Doctoral Student Rico Angell Granted NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) doctoral student Rico Angell has recently been selected to receive a Graduate Research Fellowship by the National Science Foundation.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing researched-based master's or doctoral degrees. It provides an annual stipend of $34,000 for three years along with a $12,000 allowance for tuition and fees.  

"Modern software, especially software that learns from data, often exhibit biases," says CICS Associate Professor Yuriy Brun, Angell's doctoral advisor. "Rico's research focuses on understanding when and why such software exhibits bias. To approach these problems, Angell invents techniques that give us control over latent variables of natural language and images, such as changing the gender or race of a speaker or the subject of a photo. Such technology allows testing systems for bias, determining causal relationships between sensitive characteristics and system behavior, and can even help mitigate bias in learning systems."

Prior to joining CICS, Angell worked as a research intern at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Intelligence and Decision Technologies Group. He received his BSE in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2017.