The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is broadening its commitment to young scientists through a new Information Innovation Office (I2O) PostDoc Fellowship Program focused on postdoctoral researchers in the field of computer science with grants sized to support each fellow for up to two years.
Participation is open to individuals who are U.S. Citizens or U.S. Permanent Residents (1) who received a PhD degree no earlier than June 2019; or (2) will receive a PhD prior to the start date of this award; and (3) will be appointed to a postdoctoral position at a U.S. institution of higher education during the 2021-22 academic year.
This I2O RA is specifically focused on supporting research by computer science postdoctoral fellows to drive innovation in the following topic areas:
- Topic 1: Computational Theory of Insecurity
- Topic 2: Cross-Disciplinary Knowledge Discovery
- Topic 3: Ego-Centric Emotion Recognition
- Topic 4: Multi-Scale Models of Social Dynamics
- Topic 5: Identifying Insecurity in Software of Unknown Provenance
- Topic 6: Calming Advisor to Reduce Conflict Online
- Topic 7: Rethinking Design through Imprecise Specifications
- Topic 8: Software Source of Truth
- Topic 9: Evaluating Generative Common Sense Question Answering
I2O provides this funding opportunity to address challenges to the career planning processes of PhD graduates and the faculty hiring process of U.S. institutions of higher education that are emerging due to the pandemic. Because the pandemic has disrupted research and teaching at institutions of higher education, the employment prospects of the current cohort of PhD graduates has been severely adversely impacted. This RA is intended to mitigate these adverse impacts and enhance the health of the U.S. computer science research workforce moving forward.
The two key dates are February 1st for the next round of Phase 1 submission and then March 1st for the last round of Phase 1 submissions. The key is for applicants to submit prior to the end of either Phase 1 deadline in order to continue on for consideration for Phase 2. If you are interested, please see this website to learn more about the various topic areas and the postdoc guidelines.
