As part of Google’s effort to make computer science research careers more accessible, Google Research has continued to provide support for dissertation fellowships for CMD-IT’s Diversifying LEAdership in the Professoriate (LEAP) Alliance, which aims to increase the diversity of the computing professoriate. The fellowships are awarded to LEAP Fellows in their last year of completing the doctoral degree. This year is the second year that Google has provided support for the fellowships.
The following three LEAP Fellows are recipients of the 2021 Google dissertation fellowships. Read about their dreams for the future.
Dhruv Jain, University of Washington:
I will pursue a research position in an academic or industry research lab to advance “sound accessibility.”
With my new position, I also hope to increase the participation of people from underrepresented backgrounds, especially those with disabilities.
Matthew Anderson, University of California, Berkeley:
I view technology, engineering, and computing as our way of bending the arc of history, as a tool for making our lives more beautiful in any number of ways.
My dream is to change the world with the technology I work on and to see all my not-so-silly childhood ideas of a science-filled future realized…or to at least have fun working on exciting tech along the way.
Saadia Gabriel, University of Washington:
I am passionate about socially-motivated machine learning (ML), such as algorithmic fairness. I believe that awareness of social issues leads to more responsible and better-designed ML systems.
I plan to use my role as a researcher to mentor Natural Language Processing and ML students working on challenging, real-world problems.
Learn more about Amber Solomon from The Georgia Institute of Technology (Ph.D. ‘21), in terms of her computing research journey and aspirations for the future. Amber is one of last year’s LEAP Alliance fellowship recipients.
Congrats to all of the recipients!