Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award recognizes research and service excellence

October 29, 2025

Riku Arakawa, a fifth-year human-computer interaction Ph.D. candidate, received the Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award and Best Doctoral Colloquium Contribution Award during UbiComp / ISWC. The conference was held October 14-16, 2025 at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland.

UbiComp / ISWC is a premier interdisciplinary venue for researchers in all aspects of ubiquitous, pervasive and wearable computing. The ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) and ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computing (ISWC) have been co-located since 2013.

The Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award is particularly meaningful as it is given to one PhD student each year in recognition of both research excellence and community contributions to the ubiquitous and pervasive computing field.

“In my research, I develop health assistants that provide context-aware care support through sensing technology. Ubiquitous computing in the real world is extremely challenging and still relatively rare in the research community, but I believe it is crucial to address in order to move the field forward and create impact to society,” said Arakawa. “I’m grateful to the award committee for recognizing our extensive efforts in deploying these systems in healthcare settings.”

Through iterative design and close clinical collaborations, Arakawa’s research advances intelligent sensing systems beyond the lab and into the flow of real-world healthcare settings.

Arakawa designed a smartwatch-based system (LemurDx) that objectively measures children’s hyperactivity and delivers actionable behavioral insights to caregivers and clinicians. He also created an interactive assistant (PrISM) that supports daily procedures, such as wound care for post-operative skin cancer patients and individuals with dementia. These research systems have been deployed at multiple medical institutions and tested by more than 100 patients. In addition to research excellence, he also shows commitment to the community through service as a paper reviewer, workshop organizer, associate chair, and organizing committee member across multiple conferences.

Arakawa is advised by Mayank Goel, associate professor in the HCII and Software and Societal Systems Department (S3D).

Goel was co-advised during his Ph.D. by Borriello, the late University of Washington professor and namesake for the award his current advisee just received.

“Borriello was an amazing advisor. He loved students and the students loved him. It is no coincidence that, upon his passing, the research community decided to honor him by naming a student award in his name,” said Goel.

Arakawa was called to the stage a second time during the UbiComp / ISWC awards ceremony. He received one of two Best Doctoral Colloquium Contribution Awards presented in recognition of Ph.D. research excellence. Arakawa’s doctoral presentation was titled “Health Assistants for Everyday Care: Reliable Human‑AI Collaboration under Imperfect Sensing.”

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