Graduating UCLA computer science student Iris Cong has received a National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellowship, one of the country’s top honors for students in the early part of their graduate studies. The fellowships are awarded to students in 15 areas of Department of Defense interest and include a $153,000 stipend for their first four years of study. Cong is going to pursue a Ph.D. in physics at Harvard University and is particularly interested in quantum computing research.
Cong was also named the 2017 Outstanding Bachelor of Science award winner for both the school and for computer science majors. In addition to these most recent honors, Cong has received the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (declined); and the Goldwater Scholarship. Last year, she participated as a young researcher at the 2016 Heidelberg Laureate Forum and was profiled in the 2016 UCLA Engineer magazine. Cong was a recipient of two UCLA Engineering scholarships, the 2016 Boeing Scholarship in Computer Science and the 2017 Cornelius Leondes Scholarship
Nearly 200 new fellows were announced by the American Society for Engineering and Education, which administers the fellowship program.