Professor John (Jack) Stankovic’s research has greatly advanced the field of resource-constrained distributed networks, which include cyber-physical systems (and the Internet of Things), real-time systems, and wireless sensor networks. Cyber-physical systems, pioneered by Stankovic and others, permeate many aspects of our lives and are critical in helping us understand and solve some critical social problems such as global warming, smart cities, smart health, and more. In recent years, Stankovic has been applying cyber physical systems technology for smart health management. His work includes building an in-home Patient-Caregiver System to monitor caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients for stress and provide real-time suggestions to reduce stress. The system employs novel machine learning and reinforcement learning solutions. To date, this system has been deployed in 10 homes, helping real caregivers manage their stress. In 2018 he co-founded and directed the Link Lab at the University of Virginia, which partners with industry to tackle the most critical questions at the intersection of the cyber and physical worlds.

Stankovic’s entry into the area of real-time systems in the early 80s started with the groundbreaking SPRING project, which was Co-directed by Professor Ramamritham. Stankovic argued convincingly in his 1988 paper “Misconceptions,” and through his lectures, that real-time computing was an incredibly important discipline and a rich research area. Moreover, he argued that distributed real-time computing should play a key role and that the “distributed” nature introduced significantly greater challenges to real-time computing. The project also built SpringNet, the first real-time network of multiprocessors with a novel real-time operating system that performed dynamic real-time scheduling. Through the SPRING project, Stankovic showed the way forward technically in this area.

Subsequently, his focus shifted to wireless sensor networks, and he developed VigilNet (with Professor Abdelzaher) under the DARPA NEST Program. This system consisted of among the largest number of sensor nodes built to that point and was demonstrated at various locations including Military bases. Vigilnet, was a military surveillance system that contained novel algorithms in sensing and power management. Vigilnet was transferred to Industry for full development. This was a significant many year undertaking and a high-stakes project.

Professor Stankovic is a Life Fellow of the IEEE and Fellow of the ACM. He was elected to the Virginia Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. He received the top technical awards from three different technical groups: the IEEE Real-Time Systems Technical Committee's Award for Outstanding Technical Contributions and Leadership, the IEEE Technical Committee on Distributed Processing's Distinguished Achievement Award, and the IEEE Technical Committee’s Cyber Physical Systems Technical Achievement Award. His article on Misconceptions of Real-Time Computing helped establish the field of real-time computing. He is sometimes called the Father of Real-Time Computing and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from York University. Stankovic has an h-index of 124 and over 68,400 citations.

Prof. Stankovic is BP America Professor Emeritus in the Computer Science Department at the University of Virginia, and previously worked at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He received his PhD from Brown University.