IRIS-HEP Fellows Program
We are not currently accepting Fellow applications. Please watch this page for updates regarding future opportunities.
People are the key to successful software. IRIS-HEP aims to promote the development of advanced research software skills by providing opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to connect with mentors within the larger High Energy Physics (HEP) and Computational/Data Science community. At the same time, we aim to promote software as a collaborative activity and encourage collaborations which engage individuals in ways that maximize their potential and their potential impact on the community.
To accomplish these goals, IRIS-HEP has created a Fellows program. IRIS-HEP Fellows will spend some number of months working with a mentor to build their skills while working on a research software project relevant to the Institute.
Who should apply to the Fellows program? - Are you reasonably comfortable with basic programming through skills acquired (for example) from coursework or dedicated training activities? Are you interested in building on those skills to gain experience through contributions to cutting edge open source research software projects? Then the IRIS-HEP Fellows program could be for you. Prior physics knowledge is helpful, but not required. We will also offer dedicated training activities to help you improve specific software skills. Applications from women and members of underrepresented groups in STEM activities are particularly encouraged.
Projects: Research software projects should in general be in the R&D areas listed above or (in some cases) be projects of more general interest to the HEP community. How do you find a project? There are several possibilities:
- Examples of currently open IRIS-HEP Fellow projects can be found on a separate webpage. These projects are of interest to IRIS-HEP researchers (who may then act as mentors). You can write to the mentor listed to discuss or reach out to fellows@iris-hep.org for more information. This page may be updated from time to time, so check back and reload.
- Additional example projects of interest in the wider HEP community can also be found on the HEP Software Foundation Google Summer of Code (HSF GSoC) webpage. While GSoC is a separate program, funded by Google, many of the projects could also be appropriate for IRIS-HEP Fellows if they are related to the R&D areas listed above.
- Recent Fellows and links to descriptions of their projects can be found below in the list of current and past Fellows. In some cases, there may be continuations of those projects.
- Some additional projects can be found on the open projects page of the Compiler Research project
- You can explore the links above to the IRIS-HEP R&D research activities. Most IRIS-HEP active projects list contacts with whom you can discuss to bring your own ideas.
Funding: The funding support for IRIS-HEP Fellows associated with U.S. academic institutions is provided by the National Science Foundation through Cooperative Agreement OAC-1836650 as well as private foundation support. Funding for Fellows associated with international academic institutions has been provided by a combination of university, industry and private foundation support.
Current IRIS-HEP Fellows









May – Jul, 2022











Jun – Aug, 2021


University School of Information, Communication and Technology, GGSIPU, New Delhi, India

Former IRIS-HEP Fellows




























Jan – Jul, 2021














Jun – Sep, 2019










