Students were nominated by their graduate advisors. Nominees spanned 21 disciplines and represented large, mid-sized, and small institutions in 23 countries. 80% of nominees were female, and 20% were identified as an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority in their country of study. The nominations were evaluated and ranked by a panel of 18 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 help to increase diversity in the workplace.
Of the 14 students named as winners this year, twelve are women and four are underrepresented minorities in their country of study. They are pursuing MS and PhD degrees not just in computer science, but also in a variety of applied fields:
- Courtney Armour, PhD candidate, Bioinformatics, Oregon State University
- Michael Barrow, PhD candidate, Computer Science, University of California San Diego
- Monica Chelliah, MS candidate, Scientific Computing, University of Cambridge
- Dimah Dera, PhD candidate, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Rowan University
- Cylita Guy, PhD candidate, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto
- Samniqueka Halsey, PhD candidate, Ecology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Deborah Hanus, PhD candidate, Computer Science, Harvard University
- Jaye Harada, PhD candidate, Materials Science & Engineering, Northwestern University
- Irish Medina, MS candidate, Computer Science, University of Waterloo
- Heather Peacock, PhD candidate, Geography, Western University
- Tahiry Rajaonarison, PhD candidate, Geodesy and Tectonophysics, Virginia Polytechnic and State University
- Meena Subramaniam, PhD candidate, Bioinformatics, University of California, San Francisco
- Victoria Tolls, MS candidate, Biomedical Informatics, Queen’s University
- Anna Wright, PhD candidate, Astrophysics, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Funding will be awarded in August. The winners will receive travel support to the SC16 conference in Salt Lake City, Utah (USA), where they will be recognized at an awards ceremony. They will also receive a complimentary membership in SIGHPC for the duration of their fellowship.
