PopTech, a global social innovation incubator and thought leadership network, has named Jason Hong, associate professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, as one of 11 PopTech Science Fellows for 2013.

Carmel Majidi, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, also is a 2013 Science Fellow.

The year-long Fellows program helps high-potential working scientists become more effective communicators, collaborators and leaders both within and beyond the traditional bounds of academia.

Hong and Majidi will join the other Science Fellows, as well as 11 Social Innovation Fellows, in Maine next month for an intensive training program. The Science Fellows will focus on becoming more effective communicators, collaborators and leaders, both within and beyond academia. Each will make presentations of their work at PopTech's Sparks of Brilliance conference in Camden, Maine, Oct. 24-26.

Hong investigates privacy and security issues for pervasive computing, including smartphone apps. His work focuses on the human element of these security issues and examines how to empower people so that they have better control over and feedback about their personal information. He draws on ideas and methods from human-computer interaction, crowdsourcing and psychology to develop better tools and user interfaces for everyday people.

His work has already garnered attention from the popular press, including articles in MIT Tech Review, TechRepublic, the New York Times and an appearance on the CBS "Morning Show."

Majidi studies the next generation of biologically compatible robots, assistive medical devices and electronics. These "soft-matter technologies" include systems that are elastically deformable and adapt their functionality to the changing demands of their operator and environment.