Google PhD Fellowship Program

Google’s mission: Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

At Google, we are committed to developing new technologies to help people find and use information. While we do significant in-house research and engineering, we also maintain strong ties with academic institutions worldwide pursuing innovative research in core areas relevant to our mission.

Google PhD Fellowship Program Overview

Nurturing and maintaining strong relations with the academic community is a top priority at Google. The Google PhD Student Fellowship Program was created to recognize outstanding graduate students doing exceptional work in computer science, related disciplines, or promising research areas. Last year we announced the first Google PhD Fellowships and awarded 13 unique fellowships to some amazing students:

• Roxana Geambasu, Google Fellowship in Cloud Computing (University of Washington)
• Michael Piatek, Google Fellowship in Computer Networking (University of Washington)
• David Sontag, Google Fellowship in Machine Learning (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
• Ali Farhadi, Google Fellowship in Computer Vision Image Interpretation (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
• Nicholas Chen, Google Fellowship in Human-Computer Interaction (University of Maryland)
• Siddhartha Sen, Google Fellowship in Fault Tolerant Computing (Princeton University)
• Ryan Peterson, Google Fellowship in Distributed Systems (Cornell University)
• Eric Gilbert, Google Fellowship in Social Computing (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
• Micha Elsner, Google Fellowship in Natural Language Processing (Brown University)
• Subhransu Maji, Google Fellowship in Computer Vision Object Recognition (University of California, Berkeley)
• Nicolas Lambert, Google Fellowship in Market Algorithms (Stanford University)
• Han Liu, Google Fellowship in Statistics (Carnegie Mellon University)
• Lixia Liu, Google Fellowship in Compiler Technology (Purdue University)

We were so happy with the program last year, that we are pleased to announce the Google PhD Fellowship Program for 2010. This highly competitive program will award approximately 10 unique fellowships this year from among the following:

• Google Fellowship in Market Algorithms
• Google Fellowship in Natural Language Processing
• Google Fellowship in Machine Learning
• Google Fellowship in Computer Security
• Google Fellowship in Distributed Computing
• Google Fellowship in Programming Technology
• Google Fellowship in Machine Translation
• Google Fellowship in Speech Technology
• Google Fellowship in Human Computer Interaction
• Google Fellowship in Cloud Computing
• Google Fellowship in Computer Architecture
• Google Fellowship in Structured Data Analysis
• Google Fellowship in Search and Information Retrieval
• Google Fellowship in Efficient Computing
• Google Fellowship in Mobile Computing
• Google Fellowship in Computer Vision
• Google Fellowship in Social Computing
• Google Fellowship in Computer Networking
• Google Fellowship in Systems Management
• Google Fellowship in Statistics

Applications are not accepted directly from students. Please contact your department to find out if your university is one of the eligible universities, or to receive additional information.

Fellowship Details

Google will award two-year fellowships consisting of:

• tuition and fees (including books)
• $25k yearly stipend (paid over 9 months of the academic year)
• $5k per year toward conference attendance and travel
• $5k toward a personal computer during year 1
• Android phone + service during the duration of the fellowship
• Google Research Mentor
• opportunity to apply for a paid summer internship
• invitation to Google Fellowship Forum
• third year extension possible at Google’s discretion

Eligibility Criteria

In order to be considered for the 2010 Google PhD Fellowship Program, students must meet the following criteria:

• Full-time graduate students pursuing a PhD in the research areas represented by the fellowships
• Must attend one of the eligible schools and universities. Student must remain enrolled in the PhD program or forfeit the fellowship award
• Must be nominated by their department
• Must have completed their graduate coursework in the PhD program and be embarking on or continuing their graduate research in the fall of 2010
• Google employees and family members of Google employees are not eligible
• Students who are already receiving another fellowship are not eligible

Application Process and Requirements

For each student nomination, the university should please submit:

• name of fellowship for which student is being considered
• student CV
• transcript of current and previous academic records
• research/dissertation proposal
• 2-3 letters of recommendation from those familiar with the nominee's work (at least one coming from the thesis advisor)
• cost estimates of tuition and fees (including books) for each student for the 2010 school year

Each eligible university is invited to submit a maximum of two student nominations for fellowship consideration. Please feel free to extend your search to students who may be in other department other than Computer Science but also pursuing their research in the computational sciences. Note that given that the fellowship areas overlap, we may choose a different fellowship for your nomination.

Nominations and applications materials are due March 1, 2010. An online nomination form will be available early next year for submissions and eligible schools will receive an e-mail once the form may be accessed. Committees of distinguished engineers and researchers from within Google will be reviewing all applications. Students may be invited for an in-person interview following the initial review.

Fellowship recipients will be announced in May of 2010.

FAQ

How many students may each university nominate?

Each invited university may nominate up to 2 students.

Who should submit the applications?

Students may not submit their own application. Nominations and application materials must be submitted directly by the university.

How should applications be submitted?

An online nomination form will be available early next year for submissions and eligible schools will receive an e-mail once the form may be accessed.

In what format should the application materials be?

We prefer PDFs, but can accept plain text and document files.

Are non-US citizens eligible for a Google Fellowship?

Yes, as long as the other eligibility criteria are met.

Can students apply directly for a fellowship?

No, students must be nominated by an eligible university in order to be considered.

What are the intellectual property implications of a Google Fellowship?

Fellowship recipients are not subject to intellectual property restrictions unless they complete an internship at Google. If that is the case, they are subject to the same intellectual property restrictions as any other Google intern.

Will the fellowship recipients become employees of Google?

No, there will not be any employee relationship between fellowship recipients and Google.

Can fellowship recipients also be considered for the Anita Borg Scholarship?

No, fellowship recipients are not eligible for the Anita Borg Scholarship. For more information, please see the Anita Borg Scholarship Website.

When do the fellowships start?

The 2010 Google Fellowships will begin in September 2010. Most monetary awards will be given directly to the Fellow's university for distribution.

Are there fellowships outside of the United States?

Please see information about our Google European Doctoral Fellowship Programme.

If you have any further questions about the Google PhD Fellowship program, please contact us at phdfellowship@google.com.