Jun

27

CIFellows Status Report

Filed Under CIFellows, resources 

Less than six weeks ago we launched the Computing Innovation Fellows Project.  In that short time, more than 1,200 people announced their interest in hosting a CIFellow on our mentor website, and 526 applications for CIFellowships were completed and forwarded to the Selection Committee for review.

The website for submitting applications was taken down on schedule at midnight on June 9, and the reviewing process commenced two days later. We’ve been very busy reviewing ever since, assigning each application to multiple reviewers, to guarantee a minimum of three reviews for each awardee. We are targeting July 10 for completing the review and decision process.

The 526 applications come from 415 145 distinct colleges and universities and specify a total of 949 different applicant-mentor pairs. The mentors span 198 different universities, companies, and non-profits.

27% of the applicants declare themselves to be female and 62% male. 42% are US citizens and 5% are permanent residents. The two largest international groups are from China (15%) and India (14%). 6% of the applicants are members of an underrepresented racial/ethnic group.

We asked each applicant to specify his or her research subdiscipline. A quick tabulation of the responses is as follows:

  • 21%: AI / Machine Learning / Robotics / Vision
  • 2%: Communications/Signal Processing
  • 3%: Computer Science Education / Educational Technology
  • 6%: Databases / Information Retrieval / Data Mining
  • 3%: Graphics / Visualization
  • 7%: Hardware / Architecture
  • 7%: HCI / CSCW
  • 7%: Information Assurance / Security / Privacy / Cryptography
  • 2%: Information Systems / Information Science
  • 5%: Mobile / Ubiquitous / Embedded Computing
  • 9%: Networks / Operating Systems
  • 3%: Numerical/Scientific Computing / HPC / Data-Intensive Scalable Computing
  • 3%: Other (e.g., Quantum Computing, Synthetic Biology, Computational Neuroscience, Technology for the Developing World)
  • 3%: Programming Languages / Compilers
  • 8%: Scientific/Medical Informatics (includes Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Clinical Informatics, Public Health Informatics, Chemical Informatics)
  • 2%: Social Computing / Social Informatics
  • 2%: Software Engineering
  • 0% (2): Technology Policy
  • 6%: Theory / Algorithms

(It seems clear that a further subdivision of AI/ML/Robotics/Vision into separate areas would provide better information.)

The response by both prospective mentors and applicants far exceeds our expectations! The level of interest has been extremely gratifying, and we truly appreciate the cooperation of almost all of the mentors and recommenders in submitting their endorsements on time. The members of both the Selection Committee and Steering Committee have been working very, very hard on a completely volunteer basis. The CCC’s oversight is working well to ensure broad community input, notification and, ultimately, participation.

We’re all looking forward to making the final decisions, in about two weeks or so …

– Peter Lee and Ed Lazowska

Comments

  • apppplepie
    Seems like many of the chosen CI fellows already had postdocs--some even had faculty positions!! possibly with a lower salary than $75,000 (which is very high for an academic postdoc), which is why they applied. So much for "jobs stimulus". I haven't seen any of the positions that they vacated "open up" to other people. The program was not carried out to maximize the number of people employed in CS, as it should have been, since it was money from a government jobs stimulus bill.
  • Ted
    hahaha ... whoops - confused "applicant-mentor" pairs with total applicants and mentors. Just go ahead and ignore that last post, and I'll stop asking questions after a long day.
  • Ted
    I didn't notice this earlier, but I'm curious ... how did 526 application result in only 949 applicant-mentor pairs? Many applicants listed multiple mentors, so it would seem that there should be more than 2*526 pairs. At the very least, one would assume a minimum of 1052 pairs. Did that many applicants actually fail to list a mentor? Or is there some other reason for this curiosity?
  • I'm sorry, but the application deadline has passed. Keep watching this blog for news about future programs.
  • Note that I accidentally transposed a "4" and a "1" in the original article. I've now corrected this, thus showing that the applicants received their PhDs from 145 distinct colleges and universities, not 415.
  • I missed the notification for CIF fellowship applications. I have one patent on inter-process communication and one pending patent on TICC-Paradigm for building formally verified parallel software using multi-core chips. Research was done by me supported by EDSS, Inc., a privately owned corporation.

    Let me know please whether I can still apply.

    Chitoor V. Srinivasan, President EDSS, Inc.
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