Five students honored as Siebel Scholars
Five UC Berkeley students were honored as Siebel Scholars Foundation’s class of 2027. The graduate students — all from computer science — join more than 2,000 distinguished honorees advancing research in the fields of bioengineering, computer science and business.
The scholars program awards grants of $35,000 to select students at universities in the United States, China, France, Italy and Japan. Honorees are chosen based on outstanding academic achievement and demonstrated leadership, and, on average, rank within the top 5% of their class, many within the top 1%.
“This distinguished honor from the Siebel Scholars Foundation recognizes some of the brightest minds at this college,” said Mark Asta, dean and Roy W. Carlson Chair of Engineering at Berkeley. “We’re so proud and look forward to seeing them use this scholarship to pursue new research directions to advance knowledge and innovation in their fields.”
Meet the 2027 class of Siebel Scholars at Berkeley:
- Alexander Proshkin is studying robot learning, reinforcement learning and how intelligent systems can develop a meaningful understanding of the physical world.
- Nicolas Rakela is working on hardware for machine learning systems and low-precision numerics for efficient inference.
- Saathvik Selvan is exploring how machines can understand and interact with the physical world, focusing on 3D visual perception and dexterous robot manipulation.
- Hiya Shah is studying robotics safety, reinforcement learning and human-centered robotics.
- Karen Shieh is exploring how large language models can make software security tools more accessible and effective.
The Siebel Scholars Foundation made the announcement today.