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Virginia Partridge, a research fellow in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences, was recently named a 2025 NobleReach Scholar in the AI domain, joining 27 other talented recent graduates and early-career professionals in the scholarship cohort applying tech for the public good. 

The NobleReach Scholars Program connects recent graduates with fully compensated tech roles in cybersecurity, AI, IT, business, engineering and more within government agencies and mission-driven industry organizations tackling complex challenges. Selected from over 1,000 applicants, Partridge her cohort have embarked on fully paid, yearlong technology roles focused on public service.

As a NobleReach Scholar, Partridge will continue her work as a research fellow at the CICS Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. There, the 2023 master’s degree recipient in computer science from UMass Amherst will build meaningful partnerships with government, industry and nonprofits, helping them apply data science and AI to tackle real-world challenges and improve community outcomes, and she has been a key player in many projects at the Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. 

Partridge also provides technical leadership to the center’s Data Core program, a team of data scientists and software engineers that partner with researchers, industry, government and nonprofits to leverage generative AI, data science and other technologies to help them achieve their organizational missions. She has also administered the Data Science for the Common Good Summer Program since 2022, which unites students, professionals and researchers in a common goal to craft prototypes and data analyses for nonprofit, civic and government stakeholders. 

A recently published profile of Partridge detailing her work and experience so far as a NobleReach Scholar can be found on the CICS website.