Female Informatics Students Benefit from DeepMind Funding
School of Informatics students from under-represented groups are being supported on their academic journey by a new scholarship funded by DeepMind.
Two MSc and two PhD student scholarships were awarded this academic year and DeepMind has also committed to a further three MSc and two PhD scholarships, available for students starting in 2021.
Maria Luque Anguita and Réka Hagymási, MSc in Artificial Intelligence students who started in September 2020, are both recipients of the scholarship and cannot over-emphasise how much easier it makes their journey.
“This scholarship gives me a strong financial support allowing me to study full time. I do not need to work to fund my studies and can commit more time for in-depth study of my course materials,” says Réka Hagymási who studied for her BSc in Budapest.
She chose the MSc in Artificial Intelligence programme, rather than the general Informatics course, to give herself an opportunity to identify which area in this wide-ranging field interests her the most so she can focus her thesis there. She enjoys working on applied machine learning projects and hopes that that is where her career path will take her.
The School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh came highly recommended by peers and in rankings, but one of the most appealing things about studying here was the breadth and flexibility of courses on offer. Now six weeks into the academic year, she also appreciates how engaging tutorials and labs are.
Maria Luque Anguita has wanted to become a ‘cool programmer’ since high school when she taught herself to code in Python. Her high school maths teacher was instrumental in fostering her interest in AI and its applications for social good. She developed Deep Neural Networks to predict survival after hepatic transplant for each donor-recipient match during her honours project.
The use of AI in healthcare, environmental research and cyber security as well as explainable, trustworthy AI are the areas that she is particularly interested in. She has an open mind about the future – becoming a researcher or working in the industry or both – as long as she is helping to develop the AI of the future, all sound appealing to her.
“Having a professional who can guide me in my learning is an amazing opportunity that I cannot pass on, especially someone from DeepMind where many great minds work together to advance the field of AI, which is my passion,” she says of the benefits of the scholarship.
Maria travelled to Edinburgh for the University Open Day and found the Informatics students and staff helpful and willing to listen to her ideas, which made her choice all the easier.
DeepMind scholarships cover tuition fees, maintenance and other living costs. Recipients benefit from mentoring from DeepMind staff during their period of study and have a unique opportunity to network with other DeepMind scholars and professionals at their events.
We're delighted to partner with the University of Edinburgh once again to support underrepresented students to get access to graduate education in machine learning and AI. Applicants from underrepresented groups will be able to benefit from these scholarships both this and next year, and bring their unique and valuable perspectives to bear in the AI community.
Scholarships are targeted at groups who are currently under-represented in Informatics, particularly women and those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. This complements other efforts in equality, diversity and inclusion, such as the School’s Women in Informatics bursaries and current work on decolonising our curriculum.
We are delighted to have these scholarships from DeepMind that support promising students from under-represented groups to pursue their studies with us. This is part of our general programme to foster diversity and inclusion within the School, and we are grateful to DeepMind for their support.
Applications are now open for MSC applicants. PhD applications will open in January.
Related links
Apply now for this Scholarship (MSc)
Information about PhD Deepmind funding
University of Edinburgh UG funding