Vanderbilt may nominate three candidates for the 2014 Paul G. Allen Foundation’s Distinguished Investigators Program. The program seeks to fund a select group of investigators to pursue new, pioneering research in academic settings that, collectively, “move the needle” toward answering broad scientific questions. The most promising proposals will incorporate novel, creative and ambitious approaches. For this reason, the program is especially interested in proposals that are unlikely to receive funding from traditional governmental sources.
Each cohort will consist of five-eight projects with total funding of $1-2 million, for each project, over a three-year period. Scientists at any stage of their career may apply. The foundation has a particular interest in both supporting the careers of exceptional young scientists showing particular promise as thought leaders in their fields and supporting more established researchers with ambitious, high-risk ideas that could have a revolutionary impact in the fields but remain outside the scope of traditional funding sources.
This year the program will support:
- Machine Reading: The next step in machine reading involves the computer constructing richer semantic representations from language that better support automated reasoning. The foundation is looking for proposals that explore innovative approaches to this challenge and are particularly interested in proposals that include consideration of background knowledge and an operational use of machine-read knowledge to evaluate progress.
- Diagram Interpretation and Reasoning: Projects will be funded that explore innovative approaches to interpreting diagrams both at the lower image processing level (identifying and aligning spatial elements, labels and other notions) and at the higher symbolic level (determining what information the elements, labels and notation communicate) with particular interest in proposals that include consideration of background knowledge, that exploit the surrounding (linguistic) context in which diagrams are placed, and that include an operational use of the interpretations to evaluate progress.
- Spatial and Temporal Reasoning: Projects will be funded that explore innovative approaches to effective reasoning with quantitative spatio-temporal information, with particular interests in techniques that support commonsense spatio-temporal reasoning; and that explore the integration of spatio-temporal inference with linguistic/symbolic inference as well as methods that address the kinds of spatio-temporal reasoning problems that arise in scientific exams.
Anyone interested in being considered as one of Vanderbilt’s three nominees must submit the following (in PDF format) to LSO@vanderbilt.edu by 5 p.m. Friday, April 25:
- A brief (two-page maximum) research plan including summary budget;
- A brief statement of support from a department chair/center director; and
- A brief CV or NIH biosketch.
Submissions should reference the program name in the subject line of the email.
Once received, all proposals will be forwarded to an internal review committee that will select the final nominee. The chosen nominee will submit a full proposal to the foundation by its May 30 deadline.
If you have any questions about the foundation or its interests and priorities, please contact Vivian Carmichael, executive director of foundation relations, at (615) 875-4915.