Each year since 2005, Microsoft Research has recognized innovative, promising new faculty members from a number of research institutions to join the ranks of Microsoft Research Faculty Fellows. This program now encompasses nearly 30 academic researchers whose exceptional talent for research and innovation identify them as emerging leaders in their fields. The selected professors are exploring breakthrough, high-impact research that has the potential to help solve some of today’s most challenging societal problems.
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The 2009 New Faculty Fellows receive their awards. Left to right: Microsoft Research Senior Vice President Rick Rashid, Rafael Pass, Svetlana Lazebnik, Luis Ceze, Nicole Immorlica, Gill Bejerano
About the Nominations
Nominations for the 2010 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellows open in October 2009. Winners will be announced in April 2010.
About the Program
Microsoft Research seeks nominees who are advancing computing research in novel directions with the potential for high impact on the state of the art, and who demonstrate the likelihood of becoming thought leaders in the field.
The future of computing in academe rests with its newest faculty. In these early-career professionals lie the seeds of tomorrow’s great innovations. However, while recognized faculty with well-established reputations are able to attract the financial support necessary for substantial research programs, new faculty often struggle to secure adequate support to allow them to realize their full potential.
Because new faculty are so vital to the future of academic computer science, the Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship Program identifies, recognizes, and supports exceptional new faculty members engaged in innovative computing research. The objective of this program is to stimulate and support creative research undertaken by promising researchers who have the potential to make a profound impact on the field of computing in their research disciplines.
This fellowship was previously known as the Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellowship in the United States and Microsoft Research European Fellowship in Europe. In 2010, the reach of these programs has broadened; Microsoft Research will name seven fellows chosen from nominees from Latin America and the Caribbean; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; the United States; and Canada.
About the Awards
Each fellowship award includes an unrestricted cash gift of US$200,000. The Microsoft Research Faculty Fellows also have access to other Microsoft resources, such as software, invitations to conferences, and engagements with Microsoft Research. Microsoft awards seven Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship grants each year; awardees are selected in April.
The Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship Awards program provides recipients considerable freedom in planning the focus of their academic research. The funds can be applied to a wide variety of uses to pursue novel research. Examples of possible research areas include, but are not limited to: interdisciplinary research, scientific computing, bioinformatics, computational biology, software engineering, and other areas where computing transforms the discipline and advances the state of the art.
2009 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship Awards
In May 2009, five Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship grant recipients were selected from applicants across North America.
Meet Microsoft Research Faculty Fellows
Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowships Help New Professors Succeed
The road to tenure can be a bumpy one for early career professors in any field. Most find their first few years filled with a seemingly endless process of writing grant proposals. For the professors selected as Microsoft Research Faculty Fellows each year, this “overhead” is considerably lessened, allowing them to concentrate on the business of pursuing their research with minimal distractions. Microsoft Research annually selects five of the top early-career professors in the field of computer science and awards them each a US$200,000 gift, with no restrictions on how the money can be spent.
