15 UCLA Engineering Doctoral Students Named Amazon AI Fellows

Fifteen doctoral students from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have been selected as Amazon AI Ph.D. fellows through the company’s new $68 million program supporting more than 100 researchers across nine leading universities.

The initiative will provide two years of funding for doctoral students conducting research in core artificial intelligence fields such as machine learning, computer vision and natural language processing.

“UCLA is excited to join Amazon’s AI Ph.D. Fellowship program with 15 outstanding doctoral students across seven engineering departments,” said Ah-Hyung “Alissa” Park, the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of UCLA Samueli. “This transformative support, along with our ongoing partnership through the Science Hub for Humanity and Artificial Intelligence, will empower our students and faculty members to drive groundbreaking innovations in AI that benefit society.”

Established in 2021, the Science Hub for Humanity and Artificial Intelligence is a collaboration between Amazon and UCLA Samueli, and is Amazon’s first such alliance with a public university. By combining industry and academic research, the hub supports AI-driven solutions to society’s most pressing challenges. It funds doctoral fellowships, faculty and student research projects and community outreach programs that explore how artificial intelligence can advance human well-being.

“The 15 UCLA Samueli students selected as Amazon AI Ph.D. fellows exemplify the talent and impact of our engineering community,” said Jens Palsberg, professor of computer science and faculty director of the Science Hub. “This recognition underscores UCLA’s leadership in training the next generation of AI researchers who are building technologies with purpose and responsibility.”

Amazon’s $68 million initiative includes $20 million in student funding over two academic years (2025–2026 and 2026–2027) and $24 million annually in Amazon Web Services cloud-computing credits. Each participating university receives $1.1 million per year to support tuition, stipends and fees for selected fellows. Students are also paired with Amazon scientists serving as mentors, connecting their academic research with real-world applications.

The participating universities selected their own fellows, following Amazon’s guidance to prioritize research with tangible impact on practical AI problems. In addition to UCLA, the other eight institutions are Carnegie Mellon University, Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Washington.

Through both the Science Hub and Amazon’s new fellowship program, UCLA researchers are deepening collaboration with Amazon scientists on key areas of artificial intelligence — from large language models and generative AI to automated reasoning and efficient computing — while fostering an innovation ecosystem that connects academic discovery with societal impact.