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Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) doctoral candidates Alireza Salemi and Cuong Than have been named recipients of the 2025 Google PhD Fellowship for their research in natural language processing and in algorithms and optimization, respectively.

The Google PhD fellowship is an annual award that provides exceptional graduate students with financial support, mentorship from a Google Research scientist and opportunities to engage with broader research communities.

Salemi is a fourth-year doctoral candidate and currently works at the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval (CIIR) under the supervision of Associate Professor Hamed Zamani. He earned his master’s degree in computer science from CICS in 2024 and his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Tehran in 2022. His fellowship research proposal, “Collaborative Learning in Agentic AI,” explores how feedback written in everyday language—known as Natural Language Feedback (NLF)—can build artificial intelligence (AI) teams that collaborate more like humans: dividing work, explaining mistakes, and improving together over time.

Than is a fifth-year doctoral candidate working under the supervision of Associate Professor Hung Le. He earned his master’s degree in computer science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2021 and his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Hanoi University of Science and Technology in 2019. His fellowship research proposal, “Algorithmic Foundation of Compact Networks,” investigates how smaller sub-networks – known as spanners – can increase the efficiency, resiliency and scalability of large-scale network systems like Google Maps.

Since its launch in 2009, the fellowship has supported over 950 students across 44 countries. This year, Google.org has committed over $10 million to 255 doctoral students from 35 countries.

More information about Salemi and Than’s Google PhD Fellowship work can be found on the CICS website.