Imperial alumnus receives prestigious scholarship to research in United States

Amin Karamlou

Imperial graduate Amin Karamlou has received one of the world’s most well-regarded scholarship programmes, the Fulbright Award.

Amin Karamlou, a recent graduate from the Department of Computing has received the Fulbright Elsevier Data Analytics Award to enable him to research at the University of Texas at Austin on one of the most well-regarded and impactful scholarship programmes in the world.

As a participant, Amin has been selected to research open problems in theoretical computer science. One of his goals during the visit is to work on the area of quantum complexity theory, with hopes of identifying problems that quantum computers can solve more efficiently than the classical computers we use today.

Exploring and collaborating

On receiving the Award, Amin said: “I am immensely grateful for the opportunity granted to me by the Fulbright commission. Having grown up in a city as multicultural as London, I never say no to the chance to travel and meet new people. This award not only enables me to pursue the research I am passionate about at one of the top institutions in the world, but will also allow me to explore new regions of the United States that I have never visited before. While in the US I hope to make new friends and colleagues who I can collaborate with for years to come.”

Amin currently works as a researcher at Imperial where he recently completed his MEng degree in computing. His interests broadly lie within theoretical computer science. On returning to the UK after his time in Austin, Amin will begin his PhD studies with a focus on complexity theory, a field dedicated to identifying the inherent difficulty of computational problems. Any well-defined task, be it protein folding, finding Nash equilibria or even playing video games, can be formalised as a computational problem. For this reason, Amin believes that solving the open problems of complexity theory will have implications for a wide variety of other fields, making it a worthwhile subject of research.

As part of the Fulbright Foreign Student Programme, the Awards provide the only scholarships available to students, academics and other professionals to study, lecture and/or research in any discipline at any accredited US university. The Awards form part of the US-UK Fulbright Commission’s work to promote leadership, learning and empathy between nations through educational exchange.

Transatlantic relationships

Penny Egan CBE, Executive Director, US-UK Fulbright Commission said: “This cohort of Fulbright grantees will have the opportunity to immerse themselves fully in another culture, work collaboratively and develop lasting transatlantic relationships. In so doing, they will build upon the work of the more than 23,000 alumni of the US-UK Fulbright Programme that have come before them, helping move us closer towards Senator Fulbright’s vision of a peaceful, more prosperous world.”

The US-UK Fulbright Commission provides the only bilateral, transatlantic scholarship programme in the UK, offering Awards for study or research in any field, at any accredited US or UK university.

The Commission fosters intercultural understanding between the USA and the UK through educational exchange. Since the Commission was founded by diplomatic treaty in 1948, it has enabled more than 23,000 British and American citizens to study, research or teach at universities on either side of the Atlantic – building relationships, knowledge, and leadership in support of the long-term interests of the United States and the United Kingdom. In the 21st century, Fulbrighters work to address major global challenges, from energy sustainability and economic development to public health and food security.