Schmidt Futures has awarded Adji Bousso Dieng an AI2050 Early Career Fellowship for her work at the intersection of artificial intelligence and the natural sciences.
The fellowship recognizes scholars doing interdisciplinary research on AI across fields in engineering, the social sciences and the humanities. Dieng, an assistant professor of computer science, is one of fifteen early career fellows. Each will receive up to $300,000 in research funding over the next two years.
Dieng's work focuses on developing AI methods that are motivated by problems in the natural sciences. With the support from the AI2050 fellowship, she will explore using AI to design novel materials that can be used in healthcare and environmental sustainability. She will focus on materials that can selectively capture and release small molecules — one example is capturing and storing carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere.
Schmidt Futures is a philanthropic initiative, founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, that broadly supports promising ideas in technology and science. AI2050 is part of Schmidt Futures’ work on improving society through technology, focusing particularly on solutions to hard problems that are critical to ensure society benefits from artificial intelligence.
Eric Schmidt graduated from Princeton in 1976 with a BSE in electrical engineering and went on to become the CEO and executive chairman of Google. A new computer science building, slated for completion in 2026, will be made possible by a generous gift from the Schmidts.
Dieng joined the Princeton faculty in September 2021 and leads the Vertaix lab. She holds a Diplôme d’Ingénieur from Télécom Paris, a master’s degree from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. She is affiliated with the High Meadows Environmental Institute and is a Research Scientist at Google AI. Dieng founded a nonprofit called The Africa I Know, which seeks to change narratives about African history, knowledge and innovation to inspire and empower young Africans to pursue education and careers in science and technology. She is the recipient of the Annie T. Randall Innovator Award from the American Statistical Association, a Google Ph.D. Fellowship in Machine Learning and a Savage Award from the International Society for Bayesian Analysis, for her doctoral thesis.