Shen

Zhiming Shen, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Computer Science, has received a 2015 IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Award to support his graduate studies. Students are accepted for the highly competitive awards based on their overall potential for research excellence, the degree to which their technical interests align with those of IBM, and their academic progress.

“My research interest is in cloud computing, which aligns with IBM's future strategy: they attach great importance to the cloud market,” Shen said. “I think all these factors played an important role while they were making the decision to give me the award.”

Shen works with Hakim Weatherspoon, assistant professor of computer science, and computer science principal researcher Robbert van Renesse on methods to make cloud computing faster and more secure. Van Renesse nominated him for the fellowship.

The award provides a one-year stipend covering tuition and fees with additional research funding, and may be renewed each year for up to three years. Fellows are matched with an IBM mentor according to their technical interests, and are strongly encouraged to participate in at least one internship at IBM while completing their studies. Shen has done a previous internship with IBM Research, doing work that resulted in a patent for a system to eliminate duplication in cloud storage by merging duplicate blocks while preserving data that may exist in only one of two versions. For his next internship, he plans to spend a summer working with IBM Cloud.

Shen and his Cornell advisers collaborate frequently with a research group at IBM Watson Research Center headed by Hani Jamjoom, M.Eng. '97 and including Dan Wiliams Ph.D. ‘13.