ACM’s Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing (SIGHPC) has announced the seven recipients of the ACM SIGHPC Computational and Data Science Fellowships for 2026. The fellowships are highly competitive and are awarded after a rigorous merit review.

The fellowship program, funded exclusively by SIGHPC, 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 $20,000 annually for study anywhere in the world.

“Diversity in the HPC community is not just about fairness or representation – it’s about enhancing innovation, improving technology, and ensuring that solutions take into account cultural, social, and economic differences worldwide,” says Leslie Leonard, co-chair of the Fellowship program for 2025.  “SIGHPC is extremely proud to offer support to students as they pursue their graduate degrees in this exciting area. 

Students were nominated by their graduate advisors. Nominees spanned disciplines from computational biology and toxicology to formal models and astrophysics. More than 80% were female and 56% 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.

The seven students named as winners this year are pursuing degrees in the following fields:

• Paulus Mekondjo Shituna (PhD, Computer Science (Linguistics)), University of Namibia

• Oona Shigeno Risse-Adams (PhD, Computational Biology), Weill Cornell Medicine

• Jhonatan Cléto (PhD, Computer Science), Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)

• Kimberly Kreiss (PhD, Social Data Science), Oxford Internet Institute

• Dariya Baizhigitova (PhD, Chemical Engineering), Stevens Institute of Technology

• Ariana Mondiri (PhD, Psychology & Neuroscience), Boston College

• Genevieve Payne (MS, Physics), University of Rhode Island

Funding will be awarded in August. The winners will be recognized during the awards ceremony at SC26. They will also receive a complimentary membership in SIGHPC for the duration of their fellowship.

SIGHPC is the first international group within a major professional society that is devoted exclusively to the needs of students, faculty, researchers, and practitioners in high performance computing. SIGHPC's mission is to help spread the use of HPC, help raise the standards of the profession, and help ensure a rich and rewarding career for people involved in the field. https://www.sighpc.org