Each year since 2005, Microsoft Research has awarded Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowships to promising, early-career academics who are engaged in innovative computing research and have the potential to make significant advances in the state of the art. These fellowships—which include a cash award and access to software, invitations to conferences, and engagements with Microsoft Research—allow bright young academics to devote their time to pushing the boundaries of computer science research, freed from the distraction of grinding out grant proposals. The 2014 Faculty Fellows are seven young professors from around the world who are exploring groundbreaking, high-impact research—the kind of research that has the potential to solve seemingly intractable societal problems.

Among them is our own YY Ahn, who was recognized for his mathematical and computational methods to study complex systems, such as cells, the brain, society, and culture. His recent contribution includes a new framework to identify pervasively overlapping modules in networks, network-based algorithms to predict viral memes, and a new computational approach to study food culture. Congratulations to YY for this highly prestigious award!