About HP Labs
HP Labs, one of the pre-eminent industrial research laboratories in the world, is passionate about making our research real - driving technology to commercialization in the areas most important to our customers and society.
HP Labs Careers
We’re always interested in highly creative individuals who live and breathe technology. If you’re a problem solver ready to contribute fresh new ideas and solutions to our customers and our business, let’s talk.
Research positions
Successful candidates for research positions at HP Labs are academically distinguished and have a notable track record of creativity and real-world innovation.
Meet Mithra Vankipuram – user experience researcher
Growing up in Chennai, India, HP Labs research scientist Mithra Vankipuram was drawn equally to science, art, math, and engineering. At HP Labs, she gets to pursue each of those passions every day.
A computer science and engineering graduate with a Ph.D. in biomedical informatics from Arizona State University, Vankipuram came to HP Labs after working to address problems in healthcare environments, such as trauma critical care units, through the use of virtual reality.
Today, she’s a user experience researcher in HP’s Immersive Experiences Lab, looking to identify technology experiences that make a difference to users. “That involves immersing yourself in the environment of the user, talking to users, understanding what their problems are, and then iteratively building solutions that meet the needs you’ve identified," she says.
Vankipuram also uses her skills as an artist, creative writer, and improv performer in her work. “I often use sketches to explain ideas to people, and I get to write user stories, which challenges the creative writing side of my brain,” she explains. She also produces videos that illustrate her ideas, and draws on her improv experience to engage people when conducting user studies.
Her current work explores helping people move seamlessly between devices that they use at home and work. “I’m also interested in how you take formal user experience research and translate it to a fast-paced, agile technology-driven processes,” she adds. “That’s something our industry needs to be a lot better at.”
HP Labs is an exciting place to work that challenges her to keep thinking and learning, Vankipuram says, especially since the formation of HP Inc. Today, she notes, “we’re more agile, things are moving faster, and there’s a lot of support for people who want to get things done. You can feel the energy.”
At HP Labs, we offer a collaborative, informal, and high-paced environment in which to work. We actively support our researchers in building their careers, offering mentoring by experienced senior colleagues, an appreciation for work/life balance, and excellent benefits. Find out about current open researcher positions here.
Post-Doctoral
We offer academically outstanding post-doctoral researchers the opportunity to apply sophisticated theoretical insights to urgent business problems by pursuing an intensive project in their specialty.
Meet Caitlin DeJong – HP Lab’s first ever hire in molecular biology
Post-doctoral researchers at HP Labs get to put their knowledge and skills to work doing hands-on research that can directly impact leading-edge technologies and products.
That opportunity drew Caitlin DeJong to HP Labs after completing her Ph.D. in molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley.
“This was a chance to get in at the start of something,” says DeJong, who joined HP’s Life Sciences Research Group to help HP apply its novel SERS sensor technology to the life sciences and is the first molecular scientist ever to be hired by HP Labs. “Our investigations are pretty open ended at this point, so there’s a lot of scope for creativity,” she adds.
DeJong is exploring how HP’s testing and diagnosis SERS chip responds when exposed to different biological fluids like blood, urine, saliva, and even breath.
Individual samples of these fluids each have their own unique molecular signature. “Eventually we want to be able to understand how the signatures differ when you compare a sample from someone healthy versus one that comes from someone with a specific disease,” DeJong explains. “Then we’ll explore how we could use that information as a diagnostic or screening tool.”
DeJong’s HP Labs post-doc offers her an inside view into how an industrial lab functions and the chance to work with talented scientists and engineers with whom she’d never have contact in academic molecular biology.
"It's given me really good exposure to what research and development is like in industry, which is something I wanted. The motivation for our research is different from when I was in an academic lab; our efforts are focused on trying to create something that will actually become a product that will hopefully be used to make a difference in people's lives so I feel like my scientific efforts are one step closer to having an impact. I like thinking about research from this angle because it's expanding the way I address scientific questions, and because of that, this is a very good place to be."
At HP Labs, we offer a collaborative, informal, and high-paced environment in which to work. Post-doctoral positions typically receive funding for twelve to thirty six months, offering a window into the full span of industrial research, including the chance to work with HP customers and to see how lab-designed technologies are can impact the world. Many HP Labs post-doctoral researchers are subsequently hired as full-time employees within the HP Labs organization. Find out about current open post-doctoral positions here.
Students and interns
HP Labs internships are open to academically outstanding young researchers in a wide variety of technical fields.
Meet He Luan – HP Labs intern and Ph.D. candidate in industrial and systems engineering
Interns at HP Labs are encouraged to apply theoretical insights, creativity, and their problem solving skills to real world technical and business problems. For He Luan, that has meant spending a summer in HP's Print Adjacencies and 3D Lab exploring how deep learning methodologies can be used to improve 3D printing.
Luan became interested in 3D printing while majoring in robotics and intelligent systems at the University of Science and Technology of China. One class in particular, she recalls, “gave me an idea of how revolutionary 3D printing could become in terms of how we make things and also what the challenges were to improving it.”
The insight spurred Luan to enroll in the Ph.D. program in industrial and systems engineering at the University of Southern California, where she specializes in applying data and statistical learning to 3D printing research.
As an HP labs graduate intern, Luan gets to deploy her theoretical knowledge towards a very concrete end. A major research project at HP Labs, she notes, is investigating ways to analyze sensor data from HP 3D printers to help optimize the printing process.
“As part of that effort, I’m applying deep learning to these data sets and exploring different neutral network architectures to predict the thermal behavior of each layer of material as it is printed,” Luan explains.
It’s challenging work. More conventional deep learning problems, like image identification, can tolerate a certain degree of imprecision in their predications. But to be useful in 3D printing, predictions need to be accurate to an individual voxel (the 3D equivalent of a pixel).
In addition, thermal behavior in a 3D printer is incredibly complex. Other HP Labs teams, however, are conducting multiple physical experiments to uncover these interactions and sharing that data with Luan.
“By applying deep learning to that data, we’re hoping to reveal information patterns that allow us to predict thermal behavior and help us to build even more accurate physical models,” she says.
Luan hopes that results from her internship will find their way into her dissertation, which explores new ways to improve geometric accuracy in 3D printing. And she’s hoping to continue working with HP Labs after her internship.
“I’d love to help some of the ideas we cook up over the summer find their way into products,” she says.
HP Labs interns typically work over a 10-12 week period between undergraduate or graduate semesters and must be enrolled full-time at an accredited college or university (US: minimum 12 credit hours per semester). Some HP Labs interns are able to continue their research over successive internships and many are subsequently hired as full-time employees within the HP Labs organization.
HP Labs locations
Palo Alto
We’re always interested in highly creative individuals who live and breathe technology. If you’re a problem solver ready to contribute fresh new ideas and solutions to our customers and our business, let’s talk.
About the site
Founded in 1966, HP Labs’ headquarters in Palo Alto is our largest site, located just a few miles from the famous HP Garage that is known as the birthplace of Silicon Valley.
Research programs
With a majority of HP Labs researchers located on site, our research at HP Labs Palo Alto spans much of our research agenda.
Lihua Zhao, PhD
Global Head of Personalization and 3D Labs
Dr. Lihua Zhao, HP Distinguished Technologist, is Global Head of Personalization and 3D Labs. In this role, she leads an elite R&D team to strategically advance HP’s 3D Printing and Digital Manufacturing technologies for future industry revolution. She is also keen on encouraging, mentoring, developing, and sponsoring junior scientists and engineers, especially women, minorities, and introverts to pursue their dreams in technology fields.
Bristol
We’re always interested in highly creative individuals who live and breathe technology. If you’re a problem solver ready to contribute fresh new ideas and solutions to our customers and our business, let’s talk.
About the site
Instituted in 1985 and now located in the heart of Bristol’s thriving downtown academic and entrepreneurial ecosystem, HP Labs Bristol is home to HP’s Security Lab, which looks holistically at emerging security concerns. The site also hosts several key research projects focused on the future of digital manufacturing.
Research programs
As the divide between the physical and digital worlds continues to blur, the challenges of computer security only mutate and grow. Security research at HP Labs is helping keep business and consumer IT safe in the face of this evolving threat environment. Additional HP Labs Bristol projects support HP as it revolutionizes how we design, manufacture, and consume high quality, customized 3D goods.
Security Lab
HP’s Security Lab pursues original systems security research to ensure that we deliver safe and assured products, services, and experiences and lead the industry in raising the bar in cybersecurity. To that end, we focus on three core research themes: device security research; infrastructure security research for endpoint ecosystems; and security management research, focused on attack detection and manageable remediation across endpoint networks. Our security research will be key to developing safe and trustable consumer, commercial, and industrial edge computing and to securing disruptive emerging technologies such as new 3D ecosystems that promise to transform manufacturing.
Site director
Simon Shiu is Director of HP Labs’ Security Lab. His team is focused on creating a trustworthy information system environment in the face of growing challenges such as the rise of organized cybercrime, the adoption of cloud-based computing, and the development of novel, large-scale IoT ecosystems.
Former Directors
Starting with Founding Director Barney Oliver, HP Labs directors have been a distinguished lot. Oliver, who some consider to be one of the greatest applied scientists of the 20th century, presided over HP Labs during a period when researchers invented the well-known HP-35, the first scientific handheld calculator. Two directors were pioneers of Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) architecture. Others were developers of such technologies as ultrasonic imaging, high-speed computer printers and distributed computer architecture.
Awards and honors
Behind every one of our breakthroughs are world-class technologists from across the globe – talented men and women with a range of backgrounds and skills. Our researchers are among the most distinguished in their fields – and it shows. They’ve received some of the highest honors in science and engineering, including the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame. Our team includes HP Senior Fellows and HP Fellows, IEEE Fellow, as well as fellows of the Society for Imaging Science and Technology among many other professional societies.
HP Senior Fellows
Chandrakant Patel
known for his pioneering work in thermal management, energy-efficient computing and for “smart” data centers that dynamically provisions power, compute and cooling based on the need. His research now focuses on developing the “art to part” pipeline for 3D digital manufacturing.
HP Fellows
Boris Balacheff
is Chief Technologist for System Security Research and Innovation at HP Labs where he leads security research strategy. An established technologist and thought leader in platform and infrastructure security, he also works closely with HP business units, customers, and partners on cybersecurity futures and the evolution of the threat landscape.
Keith Moore
is an expert in large scale distributed systems, co-author of multiple international standards, and holds over 30 patents covering topics from interactive paper/blended reality to networking protocols.
Qian Lin
is a research scientist in the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Compute Lab within HP Labs where she directs computer vision and deep learning research. She is also an adjunct full professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. Her areas of expertise include artificial intelligence, computer vision, and deep learning, with applications in machine learning solutions, print workflow and quality, and 3D printing.
Will Allen
is an Inventor and Innovator in the Emerging Compute Lab, part of HP Labs. For thirty years, Allen has been deeply engaged with inventing and commercializing digital technology, contributing to HP programs with global impact in instrumentation, inkjet printing at all scales, digital projection displays, and services. His current areas of interest include: robotic systems, machine learning, future of the workplace with immersive collaboration, and HP technical career path governance.
High Honors
National Academy of Engineering
Chandrakant Patel
For contributions in thermal and energy management of information technology systems.
Election to National Academy of Engineering membership is one of the highest professional honors accorded an engineer. Members have distinguished themselves in business and academic management, in technical positions, as university faculty, and as leaders in government and private engineering organization.
Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame
The Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame aims to celebrate the accomplishments of engineers and technical leaders in Silicon Valley who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and have made significant contributions to the Silicon Valley community.
Chandrakant Patel
For his pioneering work in the design of IT infrastructures and in the application of IT for solving societal problems. (2013)
Society Fellowships
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE)
Fellow
Recognizes an extraordinary record of accomplishments that contributed importantly to the advancement or application of engineering, science and technology.
Chandrakant Patel
For leadership in thermal and energy management in data centers
Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T)
Fellow
Awarded for outstanding achievement in imaging science or engineering.
Nathan Moroney
For his contributions to scientific experimentation, practical application and standardization of innovative color imaging technologies. (2008)
Jim Stasiak
For his outstanding contribution to inkjet printing technologies and the emerging field of 3D printing. (2019)
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
Fellow
Recognizes outstanding engineering achievements.
Chandrakant Patel
in recognition of his contribution to Engineering Product Application, Research and Development, and Industries
Professional Societies – Awards
Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T)
Johann Gutenberg Prize
Jim Stasiak
For his scientific and technical leadership role in a wide range of printing technologies.(2012)
The 2017 THERMI Award
Chandrakant Patel
For significant contributions to the field of semiconductor thermal management. The THERMI award is intended to recognize a recipient’s history of contributions to crucial thermal issues affecting the performance of semiconductor devices and systems.
Profiles of Excellence Award, ABC-KGO TV, San Francisco
Chandrakant Patel
For contributions in science and education. “Profiles of Excellence” is an Emmy Award-winning series produced by the ABC7 Public Affairs Department to celebrate the Bay Area’s rich cultural diversity. The program has been featuring local residents who have made important contributions to the community.
Mechanical and Aerospace Department Distinguished Alumnus Award
San Jose State University
Chandrakant Patel
Distinguished Alumnus Award
City College of San Francisco
Chandrakant Patel
The international Conference on Consumer Electronics- Berlin (2019 ICCE-Berlin)
Outstanding Paper Award
Sunil Bharitkar
Media
Computerworld
Horizon Award
Recognizes companies developing innovative, promising technologies that hold the potential to significantly affect enterprises in the near future
Jena Semantic Web toolkit (honorable mention) (2006)
Design News
2010 Golden Mouse Trap Award for HP’s MEMS Accelerometer
EE Times
CeNSE MEMS accelerometer selected for EE Times’ ACE Awards for "Most Promising New Technology of 2010"
Electronics Design, Strategy, News (EDN)
EDN Innovation Award in the Accelerometer category: Digital MEMS accelerometer, Hewlett-Packard (2010)
FlexTech Alliance
2010 FLEXI Award: HP Labs’ Self-Aligning Imprint Lithography (SAIL) process recognized.
KGO-TV Profiles in Excellence Award
Northern California's ABC affiliate recognizes community leaders and trailblazers in the region.
Chandrakant Patel - for leadership in science, technology, and education (2007)
ReadWriteWeb
CeNSE named among “Top 10 Internet of Things Development of 2010”
Job openings
HP Labs is seeking creative individuals who are passionate about technology, who identify with our marketplace and our businesses, and who can contribute fresh ideas and solutions.