The Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship (SIGF) is a competitive University-wide program that awards three-year fellowships to outstanding doctoral students engaged in interdisciplinary research.
SIGF
SIGF supports doctoral students whose research crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries.
2014 SIGF Fellows
Scott Lawin Arcenas
Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow (Anonymous Donor), ClassicsAccording to the World Bank, recurring civil wars are the “dominant form of armed conflict in the world today.” In order to account for this phenomenon, political scientists adduce numerous theoretical models. However, the limited chronological...
Oguzhan Atay
Colella Family Fellow, Bio-X SIGF, BiologyCells, including those that make up our body, combine various signals from their environment to execute cellular decisions—such as the decision to divide. These decisions are complex outputs of many interacting genes and proteins within these...
Samuel Bowman
Donna Schweers and Thomas Geiser Fellow, LinguisticsDeveloping an algorithm that can automatically interpret the meaning of text would make possible incredibly powerful tools for tasks like translation. No existing methodology can approach the nuance of human readers and listeners, but recent...
Rachel J. Braun-Hagey
Mona M. Burgess Fellow, Bio-X SIGF, Microbiology and ImmunologyInfluenza A virus (IAV) causes major morbidity and mortality worldwide. Our current vaccine and drug therapies only target viral proteins, but IAV’s high mutation and reassortment rates rapidly alter protein composition, leading to treatment...
Brian Donovan
John Evans Gessford Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow in K-12 Education, Graduate School of EducationResearch in social psychology indicates that prejudiced attitudes about race are caused by the belief that racial groups are discrete biological kinds that differ in humanly important ways for genetic reasons. Currently, my research program...
Julia Fukuyama
Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow (Anonymous Donor), Bio-X SIGF, StatisticsIn recent years, we have been able to get a detailed look at the bacteria that live with us. I am interested in developing better methods for the analysis of these communities. Standard ecological methods normally used to analyze this sort of...
Zahid Hossain
Morgridge Family SIGF Fellow, Bio-X SIGF, Computer ScienceBiology experiments are important for academia, industry, and education, but access barriers exist due to training, costs, safety, logistics, and spatial separation. Automated high-throughput equipment combined with web streaming could enable...
Lauren Howe
Shaper Family Graduate Fellow, PsychologyMy research focuses on enhancing outcomes in sensitive situations involving political communication and healthcare. Bringing together perspectives from psychology, political science, communication, and public health, I explore the influence that...
René Kizilcec
Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow (Anonymous Donor), CommunicationSince the rise in popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), I have studied the behavior and motivations of online learners in these courses. While most popular accounts of low completion rates in these courses exaggerate the issue, there...
Alexis Mychajliw
Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow (Anonymous Donor), BiologyWe are currently in the midst of the Earth’s sixth mass extinction event. Scientists are racing to identify vulnerable species and forecast the impact of future threats these species face as habitat loss, hunting, and climate change act...
