Congratulations to UCLA alumnus Iris Cong (class of 2017) for being announced as one of 30 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows!
The Paul & Daisy Soros fellowship is a prestigious award that recognizes outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants from all over the world who are pursuing graduate school in the United States. Selected from 1,766 applicants, each of the fellows was chosen this year for their potential to make significant contributions to US society, culture, or their academic fields. Cong will receive up to $90,000 in funding over two years.
At only 18 years old, Cong is among the youngest of the Paul & Daisy Soros fellows and continues to make great strides within the realm of computer science, physics, and quantum computing. Cong entered UCLA at the age of 13, where she received her BS in computer science, and went on to pursue graduate school at Harvard, where her focus is on quantum computing and condensed matter physics.
In addition to the Paul & Daisy Soros fellowship, Cong was also recently awarded with the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Graduate Fellowship, which is dedicated to providing unique financial and fellowship support to the nation’s most remarkable PhD students in the applied physical and biological sciences, mathematics, and engineering. This year the Foundation selected ten students out of 700 applicants. The fellowship not only provides tuition support and living stipends for five years, it also enables fellowship recipients to connect and collaborate with one another within a unique network of scientists.
Both the Paul & Daisy Soros fellowship and the Hertz Foundation Fellowship act as yet another addition to Cong’s many academic accolades, including but not limited to the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, and more.
Read more about Cong and her research here.