Graduate Women's Scholarship Recipients

Microsoft Research recognizes these outstanding graduate students, who represent a selection of the best and the brightest in their fields.

2013 Graduate Women Scholars

Danqi ChenDanqi Chen
Computer Science
Stanford University

Research area interest: machine learning, data mining

Long-term research goal: I would like to aim my future research in the field of machine learning and its applications to a range of domains including language processing, information retrieval, and social networks.

Meghan ClarkMeghan Clark
Computer Science and Engineering
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Research area interest: embedded systems, ubiquitous computing, security

Long-term research goal: I would like to explore the potential for embedded systems to enable major advancements in quality of life and environmental interactions. In particular, I see opportunities for impact in remote health and science in developing regions, responsive and energy-efficient buildings, and networks that are quick and cheap to deploy in areas with limited Internet connectivity. Additionally, as sensor-based applications become more and more integrated with our lives, I would like to investigate ways of providing useful sensor-based services while preserving privacy.

Lilian de GreefLilian de Greef
Computer Science and Engineering
University of Washington, Seattle

Research area interest: ubiquitous computing

Long-term research goal: I want to work at the intersection of multiple disciplines to develop technologies that beneficially impact people's lives. For example, I am currently working with computer vision, human-computer interaction (HCI), machine learning, and medicine to use smartphones to detect dangerous levels of jaundice, or yellowing of the skin, in newborns.

Dongjing He
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Jennifer IglesiasJennifer Iglesias
Mathematics
Carnegie Mellon University

Research area interest: algorithms, combinatorics, and optimization

Long-term research goal: I would like to continue working in areas relating to graph theory and algorithms, in particular, I would like to improve on current approximation algorithms for NP-Hard problems.

Natasha JaquesNatasha Jaques
Computer Science Department
University of British Columbia

Research area interest: artificial intelligence, human computer interaction, machine learning

Long-term research goal: For a truly advanced artificial intelligence to interact with a human, it must be able to perceive information from the many implicit communication channels used in everyday conversation. I would like to make use of methods for reasoning in the face of uncertainty, as well as machine learning, to build an emotionally perceptive artificial intelligence that can interact in a manner similar to a human. I believe this could have many beneficial applications, from Intelligent Tutoring Systems, to assistive technologies, to helping individuals suffering from autism spectrum disorders.

Radhika MittalRadhika Mittal
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of California, Berkeley

Research area interest: computer networks, machine learning

Long-term research goal: I am interested in Internet research. What excites me about this research area is that the Internet was developed in a rather ad-hoc manner, where people kept iterating over existing solutions as demands changed. Now, with ever-increasing traffic and evolving technologies, there is a tremendous scope of improvement and I would like to make a significant contribution to it.

Parisa Khanipour RoshanParisa Khanipour Roshan
Interactive Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology

Research area interest: online communities, social support, social change

Long-term research goal: I am interested in studying how we can use online tools to support disconnected individuals who are part of the same community, whether it is a pre-existing community, like the survivors of abuse, or an emerging one, such as social media spontaneous volunteers during a crisis.  

Morgan VigilMorgan Vigil
Computer Science
University of California, Santa Barbara

Research area interest: wireless networks, information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D)

Long-term research goal: I want to develop holistic connectivity solutions for under-resourced communities with limited connections to the Internet. My chief goal is to develop wireless networks that promote information contribution and production in addition to information consumption. In particular, I am interested in making last mile connections as effective as possible for knowledge sharing and educational purposes.

Jing WangJing Wang
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Northwestern University

Research area interest: perceptually based image processing

Long-term research goal: I plan to work on image analysis techniques based on models of human perception. The human visual system is amazingly good at analyzing images and extracting useful information, and thus provides inspiration, feasibility clues, and performance goals. In particular, I am interested in developing statistical techniques for visual texture analysis and the extraction of material properties.

Support via the Graduate Women Scholarship will allow me to devote all my time to my research at what I expect to be a critical point in my graduate career. The scholarship support for attending academic conferences will also contribute to advancing my academic development by enabling me to learn about cutting-edge techniques in my field.

2012 Graduate Women Scholars

Danielle BraggDanielle Bragg
Computer Science Department
Princeton University

Research area interest: human-computer interaction

Long-term research goal: I am particularly interested in interactive systems involving music and machine learning. I aim to develop systems that improve people's lives in meaningful ways.

Elizabeth MuraneElizabeth Murnane
Information Science Department
Cornell University

Research area interest: human-computer interaction

Long-term research goal: I want to help people remember, find, understand, and create information via personalized and adaptive interfaces. My principle goal is to study how systems can be made more aware of a user's attributes, task context, and social connections in order to generate and refine long-term semantic models about an individual's abilities, interests, and intentions that can be applied to intelligent systems. I am particularly interested in applications in the domains of recommender systems and example-centric problem solving.

Emily SergelEmily Leven
Mathematics Department
University of California, San Diego 

Research area interest: algebraic dombinatorics

Long-term research goal: I would like to build bridges between algebra and combinatorics by making use of results in both fields to solve questions in areas of common interest, such as in the theory of symmetric functions.

Jennifer TownsendJennifer Townsend
Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization (Mathematics)
Georgia Institute of Technology

Research area interest: theory and complexity applications in social choice/preference theory

Long-term research goal: I want to aim my research towards a field where I can do more computation work while simultaneously studying fascinating theoretical mathematical puzzles. I'd love to end up working in preference prediction and network theory.

Joanna DrummondJoanna Drummond
Computer Science Department
University of Toronto

Research area interest: decision making under uncertainty, computational economics

Long-term research goal: My overall research goal is to develop models and algorithms that allow people and organizations to make optimal decisions with partial information (for example, uncertainty about the environment or incomplete preference information) in real-world settings. I am particularly interested in bringing together insights from economics, machine learning, and algorithm design to solve these types of problems.

Kaitlin SpeerKaitlin Speer
Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics Department
Northwestern University

Research area interest: mathematical biology, climate modeling

Long-term research goal: I hope to apply analytical and computational methods to analyzing models concerning the Earth's cryosphere, in particular, the effects of the varied reflectivity of the ice and water. In doing so, as well as in further research, I hope to shed light on the mathematical and physical properties of tipping points present in many complex systems.

Valkyrie SavageValkyrie Savage
Computer Science
University of California, Berkeley

Research area interest: human-computer interaction

Long-term research goal: I am hoping to explore 3-D printing and how it can be made more accessible and useful: for example, through the design of printable electronics and re-imagining of user interfaces for 3-D modeling. That manufacturing and design knowledge gain a new foothold among hobbyists and youth is critically important for keeping jobs in the country and encouraging personal learning and growth.

Vanessa SochatVanessa Sochat
Biomedical Informatics Program
Stanford University

Research area interest: using machine learning and computational methods for neuroimaging analysis

Long-term research goal: I aspire to work on data-driven methods that combine multi-modal neuroimaging data to provide insight to the structure and function of the human brain. My long-term goal is to develop infrastructure to allow for semantic accessibility of imaging data, and tools that might be utilized to identify biomarkers of neurological disease.

Veronica CateteVeronica Catete
Computer Science Department
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Research area interest: educational video games, games for learning

Long-term research goal: I hope to develop polished and engaging video games that facilitate learning. I have a particular interest in developing games that teach programming and other creative problem solving skills to middle school students in order to increase interest in computer science among underrepresented groups with hopes of strengthening the computer science and STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] pipeline. I also want to see my current middle school programs expanded to the high school level via an AP Computer Science course that we are developing at UNC Charlotte. I think it would be cool to see my work/research being used in real classrooms, helping the teachers make learning fun.

Yubin KimYubin Kim
Language Technologies Institute, School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University

Research area interest: information retrieval

Long-term research goal: I would like contribute to a better search experience for users everywhere by developing better search techniques suited for different domains, such as microblogs, and exploring novel ways to present the results of a search.

2011 Graduate Women Scholars

Lacey Best-RowdenLacey Best-Rowden
Computer Science Department
Michigan State University

Research area interest: algorithms and networking

Long-term research goal: I would like to aim my future research towards discovering solutions to challenging problems that are important to society and about which I am passionate. I also see myself contributing to computer science education research, particularly with regards to new and better methods for integrating computer science into core curriculum for high school students.

Vivienne GrovesVivienne Groves
Economics Department
Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

Research area interest: market design

Long-term research goal: I hope to use tools in stochastic process and operations research to develop models in efficient market design. In particular, I am interested in how theoretical models in microeconomics can be used to explain human behavior, help solve social welfare problems, improve political institutions, and design more efficient methods for raising government revenue.

Tingting JiangTingting Jiang
Computer Science Department
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Research area interest: cyber security, network anomaly detection, and forensics

Long-term research goal: The goal of my research is to develop a novel security framework for networked computers that provides robust defense against malware attacks and is difficult for malware to circumvent. Specifically, my research will focus on modeling and characterization of human-user behaviors, developing protocols for fine-grained traffic-input analysis, and preventing forgeries and attacks by malware.

Farah JumaFarah Juma
Computer Science Department
University of Toronto

Research area interest: artificial intelligence—knowledge representation and reasoning

Long-term research goal: My long-term objective is to pursue a career in research in the field of artificial intelligence, where my research can be applied to challenging real-world problems. I find artificial intelligence to be an exciting field because of its interdisciplinary nature. Application areas where I would like to have an impact include electronic commerce and medicine. I am especially inspired by collaboration between researchers in the field of artificial intelligence and the field of computational biology that aims to tackle problems that profoundly affect people’s lives.

Ann LeeAnn Lee
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Research area interest: speech and natural language processing

Long-term research goal: I would like to dedicate my work to improving machines’ abilities in understanding humans. Making machines easier to communicate with and behave more like humans are my research goals.

Mengmeng LiMengmeng Li
Computer Science Department
University of Pittsburgh

Research area interest: computer/information security

Long-term research goal: I would like to pursue research in the IT field, and contribute to the development of communication security.

Jamie MorgensternJamie Morgenstern
Computer Science Department
Carnegie Mellon University

Research area interest: game theory and logic

Long-term research goal: I hope to use techniques from logic and programming languages to develop general frameworks in which to describe and prove properties of games and mechanisms.

Justine SherryJustine Sherry
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of California, Berkeley

Research area interest: computer networks

Long-term research goal: I have a broad interest in networking, specifically in inter-domain, wide area settings. I am particularly excited about Internet measurement, network architecture, and network security.

Kateryna KuksenokKateryna Kuksenok
Computer Science and Engineering Department
University of Washington, Seattle

Research area interest: human-computer interaction; natural language processing

Long-term research goal: I am interested in studying how Human Computer Interaction techniques can improve Natural Language Processing applications. In the domain of machine translation, for example, NLP algorithms can be very effective at translating literal meanings, but struggle with interpreting cultural cues that are embedded in text. Feedback from end-user communities with appropriate domain knowledge can augment the results of machine translation in such situations. By exploring visualization techniques and support for active learning in NLP applications, I hope to find novel ways of enabling people to engage with information.

Sonal VermaSonal Verma
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Research area interest: wireless, embedded, and networked systems

Long-term research goal: At the University of Michigan, our team is working to create an ecosystem of phone-centric, square-inch footprint sensors that will be useful in both mobile health care and as reference designs for a broader community. We aim to demonstrate the possibility of parasitically powering external peripherals and transferring data to and from a mobile device, such as a Windows smartphone using only its audio headset port. This work will marry low-power sensing with the mobile phone’s computation, communications, and display technologies focused on transforming mobile phones into leading-edge data collection devices. We hope that our effort will make headway for the integration of other sensing peripherals for monitoring blood pressure, blood glucose, and body temperature with the mobile phone. It may be a small but important step towards enabling mobile healthcare technology for delivering accurate medical information anytime anywhere.

2010 Graduate Women Scholars

Adriana Lopez
New York University

Ailar Javadi
Georgia Institute of Technology

Ariel Levavi
University of California, San Diego

Arthi Ramachandran
Columbia University

Azalia Mirhoseini
Rice University

Betelhem Mateos Mekisso
Oklahoma State University

Eleanor O'Rourke
University of Washington, Seattle

Gabriela Marcu
Carnegie Mellon University

Jinyan Guan
University of Arizona

Olga Turanova
University of Chicago

2009 Graduate Women's Scholarship Recipients

Xide Lin
University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign

Laura Grupp
University of California – San Diego

America Holloway
University of California – Irvine

Jing-Jing Liu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jin Joo Lee
Georgia Institute of Technology

Dafna Shahaf
Carnegie Mellon University

Michaela Goetz
Cornell University

Tamara Denning
University of Washington

Meromit Singer
University of California – Berkeley

Katrina Panovich
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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