Skip to main content

Maria Gorlatova

James N. & Elizabeth H. Barton Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Pierre R. Lamond Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Office hours Mondays 9-11 AM, or by appointment  

Overview


Dr. Maria Gorlatova's research is at the intersection of sensor, mobile, and pervasive computer systems and communications and networking. She creates human-facing pervasive computing platforms that enable transformative applications and support users in leading healthy and productive lives and in reaching personal and professional goals.

The focus of her recent work is on advanced augmented reality (AR) platforms that integrate edge computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) to enable contextual, responsive, and scalable AR experiences. She conduct research in edge AI, collaborative and infrastructure-assisted spatial and semantic awareness for AR, AR user cognitive context sensing, and AR QoS and QoE evaluation. 


Dr. Gorlatova earned her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, and her M.Sc. and B.Sc. (Summa Cum Laude) degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Ottawa, Canada. She has several years of industry experience, where she had been affiliated with Telcordia Technologies, IBM, and D. E. Shaw Research. She came to Duke from Princeton University, where she held the positions of an Associate Research Scholar in the Electrical Engineering Department and an Associate Director of the Princeton EDGE Lab. 

Dr. Gorlatova received multiple awards including the 2025 DARPA Director’s Fellowship Award, 2023 DARPA Young Faculty Award, 2021 NSF CAREER Award, 2021 Facebook Research Award, 2023 Cisco Research Award, 2020 and 2023 IBM Faculty Awards, 2016 IEEE Communications Society Young Author Best Paper Award, 2020 ACM/IEEE IPSN Best Research Artifact Award, and 2011 IEEE Communications Society Award for Advances in Communications. She also received the Google Anita Borg USA Fellowship, Columbia University Presidential Fellowship, and top national Alexander Graham Bell Canadian Graduate Scholar (CGS) NSERC M.Sc. and Ph.D. Fellowships. Dr. Gorlatova serves on technical program committees of multiple conferences including ACM SenSys, ACM/IEEE IPSN, IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE ICDCS, ACM SIGCOMM, and ACM MobiCom. She chaired the TPC of the Edge Computing track of IEEE ICDCS,  the TPC of ACM/IEEE IPSN, and the TPC of ACM/IEEE SenSys.

Current Appointments & Affiliations


James N. & Elizabeth H. Barton Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering · 2025 - Present Pierre R. Lamond Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering · 2025 - Present Pierre R. Lamond Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Assistant Professor of Computer Science · 2018 - Present Computer Science, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences · 2018 - Present Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, University Institutes and Centers

In the News


Published April 24, 2026
Nine Faculty Named 2026 Bass Chairs
Published April 10, 2025
New Center Brings Technological Advances to the Future of Health Care
Published November 10, 2023
Duke Research to Aid Soldiers Benefit from Augmented Reality, With Help of Sudoku

View All News

Recent Publications


Rhythms of Recovery: Patient-Centered Virtual Reality Exergame for Physical Rehabilitation in the Intensive Care Unit.

Journal Article IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics · April 2026 Early mobilization is a structured protocol designed to facilitate motor recovery in intensive care unit (ICU) patients with ICU-acquired weakness. This process is typically implemented by an interdisciplinary team of nurses, physical therapists, and other ... Full text Cite

Demo: Control the ARmada: LMM Coordination for Multi-Robot AR-HRC

Conference Hotmobile 2026 Proceedings of the 2026 ACM 27th International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications · March 2, 2026 Augmented reality (AR) has shown strong potential to enable more flexible interaction in human-robot collaboration (HRC) by conveying a robot’s state and intent [1, 3] and enabling intuitive control [1]. However, while many systems exist that demonstrate A ... Full text Cite

No Guide, No Cheat: Detecting Smart Glasses via AR Optical Signatures

Conference Hotmobile 2026 Proceedings of the 2026 ACM 27th International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications · March 2, 2026 Smart glasses are gaining increasing attention as they are expected to complement smartphones as next-generation mobile platforms, providing an Augmented Reality (AR) interface that bridges human experience and AI perception. With the goal of making smart ... Full text Cite
View All Publications

Recent Grants


DoD Center of Excellence in Advanced Computing and Software (COE-ACS)

ResearchCo-Principal Investigator · Awarded by Georgia State University · 2023 - 2028

Collaborative Research: CSR: Medium: Adaptive Environmental Awareness for Collaborative Augmented Reality

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2023 - 2027

View All Grants

Education


Columbia University · 2013 Ph.D.
University of Ottawa (Canada) · 2007 M.S.
University of Ottawa (Canada) · 2004 B.S.