NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship Program

This is the twenty-third year that NVIDIA has invited PhD students to submit their research projects for consideration. Recipients are selected based on their academic achievements, professor nomination, and area of research. We have found this program to be a great way to support academia in its pursuit of cutting edge innovation, as well as an ideal avenue to introduce NVIDIA to the future leaders of our industry.

NVIDIA has long believed that investing in university talent is beneficial to the industry and key to our continued growth and success. The NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship Program provides funding in the amount of up to $60,000 per award to PhD students who are researching topics that will lead to major advances in accelerated computing and its applications. NVIDIA particularly invites submissions from students pushing the envelope in artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and related fields. We select students each year who have the talent, aptitude and initiative to work closely with us early in their careers. Recipients not only receive crucial funding for their research, but are able to conduct groundbreaking work with access to NVIDIA products, technology and some of the most talented minds in the field. In addition, the Fellowship includes a summer internship preceding the Fellowship year.

NVIDIA partners with industry leaders to tackle some of the most complex computing challenges. We’re creating profound change in fields as diverse as medicine, space exploration, automotive design and film production. We’ve only scratched the surface of what we can accomplish when we apply our technology to it. We need innovative and talented doctoral students, who aren’t afraid of a challenge, to help us tackle these opportunities.

Applications for 2024 are now open

Eligibility

• Students must have already completed their first year of PhD level studies (at the time of application)
• Students must have majors in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, System Architecture, Electrical Engineering, or a related area
• Students must be engaged in active research as part of their PhD thesis
• Students must be enrolled as a full time active PhD student during the 2024-2025 academic year (9 months) of the award – this means they should not be expecting to graduate sooner than May/June 2025.
• Students must be available to complete a summer internship (which due to COVID-19 may be held remotely) prior to the start of their Fellowship year.
• Students may not be immediate family of a current NVIDIA employee
• Note: The award must be administered through the student’s university; payment will be made to the university, not directly to the student

Evaluation criteria

Proposals Will be Evaluated for:

Student quality

• Letters of recommendation
• Academic performance (GPA) and achievements
   

Research quality

• Research results to date
• Research proposal for fellowship
• Publication track record
   

Relevance to NVIDIA

• How your work connects to NVIDIA’s primary research domains
• How your research might influence the design, performance or use of future GPUs

Application instructions

Graduate Fellowship Applications Must Include:

• Research summary/thesis proposal – up to 2 pages, plus bibliography
• Resume/Curriculum Vitae (CV) including contact information
• Professor nomination letters (2 letters minimum (must include one from thesis advisor), up to 3 letters maximum — OK to have nomination letters from non-professors, as long as you have one from your thesis advisor/professor).
• Confirmation of availability for summer internship

Submission Portal: It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that all of these items are submitted prior to the deadline. We are using a Submission Portal in which the student manages their own application. The student must:

• Complete the student profile – start this now; you can go back to the portal repeatedly until you submit the final application
• Complete your application input including research summary thesis proposal and resume (CV)
• Add contacts for the letters of recommendation — an email will automatically be sent on your behalf to each recommender you add — be sure to add your professors/recommenders early in the process! Do not wait until close to the deadline!
• Monitor the status of your recommendation letters in the portal — do not click on the final submission until the recommendation status shows “recommendation uploaded” for each recommendation you are expecting — the professor deadline has been set 1 day prior to the student deadline to allow the student to ensure all documents are received before submitting — the deadline for recommendation letters is 3pm Pacific September 6, 2023.
• Communicate with the recommenders to complete their letter upload on time – it is the student’s responsibility to ensure their letters are received into the system.
• Submit the final application when all items are complete, and prior to the application deadline: 3pm Pacific September 7, 2023.

Submissions are currently OPEN. Please access the submission site here. 

Notifications of final decisions will be emailed by the end of November

Terms and Conditions

The Graduate Fellowship Award must be used to further your research. The breakdown of the award is between stipend, tuition and health insurance, in that order. The award is an unrestricted gift to be used to further the student’s research over the academic year. We ask that no overhead or indirect costs are charged to the award. Awards are not transferable to another student. Whether it is OK to combine the NVIDIA fellowship with another fellowship depends on several factors — please contact the NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship for details on this matter. Awards are issued to the university for disbursement, not directly to the student. Amount of the award cannot exceed stipend, tuition, and health insurance. There may also be university-specific restrictions that pertain. Applications include permission to use the student’s submission data for evaluation of a potential fellowship award. Applicants may choose to opt-in for an internship evaluation outside of the fellowship (in the event the applicant is not chosen for an award.) If selected for an award, a completed internship at NVIDIA is required before the Fellowship award year can begin. Immediate family of NVIDIA employees cannot participate.