At its Fall 2024 initiation ceremony and banquet, Tau Beta Pi Florida Alpha initiated more than 65 new student members but also honored engineering professors – and now Eminent Engineers – Pamela Dickrell, Robert Ferl, Jian Li, and Juan Gilbert.

The National Science Board serves as an independent body of advisers to both the president and Congress on policy matters related to science, technology, and math. In addition to publishing major reports, the board also prepares policy papers and statements on issues of importance to U.S. science and engineering. 

“Dr. Juan Gilbert’s research has pioneered new voting systems to help safeguard democracy,” said University of Florida Interim President Kent Fuchs, a former National Science Board member. “This great honor is well deserved and further enhances UF’s reputation for excellence. We are tremendously proud of Juan’s work and this prestigious appointment. University of Florida researchers are committed to advancing science and engineering alongside our federal partners.” 

“What if there was an app on your phone that made traffic stops safer? We’re here at UF’s Malachowsky Hall to learn more. Juan, thank you for joining us. Tell us about Virtual Traffic Stop,” said Bethany Gaffey, host of UF Innovate.

“The Virtual Traffic Stop was created in my lab as a result of tensions that were occurring between law enforcement and drivers. We thought, “Well, is there a better way to de-escalate these tensions?” And we came with this idea, the Virtual Traffic Stop. So imagine, instead of the officer immediately approaching the vehicle, what if you could do a video conference with that officer prior to them approaching the vehicle if they have to approach it at all,” said Dr. Juan Gilbert, UF professor, and developer of the Virtual Traffic Stop app.

“We honor these artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, non-profit, and private sectors for their accomplishments and for the curiosity, creativity, and courage required to reach new heights,” said David Oxtoby, president of the Academy. “We invite these exceptional individuals to join in the Academy’s work to address serious challenges and advance the common good.” 

Gilbert joins a long list of influential members such as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and more. His work toward pioneering a voting system that is accessible, reliable, and secure for everyone falls in line with these leaders’ ideals. 

By Andrea Dautant

Jim O’Connell (left) and Dr. Juan Gilbert (right).

To celebrate Dr. Juan Gilbert receiving the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Joe Biden, UF Innovate hosted a reception on November 30^th.

On October 24th, Dr. Gilbert was honored at the White House for his invention, Prime III, a secure and universal voting system. The National Medal of Technology and Innovation is the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement, bestowed by the President of the United States on leading innovators for their outstanding contributions to America’s economic, environmental, and social well-being.

“We get to know Juan at a different level because we get to see all of his technologies that come out. This one just happens to be election-related,” said Jim O’Connell, the assistant vice president for commercialization at the University of Florida.

Dr. Juan Gilbert poses with Dr. Richard Croley (left) and Autumn Arranz (right), his licensing team at UF Innovate | Tech Licensing.

Prime III is a secure, multimodal electronic voting system. The easy-to-use interface accommodates individuals with physical disabilities and impairments, enabling greater participation in the electoral process while ensuring the reliability and security of every vote.

Dr. Gilbert, the Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor and chair of UF’s Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering, has dedicated a significant portion of his career to finding ways to improve election technology and protect democracy. The 2000 U.S. presidential election sparked his interest in election security when flaws in the country’s voting technology were exposed.

Prime III was the first open-source voting system to be used in federal, state, and local elections in the United States. The recognition from the White House is a testament to the importance of his work in addressing the most pressing challenges facing our society and his commitment to real-world technological solutions.

“We were just trying to fix a problem,” Dr. Gilbert said. “If you can’t vote, how is that different from not having the right to vote? What is gratifying is changing the history of voting.”  

To recognize this prestigious achievement, Dr. Gilbert received a plaque for one of his issued patents. The plaque is a testament to his work and the innovations he will pioneer in the future.

“It began with my students, actually,” Gilbert told News4JAX from his office on campus. “One day I was in the lab and talking to my students, and they were a little frustrated with interactions between law enforcement and drivers. I said, ‘Well, let’s do something about that.’”

Gilbert has already created what he calls the most secure way to vote and in his spare time rolled out the app called Virtual Traffic Stop. President Joe Biden recently honored him with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at the White House.

The year 2020 was unprecedented in many ways. It was the year of the COVID-19 pandemic and record voter turnout for elections in the United States.

One socially-minded researcher at UF saw the crossroads of these issues, and decided to do something to keep poll workers and voters safer while casting their ballots. Dr. Juan Gilbert, The Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor and chair of the UF Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE), saw the potential danger of standing in line to vote during the election and was inspired to create the inLine Ticketing system.

“I thought, ‘Is there a way to mitigate this situation and make it safer?’” said Gilbert. “So I came up with this idea for a ticketing system whereby individuals would be given tickets that would tell them a time to return to vote so they didn’t have to stand in line and potentially compromise their health.”

The software, inLine Ticketing, was released before the 2020 presidential election online for free so that any person with access to the internet and a computer could download and use it. It was easy to use. All a poll worker needed to do was estimate the average time a person was spending in the voting box and choose how many tickets needed to be generated.

One invention, many applications

Although developed initially to lower potential COVID-19 exposure at polling sites, the software has a number of other uses. For example, inLine Ticketing can be used to provide information to people waiting in long lines for admission to large events or for those waiting in line to be vaccinated.

“Dr. Gilbert has invented a ticketing system that routes the traffic for lines. The idea behind it is that if you know when your time is to buy your ticket, get your inoculation, or vote, it’s a more comforting feeling than waiting in a long line not knowing when your turn will come,” said Richard Croley, licensing officer at UF Innovate who has worked with Gilbert to license numerous technologies.

Gilbert and the innovation received high praise from UF Innovate by receiving one of seven Invention of the Year awards. UF Innovate recognized InLine Ticketing because of the technology’s clear positive impact to improve safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is only the most recent invention by Gilbert aimed at solving a real-world issue in a real-world context. He is known at UF Innovate for developing technologies such as inLine Ticketing that are built to make the world a better place. Since being recruited to join the University of Florida as chair of the CISE Department in 2014, Gilbert has worked with UF Innovate to license world-bettering technologies.

“An artist wants to communicate a message in their medium, and inventors are like that. They want to create something. Gilbert wants to create innovations that provide a benefit to the world,” said Croley when asked about his history working with the researcher.

Solving real world problems

While working with Croley, Gilbert has disclosed a number of inventions including the patented Prime III voting system. Following the 2002 passing of the Help America Vote Act, Gilbert received funding from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to develop Prime III. The software interfaces with voting machines to make voting accessible to all people, including people with visual impairments. Since then, Gilbert has updated the software so that for each digital vote, a corresponding paper ballot is printed for security and authenticity.

“Prime III is the first open-source voting technology to be used in the United States in state, federal, and local elections,” said Gilbert.

InLine Ticketing and Prime III are just two of the many world-improving inventions that have come out of The Human-Experience Research Lab lead by Gilbert.

“The work we do is at the intersections of people, technology, policy, and culture. We build innovative solutions to real-world problems by integrating all of those,” Gilbert said. “The work is very applied and has societal implications because we address real-world problems in real-world contexts with real-world people.”

The lab has a long history of working in the mix of these issues. Most recently, the focus for Gilbert’s research group has been to improve election technology, accelerate brain-computer interfacing (controlling computer actions with thoughts), and increase safety at traffic stops. Reduced bias in technology is another key area of research for the lab.

“We have a number of projects on AI and machine learning with respect to bias,” said Gilbert. “Can we make those algorithms and techniques less biased and more fair?”

While leading the Human-Experience Research Lab, Gilbert has interfaced often with UF Innovate | Tech Licensing. Like many inventors who license technologies at UF, he believes that technology licensing and disclosure are critical requirements for protecting intellectual property and for enabling research to have broader impacts.

“It is a very big deal here at UF. After all, we invented Gatorade,” said Gilbert. “Technology licensing and transfer are a major part of who we are as Florida Gators.”

Sarah Anderson Weaver is a marketing intern with UF Innovate | Tech Licensing. She is also a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Entomology and Nematology at the University of Florida where she conducts research assessing the impacts of climate warming and land-use change on native pollinators. She has a B.A. in English – Creative Writing and a B.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Kansas. She is a passionate proponent of science communication, and she is interested in pursuing a career in technical writing or technology transfer after completing her doctoral degree.

The Association of Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI) is an international community of professionals interested in research, education and the practical application of human-computer interaction. The SIGCHI Awards identify and honor leaders and shapers of the field of human-computer interaction within SIGCHI.

“In my lab, we are proud to do research that makes a positive impact on people’s lives,” Dr. Gilbert said. “We strive to make the world a better place with the work we do. I’m honored to be recognized by ACM SIGCHI.”

“The longer we go with signature verification, the error rate is just going to increase because you have generations who haven’t been accustomed to signing their name,” he said.

In the meantime, he said he’s created a new app for elections workers to use to curb the long lines outside of polling places. “I was watching TV, and I saw long lines in Wisconsin during this pandemic,” he said. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is terrible, we’ve got to do something about it.’”

His app is called inLine Ticketing System, and he said it allows election workers to issue tickets to voters using a QR code that would essentially hold a person’s place in line, allowing them to stay socially distant.

Juan E. Gilbert, Ph.D., The Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor and chair of the UF Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE), has created a ticketing system to help voters maintain social distancing while exercising their right to vote. Dr. Gilbert, who has been conducting research on elections for more than 15 years, saw a need down to the local level and filled it.

“Everyone wants to feel safe while they are casting their vote,” he said. “The inLine Ticketing System lowers voters’ risk of contracting COVID-19 by reducing the length of lines and reducing the amount of time people need to stand close to others.”