Sitan Chen receives Soros Fellowship

Tue, 05/01/2018

Two EECS graduate students, Sitan Chen and Lillian Chin '17, are among the 30 recipients of the 2018 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. They're joined by Suchita Nety, who is working toward an MD/PhD from MIT and Harvard.

In addition, Sylvia Biscoveanu, a recent graduate of Penn State University who will be pursuing a PhD at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research next fall, was also named a Soros Fellow.

The fellowships provide up to $90,000 funding for graduate studies for immigrants and the children of immigrants. Award winners are selected for their potential to make significant contributions to United States society, culture, or their academic fields. This year, over 1,700 candidates applied to the prestigious fellowship program.

In the past eight years, 29 MIT students and alumni have been awarded Soros Fellowships. Eligible applicants include children of immigrants, naturalized citizens, green card holders, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients. Beginning in 2019, the fellowship will expand its requirements to include former DACA recipients should the government program be rescinded.

MIT students interested in applying to the Soros Fellowship should contact Kim Benard, assistant dean of distinguished fellowships and academic excellence. The application for the Soros Class of 2019 is now open, and the national deadline is Nov. 1, 2018. 

Sitan Chen

Sitan Chen is a PhD student in electrical engineering and computer science and a member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and the Theory of Computation Group. Chen's award will support work toward his doctorate in computer science.

Born in Hefei, China, Chen was just a year old when his family immigrated to Canada so that his father could complete his doctorate at the University of Toronto. The family moved to Suwanee, Georgia, in the early 2000s, and Chen’s experiences throughout high school with math contests and programs like the Research Science Institute ultimately motivated him to study mathematics and computer science at Harvard University.

Chen graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 2016, receiving the Thomas T. Hoopes and Captain Jonathan Fay Prizes for his thesis on geometric aspects of counting complexity and arithmetic complexity. Chen’s mentors in Harvard's Theory of Computing research group encouraged him to pursue graduate studies in theoretical computer science.

In the fall of 2016, Sitan began his doctoral program in computer science at MIT. His work with PhD advisor Ankur Moitra, professor in the Department of Mathematics and principal investigator at CSAIL, centers on algorithmic problems in machine learning and inference.

Chen is focusing on developing new mathematical frameworks to analyze techniques such as the method of moments, Gibbs sampling, and local search that are popular in practice but poorly understood in theory. He has presented his work at venues including the Symposium on Theory of Computing and the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing.

For more information plese visit: http://www.eecs.mit.edu/news-events/announcements/two-eecs-are-among-three-mit-graduate-students-receive-soros-fellowships