About the ACM India Anveshan Setu Fellowship

Objectives of the Fellowship

To provide CS/IT PhD students in India:
1. an opportunity to get up close and personal with best research practices outside their parent institutes.
2. a longer and more intense mentoring experience beyond ACM India PhD Clinic.

Eligibility for Students and Mentors

Student: Any full-time/part-time enrolled/registered CS/IT PhD student in India.
Mentor: Faculty member with established research credentials in India, willing to host and mentor a visitor student for four weeks.
It is preferred that a mentor-mentee pair would have interacted in the past through other fora/platforms, viz. PhD Clinic.
A mentor will be matched with a mentee only if both sides are agreeable to the match.

Salient features of the Fellowship

Duration of the visit: We recommend a minimum of four weeks in a year per visit. Depending on the performance, mentee/student can be allowed to visit same or different mentors up to three times in three years, during the PhD career of the student.
It is expected that at the end of minimum four-week visit, the mentee will have a better understanding and perspective of research methodology and practices in her/his area of interest, develop taste and enthusiasm for exploring an area of her/his interest in depth, and expand her/his network of academic contacts.
Depending on the interest by the mentor and mentee, ACM India will do the matchmaking. Explicit approval from the mentor will be taken before assigning a mentee.
Mentor and mentee are expected to meet a minimum set of expectations. The guiding principle of these expectations is to ensure that the mentee learns best research practices and feels more comfortable and encouraged in pursuing her/his/their research at the end of the visit.

Expectation from Mentors

Facilitate logistics of mentee's visit:
- Office space/desk, access to building/lab, internet access, access to library (for reading, not necessarily for issuing books)
- Access to student hostel/guest house accommodation and mess/canteen facilities. Financial support from ACM India is available for this.
Have the mentee participate in group meetings, presentations, etc. as a visitor.
Spend at least 1-2 hours per week with the mentee on his/her work, giving feedback on research, helping progress with work.
Have other students in the mentor's research group spend some structured time with the mentee explaining what they are working on, pitfalls to avoid, best practices to pick up, etc.
Have a joint video/teleconference with mentee and her/his/their advisor in her/his/their parent institution at least once (preferably in the first week) during the visit to ensure that all are on the same page.
Provide a Completion Letter (see template) to the mentee on institute letterhead, on completion of the visit.
Give feedback to ACM India about what worked and what didn't work; a separate form will be shared with mentors for this purpose.

Expectation from Mentees

Mentee must have discussed the visit with her/his/their advisor and comply with all requirements of advisor and parent institution.
Mentee must submit a no-objection-certificate (see template) from the advisor.
Given that this is a full-time visit, mentee must spend a minimum of 40 hours per week interacting with the mentor and her/his/their research group, trying to understand research methodologies and best practices.
Participate as a visitor in group meetings, presentations etc. of the mentor's group.
Stay in close touch (preferably weekly) with an advisor in the parent institution about work/activities being done in the visiting institute.
Prepare a report (format to be provided by ACM India) of outcome of the visit at the end of the duration of visit.
Give feedback to ACM India about what worked and what didn't work; a separate form will be shared with mentees for this purpose.
Possibly participate in ACM India events and present her/his/their work and experience from the visitor program.

Tentative Timeline

By 15 Dec. 2024	Applications open
By 15 Feb. 2025	Last date for submitting applications
By 15 Mar. 2025	Application review, interaction between potential students, mentors
By 31 Mar. 2025	Announcement of Fellows
Apr. 2025–Mar. 2026	Student visits Mentors

Other guidelines

ACM India will have no stake in the produced IP through this collaboration/visit of the mentee to the host institution and beyond.
Mentors and students should publish the findings from the visit and beyond in the public domain.
If the mentor and mentee mutually agree to extend an Anveshan Setu visit beyond four weeks, and if the mentee’s advisor and parent institution are agreeable to this, and if the mentee and mentor mutually agree to take care of expenses related to stay beyond the four weeks supported by ACM India, it is possible to extend the mentee’s visit beyond four weeks. In all such cases, ACM India’s financial support will however be capped to a total of Rs. 25,000 as specified below.
We plan to support up to 50 students in the 2025–2026 cycle of the Fellowship.

Financial details

ACM India will provide INR 15,000 to the student at the start of their visit.
When the student completes the visit, she/he/they will submit a report along with pictures (with mentor, students, lab, etc.) taken during the visit, and ACM India will provide an additional INR 10,000 to the student.

Definitions

Mentor/Faculty: Faculty member of the institute to whom the student visitor is assigned.
Candidate/Student/Mentee: A student from another institute getting the Anveshan Setu Fellowship to pursue research with the mentor at the institute.
Grant: Cash grant named Anveshan-Setu Fellowship provided by ACM India to the institute to fund the candidate's visit and research project.
Research topic: Plan agreed between the mentor and the candidate to work on. This could be a 2-3 line description of the topic of research.

List of mentors for 2025–2026

Name	Institute	Areas
Anirban Dasgupta	IIT Gandhinagar	Resource-constrained ML, privacy in ML, graph neural networks.
Antony Franklin	Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad	Mobile Networks (5G/6G), Mobile Edge Computing, C-V2X
Arijit Roy	Indian Institute of Technology Patna	Internet of Things (IoT), Virtualization, Machine Learning for Fog and Edge Computing
Aritra Banik	NISER Bhubaneswar	Computational Geometry, Parameterized Algorithms, Approximation Algorithms
Ashutosh Modi	IIT Kanpur	Natural Language Processing (NLP), LLMs, Causal Reasoning
Asif Ekbal	IIT Patna	Natural Language Processing, Multimodal AI, Large Language Models
Ayan Mondal	Indian Institute of Technology Indore	Edge-Cloud Computing, Software-Defined Networks, IoT
Bheemarjuna Reddy Tamma	IIT Hyderabad	5G and Beyond Mobile Networks; Network Softwarization; Cyber Security;
Hari Prabhat Gupta	Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi	Edge Computing, Tiny Machine Learning, IoT
Jainendra Shukla	IIIT-Delhi	Affective Computing, Social Robotics, Ubiquitous Computing
Karthik Vaidhyanathan	IIIT Hyderabad	Green Software, Sustainable AI systems, self-adaptive systems
Krishna Pillutla	IIT Madras	Privacy in AI, Robust AI, Evaluation of Generative AI
M. Tanveer	IIT Indore	Machine learning; deep learning; applications to Alzheimer's disease
Maunendra Sankar Desarkar	IIT Hyderabad	NLP, Recommendation Systems, Information Retrieval
Ponnurangam Kumaraguru	IIIT Hyderabad	Applied ML, Applied NLP, Responsible AI
Raghava Mutharaju	IIIT-Delhi	Ontology Modelling, Knowledge Graphs, Neurosymbolic AI
Ramakrishna Upadrasta	IIT Hyderabad	Compilers, Polyhedral Compilation, ML for Compilers, Program (Source/Binary) Embeddings
Ranveer Singh	IIT Indore	Algebraic computation, algebraic graph theory, graph algorithms
Rinku Shah	IIIT-Delhi	Data center networking, SDN, Programmable networking
Sachin Chaudhari	International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad	IoT for Smart Cities, Agriculture and Education
Samaresh Bera	IIT Jammu	SDN, NFV, 5G/6G Network Security
Sandeep Kumar Shukla	IIT Kanpur	Cyber Security, Cyber Crime Prevention, Analysis and Forensics, Blockchain technology
Sathya Peri	IIT Hyderabad	Blockchains, Parallel Programming, Multi-Core Systems Security, Distributed Computing, Decentralized Federated Learning
Smruti Sarangi	IIT Delhi	Computer architecture, operating systems, distributed systems
Sourangshu Bhattacharya	IIT Kharagpur	Scalable Machine Learning, Subset-Selection in AI, Trustworthy AI
Sridhar Chimalakonda	Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati	Generative AI and Software Engineering Human-Computer Interaction Computing for Society
Sridhar Iyer	IIT Bombay	CS Education Research; Education Technologies; Teacher Education
Sudarshan Iyengar	IIT Ropar	AI for social good. Edtech.
Sudip Misra	IIT Kharagpur	Wireless Sensor Networks, Internet of Things
Sujata Pal	IIT Ropar	Blockchain, Applications of ML/AI in systems, IoT
Supratik Chakraborty	IIT Bombay	Formal verification, automated synthesis, formal methods in machine learning
Swaprava Nath	IIT Bombay	Algorithmic Game Theory, Algorithmic Mechanism Design, Computational Social Choice
Tamoghna Ojha	IIT (ISM) Dhanbad	IoT, edge computing, non-terrestrial networks
Vineeth N Balasubramanian	Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad	Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Multimodal Foundation Models, Explainability and Reasoning in AI Models
Yogesh Simmhan	IISc	Edge and cloud computing, Scalable ML, Graph analytics

Apply for 2025–2026

Apply here

Team

Dr. Hitkul - Flipkart
Prof. Ponnurangam Kumaraguru “PK” - IIIT Hyderabad
Prof. Sudip Misra- IIT Kharagpur

FAQs

Q: I have not yet attended the PhD Clinic, can I apply for this fellowship?
A: Absolutely, you can. We strongly recommend applying to Anveshan Setu Fellowship after attending the Clinic, but it is not mandatory.

Q: Will there be any written test, interviews, for the selection process?
A: No, there may be an interaction session (which could be a PhD Clinic slot too) with the mentor to ensure that you are prepared to make the best use of the visit.

Q: Is there a necessary condition that I can visit only the faculty that I interacted with in PhD Clinic?
A: No, not necessary. You can apply to visit any host faculty mentioned in the application form. Please be aware that this is a matchmaking activity, where host faculty should also be interested in hosting you.

Q: Will I get a lab space/desk to sit and work in the host institute?
A: Depending on the infrastructure facilities of the host institute, you will get some space.

Q: Will I get a hostel in the institute that I will be visiting?
A: Same goes for hostel rooms; be prepared to stay in some hostel type accommodation outside if you don't get a hostel room in the campus.

Q: I just finished my PhD, submitted my thesis, waiting for evaluation/defense, am I eligible for this fellowship?
A: Congrats on submitting the thesis, must be very satisfying. Unfortunately, this program is for PhD students who have not yet reached the final stages of thesis defense.

Q: How much fellowship money will I get?
A: INR 25,000 per student per visit. ACM India will credit INR 15,000 when you start the visit and additional INR 10,000 when you complete the visit and satisfy the requirements (report, pics, etc.).

Q: When can I visit? Should the visit be planned in summer?
A: Visit timing can be planned with the host faculty; both you and the faculty member can decide on the timing for the visit. Visit should happen in the period of April 2025 – March 2026

Q: Do I need to have ACM membership to apply for this fellowship?
A: No, you do not need to be an ACM member to apply. However, for us to disburse the fellowship amount you need to be a member. We encourage non-members to apply, they can become a member once it is known that their application is successful.

Q: I received the 2021 Fellowship, but did not visit the mentor because of the pandemic and other reasons. Can I apply again this year?
A: If you are still a registered PhD student, you are eligible to apply. We look forward to seeing your application.

Q: I received the Fellowship in the past, but did not visit the mentor because of unforeseen circumstances. Can I apply again this year?
A: If you are still a registered PhD student, you are eligible to apply. We look forward to seeing your application.

Q: I received the Fellowship in the past and I visited the mentor. Can I apply again this year?
A: If you are still a registered PhD student, you are eligible to apply. We look forward to seeing your application.

Q: Does the fellowship elapse?
A: Yes, the visit must be completed during April 2025 – March 2026.

Q: Can I visit the mentor for more than 4 weeks?
A: ACM India expects a mentee visit for a duration of 4 weeks, the mentor and mentee can mutually agree (with consent of the mentee's advisor and parent institution) to extend the duration of the visit. If you need any financial support for extending the visit, please reach out to us at ([email protected]) with the request.

Q: I just started my Anveshan Setu visit, how do I get the 15K stipend? What do I need to do?
A: Please write an email to [email protected] and cc the mentor you are visiting & [email protected]. In the email mention the date you started the visit, request the mentor to confirm the start. We will share a link to you where we will take your bank details.

Q: I submitted my bank details after starting my visit through the link that was shared, by when will I get the 15K?
A: Thank you for sharing your bank details; you should receive 15K within 2 weeks of submitting the form, if you don’t receive it after 2 weeks, feel free to send a reminder email.

Q: I just completed my visit, how I get the 10K stipend? What do I need to do?
Please write an email to [email protected] and cc the mentor you are visiting & [email protected]. In the email mention the date you completed the visit, request the mentor to confirm the completion. We will share a link to you where we will take your bank details.