The Sloan Foundation has announced the winners of the 2024 Sloan Research Awards. 126 scholars were elected, including 29 Chinese scholars. In the field of Computer Science, Diyi Yang, a graduate of ACM Class of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, has won the Sloan Research Award.

Diyi is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University. Her research interests include natural language processing, machine learning, and computational social language, with a focus on computational social science and natural language processing. Dedicated to combining NLP, machine learning, and social science to study how humans use language in social contexts, as well as to develop advanced language technologies to facilitate better human-computer interaction, which includes a novel fusion of artificial intelligence technologies and social science theories.

Diyi has been listed on the List of the 30 Forbes Elite Scientists whose age are under 30 in 2020, and has been elected as "Top 10 Potential AI People" by IEEE in 2020, MIT Technology Review China "35 under 35 Science and Technology Innovators" in 2021, and has been honored as one of the outstanding students of the “Pilot Program 2.0” by Ministry of Education, China.

Over the years, Diyi has always kept in mind the concept of "joining hands to surpass and make progresses" and "think about the origin while drinking the water", and has actively participated in various activities of Zhiyuan College. Also, Diyi has unreservedly shared her growth experience from a research beginner to an Assistant Professor at Stanford University, helping the ACM class and the younger students of Zhiyuan to complete the transformation from students to researchers. 

Diyi expressed gratitude towards her mentor, Professor Yong Yu, Program Director of CS Division

In 2023, At the Zhiyuan Honors Program undergraduate graduation ceremony, Diyi delivered a speech as alumni representative and interacted with the currently registered Zhiyuan students, encouraging the students to have a growth mindset, focus on their own unique advantages, learn to use the power of social communications, and wishes the new graduates shine on the path of science.

Brief Introduction of Sloan Research Award

The Sloan Research Award was officially founded in 1955, and is known as the "weather vane of the Nobel Prize". According to its website, 58 former winners have won the Nobel Prize and 17 previous winners have won the Fields Medal. Sloan Research Awards are currently awarded in the following subject areas: Chemistry, Computational and Evolutionary Molecular Biology, Computer Science, Earth Science, Economics, Mathematics, Neuroscience, Physics, and Marine Science.