Provider and a national Mobile Network Provider in her home country, Bulgaria.
Mariya’s research quantifies and addresses the inequalities created by the digital divide across various application domains from emergency preparedness and response to agriculture and education and across different regions from rural Africa to rural U.S. She has extensive experience working on the ground with diverse communities to understand their communication needs and evaluate the performance of the networks that serve them. Her research findings have shed light on users’ experience as they interact with various networking technologies and have informed better design of networks that cater to limited infrastructure environments while harnessing identified usage patterns and communication needs. Mariya’s lab has developed and deployed distributed cellular networks and have focused on designing efficient wireless backhaul solutions for areas where wired connectivity is prohibitively expensive. Mariya’s work has been supported by highly prestigious programs from the National Science Foundation, including the NSF Smart and Connected Communities and the NSF CAREER programs. She is the recipient of the 2019 Dynamic Spectrum Alliance award for University Research on New Opportunities for Dynamic Spectrum Access and the University at Albany Presidential Award for Outstanding Public Engagement.
Mariya Zheleva earned her B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees in Radio Communications Engineering from the Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds an M.S. and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from University of California Santa Barbara