By Jim Pinkelman, Senior Director, Microsoft Research
Since 2008, Microsoft Research has been awarding two-year PhD fellowships to computer science and related researchers at leading universities in the United States and Canada. These awards are designed to help promising young researchers focus on their studies, not their finances!
This year’s program provides fellowships to 10, second- or third-year PhD students who are studying computer science, electrical engineering or mathematics. Recipients receive full tuition for their program, along with a generous living expense and a conference attendance stipend. In addition, the fellows are offered the opportunity to intern with a Microsoft researcher.
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To identify these promising researchers, Microsoft Research goes through a rigorous process. First, department chairs nominate their best candidates, up to 9 from each university. Each application is vetted, and Microsoft researchers interview finalists to identify the awardees.
This year’s awardees for the 2017-19 academic years are:
Michael B. Cohen
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mathematics, complexity and cryptography
Bita Darvish Rouhani
University of California, San Diego
Computer architecture and hardware
Michaelanne Dye
Georgia Institute of Technology
Human-computer interaction, social computing and collaboration
Kira Goldner
University of Washington
Algorithms and economic systems
Aditya Grover
Stanford University
Machine learning and intelligence
Silu Huang
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Data management and mining
Ethan J. Jackson
University of California, Berkeley
Mobility and networking
Saswat Padhi
University of California, Los Angeles
Software engineering and programming languages
Andrew Quinn
University of Michigan
Operating systems and distributed computing
Mengting Wan
University of California, San Diego
Data management and mining
Congratulations, 2017’s awardees! Interested in applying for next year? Applications from department chairs (sorry, no self-referrals) are due in October; ask your department chair if they are planning to participate.
Learn more
Algorithms 
Artificial intelligence 
Computer vision 
Data platforms and analytics 
Hardware and devices 
Human-computer interaction 
Mathematics 
Programming languages and software engineering 
Security, privacy, and cryptography 
Social sciences 
Systems and networking 
Technology for emerging markets