Dr. Vigil-Hayes is partnering with teachers and parents at STAR School to design and develop the Digital Backpack (DigiPack), an opportunistic content delivery system and mobile application that allows students living on Navajo Nation to engage with digital learning content at home even when Internet connectivity is slow, intermittent, or non-existent. This project is funded under Stage I of the competitive NSF CIVIC Innovation program.
Dr. Vigil-Hayes’ collaborative work quantifying the inaccuracies of mobile broadband coverage maps was recently featured in CNET. Inaccurate broadband mapping impacts Internet connectivity options and opportunities for millions of Americans. The forthcoming work (pre-published here) examines mobile broadband coverage through the lens of multiple data sets and finds that inaccuracies in current maps are most likely to occur in rural and tribal areas. The work demonstrates a need for new approaches that synthesize multiple, imperfect data sets in order to better quantify where coverage exists and where it needs to be measured using targeted measurement campaigns. This work was funded as part of PuebloConnect a $2M collaborative grant through the NSF Smart and Connected Communities program which brings together PI’s from NAU, UC Santa Barbara, Georgia Tech, and ASU.