What is the William H. Gates Sr. Fellowship from the AD Data Initiative?
The William H. Gates Sr. Fellowship is a research fellowship from the Alzheimer's Disease (AD) Data Initiative that supports early-career scientists engaging in novel, cutting-edge research in areas such as data science and AI methods for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD).
The fellowship is named after William H. Gates Sr., and honors his legacy of advocacy and philanthropy. The fellowship sits alongside AI Explorations and Data Challenges as part of a broader effort to support the next generation of researchers and accelerate their work with large-scale ADRD datasets.
ADRD research has historically been constrained by a shortage of researchers trained to work across both clinical neuroscience and computational methods; large, harmonized datasets are only as valuable as the talent pipeline able to analyze them. The fellowship addresses this gap directly, giving selected researchers structured support to apply advanced data science, machine learning, and AI techniques to ADRD datasets available through the initiative and its AD Workbench platform.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is eligible to apply?
Applicants must be currently employed by an academic, government, industry, or non-profit organization, and academic applicants must not hold a tenured faculty position. A master's or doctoral degree and five to ten years of relevant experience are preferred, along with a demonstrated background in computational, machine learning, or statistical methods and a track record with generative AI approaches. Due to U.S. financial restrictions, applicants cannot reside or work for an organization located in a small number of sanctioned countries.
What does the fellowship provide?
Each fellow receives a financial award of up to $100,000 USD, distributed over the two-year program, along with mentorship, conference travel support, and assistance publishing findings in peer-reviewed journals. Fellows also gain access to the AD Data Initiative research community, where they can lead discussions and network with current and past cohort members.
What kind of research does the fellowship support?
The fellowship supports bold, hypothesis-generating research that applies generative AI to human-derived ADRD data; example priority areas include identifying novel biomarkers, tracking disease progression, and improving early detection through multi-modal data integration. It does not support research outside the dementia field, new primary data collection, or approaches that rely solely on traditional statistical or machine learning methods.
How do fellows use AD Workbench?
Fellows are expected to conduct their analyses directly on AD Workbench and are given preference if their project could make additional datasets shareable through the platform. Fellows must also release the software code they develop under a permissive open-source license, typically hosted on GitHub, to support reproducibility across the ADRD research community.