A new award from Google for ML and systems pioneers in academia

As part of our ongoing commitment to the academic research community, we’re announcing a new program, the Google ML and Systems Junior Faculty Awards, which we are presenting today to more than 50 assistant professors in 27 U.S. universities. These professors are leading the analysis, design and implementation of efficient, scalable, secure and trustworthy computing systems. Their work crosses the technology stack, from algorithms to software and hardware, enabling machine learning and cloud computing at increasingly massive scale. The recipients, who were selected by a distinguished group of Google engineers and researchers, will receive grants of $100,000 in unrestricted funding.

The Google ML and Systems Junior Faculty Awards add to many other programs from Google that foster academic excellence. Just a few examples include our Fellowship and Research Scholar programs, our sponsorship for and participation in conferences and workshops, our internship, student researcher and visiting researcher programs for students and faculty, and the thousands of research papers we publish every year.

Looking back on my experience as a faculty member earlier in my career, both at Duke University and UC San Diego, funding from industry and government, in particular the National Science Foundation, was crucial both for my own success, and more importantly for the success of my students. I had the privilege of mentoring and advising nearly 50 MS and PhD students, all of whom are now entrepreneurs, engineers, product leaders and academics. Early Google contributions enabled much of the success of our work, across student funding, research prototypes and, perhaps most importantly, access to Google team members with insights into the most interesting and challenging problems.

We are paying this forward for the next wave of groundbreaking and frontier research at the intersection of ML and systems. It is a challenging time to be conducting critical academic research given uncertainties in the funding environment. While Google’s funding is only a small part of the overall need, we hope that others across industry, government and philanthropy will find ways to support research and education to keep this crucial driver of our technology ecosystem vibrant.

The work of academic researchers is essential to the kinds of scientific breakthroughs that contribute to continued progress and prosperity. Google itself was founded by two graduate students performing fundamental research in artificial intelligence and computer science. We are very excited to see the breakthroughs the next generation of faculty will deliver in the years ahead. We know they will help invent the future and mentor the next generation of talented students, many of whom will become faculty members on their own, start new companies or populate startups and large companies alike.