Today SIGHPC announced the third annual recipients of the ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational and Data Science Fellowship. Funded by Intel, the Fellowship was established to increase the diversity of students pursuing graduate degrees in data science and computational science.
The fellowship is designed to help students from racial/ethnic backgrounds that have not traditionally participated in the computing field. The fellowship provides $15,000 annually for study anywhere in the world; this year’s winners bring the total number of fellows supported to 33.
Investments like these enable us to move from advocating for a more inclusive computing workforce to taking action to help bring that vision to life,” explains Cherri Pancake, ACM President and professor and Intel Faculty Fellow in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University. “We are grateful to Intel for their leadership in working with ACM to make these fellowships a reality.”
Students were nominated by their graduate advisors. Nominees spanned disciplines from genetics and geography to engineering and mathematics and represented large, mid-sized, and small institutions in 32 countries. More than 80% of nominees were female, and more than 40% were identified as an underrepresented minority in their country of study.
The nominations were evaluated by a diverse panel of experts from different races, genders, disciplines, and nationalities. Nominees were ranked based on their overall excellence in data science and/or computational science, their potential to serve as leaders, and their ability to be role models for a diverse workplace.
Inclusion is the foundation of high performance and innovative teams. At Intel, we believe that in order to shape the future of emerging fields like data and computational science, we must bring together individuals with a wide range of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences.” said Patricia Damkroger, Vice President in Intel’s Data Center Group and General Manager of the Extreme Computing Group.
Of the 7 students named as winners this year, six are women and all are underrepresented minorities in their country of study. They are pursuing MS and Ph.D. degrees in a variety of applied fields:
- Ana Belen Barcenas Jimenez (MS, Interdisciplinary Data Science), Duke University
- Riza Bautista (Ph.D., Bioinformatics & System Biology), University of Delaware
- Teresa Bergazin (Ph.D., Pharmaceutical Sciences), University of California at Irvine
- Kiante Brantley (Ph.D., Computer Science), University of Maryland
- Meagan (Reagan) Cronin (Ph.D., Computer Science), University of Colorado at Boulder
- Nana-Ama Bridget Gana (MS, Statistics), Kwame Nkrumah University
- Anne Marsden (Ph.D., Computer Science), Stanford University
Funding will be awarded in August. The winners will receive travel support to attend SC18 in Dallas, Texas (USA), where they will be recognized during the awards ceremony. They will also receive a complimentary membership in SIGHPC for the duration of their fellowship.
Through this fellowship, ACM SIGHPC and Intel are building a stronger and more inclusive HPC community,” says Jeff Hollingsworth, chair of SIGHPC and Vice President of IT & Chief Information Officer, University of Maryland. “Data science and high performance computing have an enormous positive impact on our health, prosperity, and well-being. “It is vital that we build technology using the talents and perspectives of a workforce that reflects everyone.”
