Every year, the Facebook Fellowship program awards PhD candidates conducting research in important topics across computer science and engineering such as computer vision, programming languages, computational social science, and more. Recipients of the Facebook Fellowship award receive tuition and fees paid for up to two academic years and a stipend of $42,000, which includes conference travel support.
2020 recipients from Cornell Computing and Information Science include:
- Diana Freed (Instagram/FB app well-being and safety)
- Sharifa Sultana (Instagra/FB app well-bring and safety)
- Alane Suhr (National Language Processing)
- Nirvan Tyagi (Security and privacy)
- Briana Vecchione (Social and economic policy)
The program is now in its ninth year and has supported over 108 PhD candidates from a broad range of universities. This year, Facebook has selected 36 outstanding Fellows from 16 universities in the U.S. and six universities outside of the U.S. Altogether, they received 1,876 applications from over 100 universities worldwide.
“Submissions have more than doubled since last year. We added more research areas for students to apply for, and that list will continue to grow every year,” says Sharon Ayalde, Facebook Research Program Manager for the Fellowship program. “It’s exciting to see the program grow and evolve with each new cohort.”
The Fellows are invited to Facebook HQ in Menlo Park to attend the annual Fellowship Summit. The Summit is an opportunity for Fellows to network with the rest of their cohort, share their research, and learn more about what researchers at Facebook are working on. “Congratulations to this year’s exceptional group of Fellows,” says Ayalde. “We look forward to meeting you in person at the Summit!”