2020 Winners

ACM’s Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing (SIGHPC) has announced the twelve recipients of the ACM SIGHPC Computational and Data Science Fellowships for 2020. The fellowships are highly competitive, and are awarded after a rigorous merit review. 

The program is intended to increase the diversity of students pursuing graduate degrees in data science and computational science, including women as well as students from racial/ethnic backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented in the computing field. The fellowship provides $15,000 annually for study anywhere in the world.

“A key to ensuring a robust workforce for our field is to focus on diversifying the expertise, backgrounds, and perspectives of students studying the computational sciences,” says John West, SIGHPC chair and chair of the fellowship program for 2020. “We are grateful to Intel for their financial support in launching these fellowships, and we are proud to continue pursuing the goal of broadening participation in our profession with the financial support of SIGHPC members.” 

Students were nominated by their graduate advisors. Nominees spanned disciplines from biochemistry and behavioral science to engineering and geosciences, and represented large, mid-sized, and small institutions in countries around the world. More than 85% of nominees were female, and 45% were identified as an underrepresented minority in their country of study. 

The nominations were evaluated and ranked by a panel of experts (who were themselves diverse with respect to race, gender, discipline, and nationality) based on nominees’ overall potential for excellence in data science and/or computational science, and the extent to which they will serve as leaders and role models to increase diversity in the workplace.

Of the twelve students named as winners this year, 75% identify as female, and 42% are underrepresented minorities in their country of study. They are pursuing MS and PhD degrees in a variety of applied fields:

• Rachael Aber (PhD, Integrative Biology), Oregon State University

• Clint Cuffy (PhD, Computer Science), Virginia Commonwealth University

• Katherine Cyr (MS, Biostatics), Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

• Emily Elhacham (PhD, Geoscience), Tel Aviv University

• Giulia Guidi (PhD, Computer Science), University of California, Berkeley

• Caitlin Harrigan (PhD, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology), University of Toronto

• Ciara Horne (PhD, Systems Engineering), University of Virginia

• Robert Kravec (MS, Statistics), Duke University

• Kevin McIver (PhD, Mechanical Engineering), Purdue University

• Mira Nencheva (PhD, Psychology), Princeton University

• Ashley Schwartz (PhD, Computational Science), San Diego State University

• Pranjal Vaidya (PhD, Biomedical Engineering), Case Western Reserve University

Funding will be awarded in August. The winners will be recognized during the awards ceremony at SC20. They will also receive a complimentary membership in SIGHPC for the duration of their fellowship.