{"693737":{"#nid":"693737","#data":{"type":"news","title":"A Trio of Six-Figure Grants to Advance AI, Analytics and Computing Systems Research","body":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne of the world\u2019s largest computing companies has recognized three faculty members from the Georgia Tech School of Computer Science (SCS) for their research on scalable, secure, and trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) and computing systems.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGoogle named assistant professors \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.anand-iyer.com\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAnand Iyer\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/kexinrong.github.io\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EKexin Rong\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/saeed.github.io\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAhmed Saeed\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E \u003C\/strong\u003Eas recipients of the 2026 Google ML and Systems Junior Faculty Award.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe trio was selected by a distinguished group of Google engineers and researchers. Each awardee will receive an unrestricted $100,000 grant to advance their research.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIyer\u2019s award recognizes his work developing efficient, reliable AI infrastructure. His research focuses on the systems infrastructure that enables efficient and reliable AI, spanning models with limited hardware, scaling graph learning, and running AI agents dependably.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe leads the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nexs.scs.gatech.edu\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003ENExt-gen X Systems (NEXS) lab\u003C\/a\u003E, which builds systems that extract more useful work from limited computational, memory, and network capacity.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI am honored to be recognized by Google and grateful to my students in NEXS, whose work this award really reflects,\u201d Iyer said. \u201cThe award\u2019s unrestricted nature gives us room to go after the higher-risk questions in AI infrastructure, like how to get more useful work out of limited hardware and how to make AI agents run reliably, before they become everyone\u2019s problem.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERong\u2019s award highlights her success in ML systems and data applications. Her research develops systems and tools that simplify large-scale data analytics by synthesizing techniques from data management, machine learning, and human-computer interaction.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe leads the\u202f\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/kexinrong.github.io\/lab\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EData-to-Insights (D2I) Lab\u003C\/a\u003E, which builds systems and algorithms for large-scale data analytics.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI am honored to receive this recognition from Google,\u201d Rong said. \u201cThis award will help us further advance our research on systems for managing, processing, and reusing data for and from AI. I am also excited about the opportunities it opens up for future research collaborations.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESaeed\u2019s award supports his ongoing work on scalable computer networks and systems. His research interests span the theory, design, and implementation of scalable computer networks and systems. In addition to this award, Saeed received an \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/professor-earns-nsf-career-award-data-center-research\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003ENSF CAREER Award\u003C\/a\u003E earlier this year for his work on data center efficiency.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe leads the\u202f\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/saeed.github.io\/ansr_lab\/index.html\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EAdvanced Networked Systems Research (ANSR) Lab\u003C\/a\u003E, which builds networked computer systems that are fast, efficient, and sustainable.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019m grateful for this recognition and especially for the freedom this gift provides to explore ambitious, unconventional research directions that might otherwise be difficult to pursue,\u201d Saeed said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Google ML and Systems Junior Faculty Awards were established in 2025 to support early-career research faculty who are pioneering the analysis, design, and implementation of efficient, scalable, secure, and trustworthy computing systems.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOne of the world\u2019s largest computing companies has recognized three faculty members from the Georgia Tech School of Computer Science (SCS) for their research on scalable, secure, and trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) and computing systems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGoogle named assistant professors \u003Cstrong\u003EAnand Iyer\u003C\/strong\u003E, \u003Cstrong\u003EKexin Rong\u003C\/strong\u003E, and \u003Cstrong\u003EAhmed Saeed \u003C\/strong\u003Eas recipients of the 2026 Google ML and Systems Junior Faculty Award.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"One of the world\u2019s largest computing companies has recognized three faculty members from the Georgia Tech School of Computer Science (SCS) for their research on scalable, secure, and trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) and computing systems."}],"uid":"36532","created_gmt":"2026-11-03 19:55:17","changed_gmt":"2026-11-03 19:56:03","author":"Morgan Usry","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-11-03T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-11-03T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"681643":{"id":"681643","type":"image","title":"476072_Faculty-Story-Graphic.jpg.jpeg","body":null,"created":"1793735726","gmt_created":"2026-11-03 19:55:26","changed":"1793735726","gmt_changed":"2026-11-03 19:55:26","alt":"Photos of Anand Iyer, Kexin Rong, and Ahmed Saeed.","file":{"fid":"266075","name":"476072_Faculty-Story-Graphic.jpg.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/11\/03\/476072_Faculty-Story-Graphic.jpg.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/11\/03\/476072_Faculty-Story-Graphic.jpg.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":104583,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/11\/03\/476072_Faculty-Story-Graphic.jpg.jpeg?itok=ZHbHqQlb"}}},"media_ids":["681643"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"50875","name":"School of Computer Science"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"3165","name":"google"},{"id":"9167","name":"machine learning"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMorgan Usry, Communications Officer, School of Computer Science\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["morgan.usry@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}