Kaio Henrique wins Google PhD Fellowship 2025 for compiler research

Human-computer interaction and information science faculty: where are PhD students applying for fellowships pre-candidacy these days? The Meta and Microsoft Research fellowships are still on pause, the Google fellowship is only for PhD candidates, and the IBM fellowship is expected to be awarded last two years of a student's program (i.e., their candidacy period).

For 16 years, the Google PhD Fellowship Program has supported exceptional graduate students pioneering research in computer science and related fields, with the goal of supporting the next generation of scientists focused on critical foundational science. Today, we are announcing the recipients of the 2025 Google PhD Fellowship Program. Google.org is providing over $10 million to support 255 PhD students across 35 countries and 12 research domains, committing to a generation of researchers who understand that accelerating scientific discovery is vital to solving the world’s toughest challenges. See the complete list of Google PhD Fellowship recipients for 2025. https://lnkd.in/gnreFVJC

The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has released a new guide, "Navigating the PhD Seas," providing a comprehensive, practical advice for students considering a Ph.D degree in Computer Science. This resource covers the entire journey, from deciding if a PhD is right for you and applying, to finding mentors, understanding funding, and succeeding once enrolled. https://lnkd.in/gnrrUBmd

"Forty years ago, students inspired by NASA dreamed of becoming physicists or engineers. Twenty years after that, the allure of jobs at Google or other tech giants sent them into computer science. Now, their ambitions are shaped by AI, leading them away from the stuff AI can do (coding) and toward the stuff it still struggles with. As the number of kids seeking computer science degrees falters, STEM-minded high schoolers are looking at fields that blend computing with analysis, interpretation, and data." https://lnkd.in/ehTXCGxN

10 graduate students from the UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS) Sky Computing Lab have been awarded Amazon AI Ph.D. Fellowships to further their research in core AI disciplines such as machine learning, computer vision and natural-language processing. The new program offers direct mentorship, summer internships to pursue research projects, and two years of funding to more than 100 Ph.D. students across nine universities. "As AI becomes increasingly part of daily life, training our research leaders has never been more important,” said Jennifer Chayes, dean of the UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society. “We are delighted that Amazon is partnering with UC Berkeley and other top universities to help support Ph.D. students as they develop the AI innovations of the future." 🔗 Read more: https://bit.ly/48Hl88q #AmazonAIFellowship #AI #Innovation #MachineLearning #UCBerkeley

Guiding student researchers is one of my favorite parts of my work, but it's a complicated task, and "advising" as a singular term tends to hide important details. I wanted to take apart advising to show how its constituent components relate, and how they sometimes contradict each other. The result was a paper that I wrote for the benefit of both faculty and students, and I'm glad to share it's been accepted to SIGCSE 2026: Rethinking How We Discuss the Guidance of Student Researchers in Computing. Shomir Wilson. To appear in Proc. SIGCSE 2026. Preprint: https://lnkd.in/eshT5YjD I observe that, in the context of student research, concepts like "advisor" and "mentor" are often ambiguous in scope. They're sometimes narrowly defined, sometimes used interchangeably, or sometimes used to include (or exclude) many interrelated activities. This ambiguity gets in the way of understanding faculty obligations, and it can create harms by hiding conflicts of interest. I use a facet framework and a literature review to identify six roles that faculty have in guiding student researchers (advisor, mentor, manager, collaborator, coach, sponsor), and I suggest "guidance" to encompass all of them, eliminating ambiguity. I describe each role and show how no one role is adequate to fully support students and conflicts exist between the roles. Toward the end I make some suggestions for faculty and institutions. About the paper title: I put "computing" in it to emphasize relevance to SIGCSE, but my hope is it's useful beyond that scope. I also wrote the paper to be relevant to the guidance of both undergraduates and graduate student researchers. I'm glad to chat about this paper and to meet up with people at SIGCSE next year in St. Louis.

Microsoft Research Fellowship The Microsoft Research Fellowship creates opportunities for academic scholars (faculty, PhD students, and postdocs) to collaborate with Microsoft Research on open research challenges that advance scientific understanding, drive innovation, and deliver societal benefit. In an era of rapid innovation, this fellowship brings together academia and industrial researchers across disciplines to shape the future through open research collaborations. Academic collaboration is foundational to advancing scientific discovery, and today, it’s more critical than ever. Academic institutions contribute deep domain expertise, novel perspectives, and a culture of exploration. Microsoft Research’s global labs offer deep technical expertise, cutting-edge academic inquiry, and real-world application. By working together, we believe we can accelerate innovation, promote responsible development, and address complex challenges that can best be solved through interdisciplinary exploration. click the link to apply https://lnkd.in/d-UFdSjd

Computer science students today have their work cut-out-for-them.  Once upon a time you could walk out of an undergraduate program with core algorithms, some systems knowledge, an internship under your belt and be ready for the workforce. 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗻𝗼 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀. Today's students need to learn the old and the new, the CS fundamentals and the way to use AI coding agents. Both are crucial. A computer scientist that only knows how to vibe code without a strong theoretical foundation will get taken for a ride by Cursor, completely beholden to the whims of the LLM. One that only has the foundation will be too slow and out-executed by their peers. The new generation will have to blend classical computer science with AI-native development. Understanding how things work under the hood, while knowing how to harness models effectively will define the best developers of this era. --- If you want to learn the AI-native half of the equation follow along with our class (https://lnkd.in/esFmjagf). If you need the fundamentals, pick up "Introduction to Algorithms" by CLRS.

A new teaching fellowship in SCI is offering Ph.D. students the chance to develop their teaching skills while helping the school serve a growing number of computing students. Human-Centered Computing Ph.D. student Nat Swinger is the inaugural fellow, bringing the program to life in its first year. https://lnkd.in/eaBjZ87M