Jie Gao's research is on applied computational geometry and distributed algorithm design with applications in wireless sensor networks. Embedded networked sensing devices are becoming ubiquitous across many activities that are important to our economy and life. In these applications, the physical locations of the sensor nodes greatly impact the system design in all aspects from low-level networking and organization to high-level information processing and applications. From a networking point of view, node placement clearly influences network connectivity and sensing coverage, which subsequently affects basic network organization such as naming and routing in the network. From an application point of view, sensor readings exhibit spatial correlations that can be exploited for data compression, approximation and validation. The physical embedding of sensor nodes brings a unique character that differentiates sensor networks from traditional networks, and enables a whole new set of properties that can be exploited for design efficiency.