This article is published in the August 2021 issue.

Announcing the 2021 Computing Innovation Fellows


CIFellows 2021This past spring, the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its Computing Community Consortium (CCC) announced funding for a cohort of Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) for 2021, with strong support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program sponsors two-year postdoctoral research positions in computing, as well as career development and cohort building activities, to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent Ph.D. graduates. The program aims to address the continued disruption in hiring practices at academic institutions due to COVID-19. This effort was inspired by the CRA/CCC’s NSF-funded Computing Innovation Fellows Programs with cohorts starting 2009, 2010, and 2011, CRA’s Best Practices Memo on Computer Science Postdocs and the Computing Innovation Fellows 2020 Project.

Many thanks to all the people that invested their time and talents to make the CIFellows 2021 program possible including reviewers, staff, and committee members; and a special thank you to the selection committee: Elizabeth Bradley (CCC Chair and University of Colorado, Boulder), Emery Berger (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Azer Bestavros (Boston University), Randal Bryant (Carnegie Mellon University), Ken Calvert (University of Kentucky), Marie desJardins (Simmons University), Jessica Hodgins (Carnegie Mellon University), Ben Kuipers (University of Michigan), Daniel Lopresti (Lehigh University), Ray Mooney (University of Texas Austin), Sean Munson (University of Washington), Jelani Nelson (University of California, Berkeley), Katie Siek (Indiana University) and Ellen Zegura (former CRA Board Chair and Georgia Tech). We received 238 applications covering a wide variety of research areas and over 108 universities. After 476 reviews by 102 community members, the selection committee chose 69 new CIFellows. Thank you to the entire community for your involvement in promoting, mentoring, and reviewing applications for our recent graduates.

CRA and CCC are extremely excited to announce the CIFellows for 2021! This cohort is comprised of 69 diverse researchers covering a broad range of areas in computing. The 2021 class of CIFellows is 52% women, come from 49 universities, and will be beginning their fellowships at 48 different universities. Below is a listing of the 2021 CIFellows. You can find out more about each CIFellow and the program here.

CRA and CCC are working with the computing community to ensure that this program facilitates career and skill growth for the CIFellows in supportive environments to foster the talent of the future computing research community. Please join us in congratulating the new CIFellows!

 

CIFellow Primary Affiliation Host Institution  Mentor 
Sara Abdali University of California, Riverside Georgia Institute of Technology Srijan Kumar
Ben Abramowitz  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Tulane University Nicholas Mattei
Taslima Akter  Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing University of California, Irvine Anne Marie Piper
Kevin Bello  Purdue University University of Chicago Bryon Aragam
Prajakta Belsare University of Alabama, Birmingham Dartmouth College Temiloluwa O. Prioleau
Jasmine Berry University of Southern California University of Michigan Odest Chadwicke Jenkins
Alexis Block  ETH Zurich University of California, Los Angeles Veronica Santos
Kiante Brantley University of Maryland Cornell University Thorsten Joachims
Ceara Byrne Georgia Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology Giovanni Traverso
Francisco Castro  Worcester Polytechnic Institute New York University Kayla DesPortes
Janelle Clark  Rice University University of Massachusetts, Lowell Holly Yanco
Michael Craige  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Antonina Mitrofanova
Mallesham Dasari  Stony Brook University, SUNY University of Minnesota Feng Qian
Sami Davies  University of Washington Northwestern University Samir Khuller
Matthew Drescher  Université libre de Bruxelles University of California, Davis John Owens
Kuan Fang  Stanford University University of California, Berkeley Sergey Levine
Rebecca Faust University of Arizona Virginia Tech Chris North
Adriane Ferand University of California, San Diego Carnegie Mellon University Lining Yao
Sainyam Galhotra University of Massachusetts, Amherst University of Chicago Raul Castro Fernandez
Ali Ghanbari  University of Texas, Dallas Iowa State University Hridesh Rajan
Anitha Gollamudi  Harvard University Yale University Zhong Shao
Leah Horgan  University of California, Irvine Northeastern University Sara Wylie
Layne Hubbard  University of Colorado, Boulder University of California, Irvine Mark Warschauer
Andrew Hundt Johns Hopkins University Georgia Institute of Technology Matthew Gombolay
Umar Iqbal University of Iowa University of Washington Franziska Roesner
Shweta Jain  University of California, Santa Cruz University of Utah Blair Sullivan
Gayithri Jayathirtha  University of Pennsylvania University of Oregon Joanne Goode
Emmanuel Johnson University of Southern California University of Southern California Yolanda Gil
Anne Jonas  University of California, Berkeley Michigan State University Jean Hardy
Swapna Joshi  Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing University of Massachusetts, Amherst Narges Mahyar
Sushrut Karmalkar  University of Texas, Austin University of Wisconsin, Madison Ilias Diakonikolas
Saba Kawas  University of Washington University of Minnesota Lana Yarosh
Sualeh Khurshid  Texas A&M University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Themistoklis Sapsis
Nurit Kirshenbaum  University of Hawaii University of Hawaii Jason Leigh
Tiffany Knearem  Pennsylvania State University University of California, San Diego Elizabeth Eikey
Adam Li Johns Hopkins University Columbia University Elias Bareinboim
Yun Li  George Mason University Emory University Liang Zhao
Tianyu Liu  University of Wisconsin, Madison Stanford University Nima Anari
Zoey Liu  University of California, Davis Boston College Emily Prud’hommeaux
Samiha Marwan  North Carolina State University University of Nebraska at Omaha Briana Morrison
Stephen McAleer University of California, Irvine Carnegie Mellon University Tuomas Sandholm
Mehran Mirramezani  University of California, Berkeley Princeton University Ryan P. Adams
Kenneth Boyenah Nimley  Drexel University George Mason University Aditya Johri
Tapti Palit  Stony Brook University, SUNY Purdue University Pedro Fonseca
Sunoo Park Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cornell University Helen Nissenbaum
Denis Peskov  University of Maryland Princeton University Brandon Stewart
Vincent Peta  South Dakota State University University of South Dakota Etienne Gnimpieba
Lauren Pick  Princeton University University of Wisconsin, Madison Aws Albarghouthi
Raghavendra Pradyumna Pothukuchi  University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign Yale University Abhishek Bhattacharjee (and Jonathan Cohen)
Ghulam Jilani Quadri  University of South Florida University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Dr. Danielle Albers Szafir
Lana Ramjit  University of California, Los Angeles Cornell Tech Nicola Dell
Tatiana Ringenberg  Purdue University Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing Jean Camp
Michael Rivera  Carnegie Mellon University University of Colorado, Boulder Laura Devendorf
Amrita Roy Chowdhury  University of Wisconsin, Madison University of California, San Diego Kamalika Chaudhuri
Gourav Saha Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Purdue University Xiaojun Lin
Jean Salac University of Chicago University of Washington Amy J Ko
Shruti Sannon  Cornell University University of Michigan Tawanna Dillahunt
Joseph Seering  Carnegie Mellon University Stanford University Michael Bernstein
Nasim Sonboli  University of Colorado, Boulder Tufts University Bert Huang
David Tench University of Massachusetts, Amherst Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Martin Farach-Colton
Jerald Thomas  University of Minnesota Virginia Tech Doug Bowman
Wil Thomason  Cornell University Rice University Lydia Kavraki
Jesus del Carmen Valdiviezo Mora Duke University University of California, Berkeley Teresa L. Head-Gordon
Jessica Vandenberg North Carolina State University North Carolina State University Bradford Mott
Troi Williams  University of South Florida University of Maryland Pratap Tokekar
Le Xu University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign University of Texas, Austin Aditya Akella
Fumeng Yang  Brown University Northwestern University Matthew Kay
Wanrong Zhang  Georgia Institute of Technology Harvard University Salil Vadhan
Jieyu Zhao  University of California, Los Angeles University of Maryland Hal Daumé III