UbiComp / ISWC 2023
Plenary Panel
Resilience in an Era of Disruption
Is Ubiquitous Computing a blessing or a curse for Resilient Cities and Infrastructures?
Panel day: October 11, 2023
Abstract
Major challenges such as global warming, pandemics, and geopolitical tensions increase the frequency and damage of disasters and crises: As the world faces disruptions, the resilience of cities and critical infrastructure becomes key. On the road to resilience, ubiquitous information and communication technologies (ICTs) have already revolutionized data collection and urban planning, but a big next step is already underway: ubiquitous ICTs are expected to provide the intricate steering for novel decentralized power generation and sharing, for innovative intermodal private-public transportation, and for other approaches that promise greater resilience. However, ICTs also entail new vulnerabilities that can significantly increase the risk of disruption: they are exposed to cyber threats, known to have many undetected flaws, and difficult to ruggedize.
The core question on ICT resilience is therefore: “How can we better mitigate severe disruptions both by ICT and of ICT with respect to disasters and crises?” – Severe meaning that conventional fault tolerance, which “masks out” faults unnoticed by users, is not sufficient. Examples of follow-up questions read like this: What fallback and recovery measures are most effective? How can a socio-technical strategy lead to ICT-based resilience by design? Where and how should we (not) use ICT for resilience? How can we make ICT systems themselves more resilient? How can we measure progress in the above areas?
The panel will revolve around the above core question and solicit viewpoints from a variety of disciplines and countries. Recommendations and open questions identified in the process can inform the research agenda of interested scholars.
Moderator
Prof. Dr. Max Mühlhäuser

Max Mühlhäuser is a Full Professor of Computer Science and the head of the Telecooperation Lab (TK for short) at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Informatics Dept. His lab conducts research on smart ubiquitous computing environments in the Future Internet – from smart mixed-reality rooms to smart cities and smart & resilient critical infrastructures. He has extensively contributed towards these fields through innovations across Networks & Distributed Systems, Human-Computer Interaction, Proactive Intelligent Systems and Privacy, Trust & Cybersecurity.
Panelists
Jose Ramirez-Marquez | Stevens Institute of Technology
Dr. Ramirez Marquez research efforts focus on the development of mathematical models for the analysis and computation of system operational effectiveness – reliability and vulnerability analysis as the basis for designing system resilience. He also works at the intersection of evolutionary computation for the optimization of complex problems associated with system performance and design. His most recent research explores the interplay between data visualization and analytical decision making. In these areas, Dr. Ramirez-Marquez has conducted funded research for both private industry and government and, has published over 100 refereed manuscripts in technical journals, book chapters and industry reports.
Aleksandra Krstikj | Tecnológico de Monterrey
Dr. Aleksandra Krstikj is a full-time research professor at the School of Architecture, Art, and Design of Tec de Monterrey. She is leading the national research group “Sustainable Territorial Development¨, where she organizes a monthly research seminar and coordinates research projects. She has a master’s degree in architectural engineering from the Kyoto Institute of Technology and a doctorate from the Osaka University´s School of Engineering. Her research focuses on sustainable land use, spatial equity, and urban conservation of historic centers, with a total of 10 years of research experience. She has active research collaborations with researchers from Design University Kobe (Japan), University of Colorado Boulder (USA), Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics (China), and UNAM (Mexico). She has published her work in the best international scientific journals such as Habitat International and the Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering.
Kota Tsubouchi | LY Corporation
Kota Tsubouchi received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 2010. Until March 2012, he did research about on-demand traffic systems at the University of Tokyo. Since April 2012, he became a data scientist and senior researcher at Yahoo JAPAN Research. His research interest is data analysis with a focus on human activity logs (location information, search logs, shopping history, sensor data, etc.). Kota performed large-scale Human mobility data analysis for urban resilience.
Kelsey Stoddard | US Army Engineer Research and Development Center
Kelsey Stoddard is a Senior Researcher at The US Army Corp of Engineers – Engineering Research and Development Center. She has a strong background in data analysis and data driven methods, including AI, optimization, statistical methods, and others. Her work has focused on applying these methods to answer the question: How do we increase the resilience of different real-world complex systems? This work has been in a broad range of applications, including zero trust architecture, hydrogen infrastructure, supply chains, communication networks, and more. Her work integrates AI and Resilience in many applications.