The UChicago fellowship, part of a $148 million initiative announced today<\/a>, will launch in January 2023 with its first cohort of postdoctoral researchers. Over the next five years, the fellowship will fund more than 50 early-career researchers working at the intersection of AI and science and engineering at UChicago and its affiliated laboratories.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Schmidt Futures program will build upon the University\u2019s strengths in rigorous, interdisciplinary inquiry across the sciences,\u201d said Provost Ka Yee C. Lee<\/a>. \u201cWe are grateful to Schmidt Futures for investing in this work and creating a new cohort of UChicago researchers that will leverage the potential of artificial intelligence for addressing complex questions in science and engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n The fellowship will expand upon an engaged, cross-disciplinary AI and science community that includes divisions and departments across the University, including the UChicago Data Science Institute, and UChicago-affiliated Argonne National Laboratory<\/a>, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory<\/a> and the Marine Biological Laboratory<\/a>. Each fellow will work with mentors, choosing a researcher from a discipline in the natural sciences or engineering and an AI skills expert, and will join a cohort of scholars for career development, training and research activities.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have had a renaissance in machine learning in areas such as computer vision and natural language processing, leading to amazing results. But that success doesn\u2019t mean that AI can be used off-the-shelf for science,\u201d said Rebecca Willett<\/a>, professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Statistics, Faculty Director of AI at the Data Science Institute, and faculty lead of the new fellowship program. \u201cThere are major open questions surrounding how we quantify uncertainty about the outputs of AI systems, how AI can facilitate the design of experiments, and how best to integrate physics-based knowledge with training data. We hope that, by thinking about AI in the context of science and engineering, we will advance the foundations of AI in addition to advancing the natural sciences.\u201d<\/p>\n The UChicago program is open to those who have completed a Ph.D. in the natural or mathematical sciences, engineering or a related field before the start of their fellowship and no earlier than 2018. Applications are now available for the initial cohort<\/a> starting Jan. 1, 2023, and a second cohort<\/a> starting in September 2023.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/datascience.uchicago.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SchmidtLeads-1-1024x599.jpg\")