Awards-Limited Submission -- Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship Program; September 27, 2012

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 more than 40 academic researchers whose exceptional talent for research and innovation identifies 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.

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.

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.

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.

Nominees must hold a tenure-track faculty position, may be no more than six years from the completion of their most recent PhD, ScD, or MD, and be in the first, second, or third year of their first tenure-track faculty appointment. Three letters of recommendation are required from established researchers familiar with the nominee’s research. Of these letters, one letter of recommendation should come from within the nominating institution, and the other two letters should come from outside the nominating institution. Letters may be submitted electronically with the online application.

For more information see: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/collaboration/awards/msrff.aspx

UK is limited to ONE nomination that must be confirmed with a letter from the Provost’s office. Interested candidates are asked to submit the following material to Ms. Kris Hobson (hobson@email.uky.edu), Office of the Provost, with a copy to their dean by Thursday, September 27, 2012:

• Candidate’s name, department, academic rank, date of appointment and year doctorate was awarded
• Statement of proposed research (maximum 2 pages) – include the hypothesis, objectives, and methodology of the research work and plans, and provide a brief description of how the $200,000 award funds would be used

A committee will be convened to review applications and select UK’s nominee. The online application is due October 22, 2012 at 12:00 noon, Pacific Time.