Ethan Perez, CS ’18, is among this year’s recipients of awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP).
Perez will benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees paid to the institution of his choice, opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct his own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education he chooses.
The GRFP recognizes and financially supports students who have the potential to be high-achieving scientists and engineers. A high priority for NSF and the GRFP is to increase the diversity of the science and engineering workforce, including geographic distribution and the participation of women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans.
“I am honored to have received the NSF fellowship and excited to start my Ph.D. soon. During my Ph.D., I am hoping to meaningfully contribute to research in Artificial Intelligence by pursuing more long-term, unorthodox directions,” Perez said.
“I am particularly interested in drawing insights from other fields such as cognitive science, psychology and linguistics, to help build algorithms that can better understand human language. The NSF fellowship will give me more time and flexibility to pursue such interdisciplinary directions and to pursue research in general, so I am looking forward to my next few years as a student,” he said.
Cintia Listenbee, CS Publicist