Amazon and the University of Washington (UW) have collaborated for decades, ranging from learning opportunities for students to support for faculty and capital support. In 2022, Amazon and UW Uw-Amazon founded the science hub.
Science Hub today announced the second cohort of Amazon Fellows. Scholarships are amazed annually by the Ph.D. -The students who are enrolled in the UW College of Engineering, where students receive funding to pursue independent research projects in robotics and adjacent areas of AI. The assigned are
- Taewan Kim, a third-year PhD student in William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics, advised by Behçet Açikmeşe, professor of aviation optimization and control and adjunct professor of electric and computer technology. Kim’s current research lies at the intersection of control theory, optimization and machine learning, focusing on developing a close-loop frame that utilizes both control and learning theory to guarantee security and stability for robots operating in unsafe.
- Chuning Zhu, a Ph.D. -The student and member of The Washington Emboded Intelligence and Robotics Development (Weird) Lab, advised by Abhishek Gupta, an assistant professor of Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. ZHU uses deep reinforcing learning to build robots that autonomously acquire perception and manipulation skills by interacting with the physical world.
UW-Amazon Science Hub Today has also awarded gift survey financing to five UW professors. Each gift finances a year-long project that relates to an advanced challenge in robotics and AI innovation. Below are this year’s hiking and their research projects, which were reviewed by UW Advisory Group and Amazon:
- Ashis G. Banerjee, Associate Professor, Industrial and System Technology and Machine Technology: “Decentralized visual mapping of coagulated scenes using a team of cheap mobile robots”
- Mehmet Kurt, Director of Kurtlab and Assistant Professor, Machine Technology: “Assessment level assessment in packages through transformer -based neural networks and sensitivity analysis”
- Nadya Peek, Professor Assistant, Human Centered Design & Engineering: “Robot Pack-A-Thon: Packing arbitrary items with fabric maneled bending manipulators”
- Lillian Ratliff, Associate Professor, Electric and Computer Technology and Deputy Associate Professor, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and Aeronautics & Astronautics: “Hierarchical framework for scalable multi-agent autonomous mobility”
- Simon Shaolei from, Professor Assistant, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering: “Theoretical Principal Representation Learning for Multi-Task Reinforcement Learning”
“I am very pleased with how Science Hub has given a vehicle to expand and elaborate on the long-standing collaboration between UW and Amazon,” said UW President Ana Mari Cauce. “This collaboration continuously to grow as we make progress towards solving fundamental problems in science and technique in favor of people and communities in Washington and beyond, which is perfect in accordance with UW’s public mission.
“With the launch of the Amazon University Hubs program in 2020, we chartered that it would expand access to new technologies by strengthening partnerships Academia and Give and Detectable Value to all Constitution,” said Anu Datta, director of strategic recruitment and academic partnerships, Amazon. “We are pleased with the momentum we have been able to generate with UW to achieve this goal and look forward to seeing the latest research projects and faculty prices helping to solve complex problems in the real world.
Amazon joins UWS Foci
At the launch of Science Hub, Amazon and UW outlined how the scope of collaboration would expand over time to take additional areas of research topic, with financing for wide sets of programs.
As part of the NGOing collaboration, Amazon has joined the UW Center for The Future of Cloud Infrastructure (Foci). Foci was established in October 2022 and is located with Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and aims to promote a tight partnership between practitioners and researchers to define the next generation of Sky Infrastructure. The center will cultivate stronger connections between academia and industry to enable cloud -based systems to reach new heights in security, liabibility, performance and sustainability.
Amazon will join the technical advisory board that informs and leads the center’s research into the real world influence on the current trends, what problems they expect over a 5- to 10-year time horizon and how solutions can be used in practice.
“For almost two decades, Amazon and UW have been on the episent of Cloud Computing Innovation,” said Arvind Krishnamurthy, Foci Codirector and the short Dugy professor of Allen school. “Our evolving partnership will continue to utilize UWS management within the Foundational Computer Systems Research and Amazon’s expertise in building and implementing applications in the real world worldwide to define cloud computing in the next few decades.”
“Amazon Web Services has been at the forefront of Cloud Computing since 2006 and has continuously accelerated innovation in hardware and software to support virtually any workload and unique customer use,” said Rahul Pathak, vice president, relational database motors, AWS. “With the potential of new, fast-moving technologies like generative AI, things will continue to change rapidly for academia, industry and customers. We are pleased to participate in Foci and further collaboration with UW to help speed up research and its uses in the next generation of Sky Infrastructure and Databases, Analytical and ML systems.”