---
markdown_generated_at: "2026-10-14"
title: "2026 North America Program Details"
url: "https://www.qualcomm.com/research/university-relations/innovation-fellowship/2026-north-america"
---

# 2026 North America Program Details

We believe that research and development is the key to harnessing the power of imagination and to discovering new possibilities. We are excited to announce a new kind of Fellowship that promotes Qualcomm’s core values of **innovation**, **execution** and **teamwork**. Our goal is to enable students to pursue their futuristic innovative ideas.

[Learn about our other QIF programs](https://www.qualcomm.com/research/university-relations/innovation-fellowship)

- Winners
- Application & Proposal Phase
- Finalist Selections
- Finalist Instructions
- Timeline
- Participating Universities
- Selected Abstracts
- Areas of Interest
- FAQs

## 2026 North American Winners

### Congratulations to the 16 winning teams of Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship North America 2026!

We commend each of the finalists on excellent presentations and quality proposals.

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/bing-yue-wu?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Bing-Yue Wu

Democratizing Chip Design with On-Device Small Language Models as Assistants and Agents

ASU

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/atmadip-dey?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Atmadip Dey

Democratizing Chip Design with On-Device Small Language Models as Assistants and Agents

ASU

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/atharva-raut?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Atharva Raut

Test-Calibrated Thermal Digital Twins for Chiplet 2.5D/3D SoCs

CMU

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/JEWEICHUANG?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Je-Wei Chuang

Test-Calibrated Thermal Digital Twins for Chiplet 2.5D/3D SoCs

CMU

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/violet-han?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Violet (Yinuo) Han

Building Helpful Embodied AI Agents with Long Horizon Understanding

CMU

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/weiwei-sun?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Weiwei Sun

Building Helpful Embodied AI Agents with Long Horizon Understanding

CMU

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/yutong-kelly-he?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Yutong (Kelly) He

Training a Generally Curious Personal Agent: Learning What to Remember and What to Ask

CMU

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/fahim-tajwar?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Fahim Tajwar

Training a Generally Curious Personal Agent: Learning What to Remember and What to Ask

CMU

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/kaifeng-zhang-1?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Kaifeng Zhang

Learning Physics-Informed Visuo-Tactile World Model for Robot Manipulation

Columbia

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/binghao-huang?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Binghao Huang

Learning Physics-Informed Visuo-Tactile World Model for Robot Manipulation

Columbia

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/jinze-shi?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Jinze Shi

Heterogeneous Electro-optic RF-Optical Front-End for 6G (HERO-6G)

Michigan

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/yanglan?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Yang Lan

Heterogeneous Electro-optic RF-Optical Front-End for 6G (HERO-6G)

Michigan

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/kaiwen-he-cropped?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Kaiwen He

Making Modern Cryptography Faster and More Energy-Efficient Through Hardware Acceleration of Modular Arithmetic

MIT / CMU

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/qualcomm?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Tianyao Gu

Making Modern Cryptography Faster and More Energy-Efficient Through Hardware Acceleration of Modular Arithmetic

MIT / CMU

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/aryaman-gupta?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Aryaman Gupta

Safety Guardrails for Reasoning in End-to-End Autonomous Driving Foundation Models

Stanford

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/sathwik-karnik?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Sathwik Karnik

Safety Guardrails for Reasoning in End-to-End Autonomous Driving Foundation Models

Stanford

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/zizhang-li?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Zizhang Li

Physically Grounded World Modeling through Controllable Visual Generative Models

Stanford

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/ziyu-chen?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Ziyu Chen

Physically Grounded World Modeling through Controllable Visual Generative Models

Stanford

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/muhammad-ahmed-mohsin?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Muhammad Ahmed Mohsin

State-Space World Models for Intelligent RAN

Stanford

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/muhammad-umer?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Muhammad Umer

State-Space World Models for Intelligent RAN

Stanford

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/qualcomm?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### George Karfakis

Heterogeneous Chiplet-Based Architecture for Fully-Weight-Stationary Compute-in-Memory execution of Billion-Parameter models

UCLA

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/qualcomm?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Samyak Chakrabarty

Heterogeneous Chiplet-Based Architecture for Fully-Weight-Stationary Compute-in-Memory execution of Billion-Parameter models

UCLA

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/seth-zhao?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Seth Z. Zhao

Think Deep - Move Fast: Building Vision-Language-Action Model for Generalizable Autonomous Driving with Deep Reasoning and Efficient Action Generation

UCLA

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/zewei-zhou?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Zewei Zhou

Think Deep - Move Fast: Building Vision-Language-Action Model for Generalizable Autonomous Driving with Deep Reasoning and Efficient Action Generation

UCLA

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/sujoy-ghosh?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Sujoy Ghosh

Thermocompression Bonded III-V/Si Integration Platform for Optical, RF/mmWave, and Power Devices

UCLA

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/daniel-mc-govern?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Daniel McGovern

Thermocompression Bonded III-V/Si Integration Platform for Optical, RF/mmWave, and Power Devices

UCLA

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/sujun-tang?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Annabelle Sujun Tang

Reasoning Compiler: LLM-Guided Optimizations for Efficient Model Serving

UCSD

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/christopher-priebe?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Christopher Priebe

Reasoning Compiler: LLM-Guided Optimizations for Efficient Model Serving

UCSD

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/pandey-nilesh-headshot?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Nilesh Prasad Pandey

K-MEM: Synergizing Agentic Textual Memory with KV-Cache Reuse for Long-Horizon Agents

UCSD

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/lanxiang-hu?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Lanxiang Hu

K-MEM: Synergizing Agentic Textual Memory with KV-Cache Reuse for Long-Horizon Agents

UCSD

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/sreevatsank-kadaveru?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Sreevatsank Kadaveru

When Multimodal Sensing Meets the RAN: Sensing-to-Action Autonomy at the Edge

UCSD

![](https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/dmqualcommprod/ushasighosh-re-sized?$QC_Responsive$&fmt=png-alpha)

#### Ushasi Ghosh

When Multimodal Sensing Meets the RAN: Sensing-to-Action Autonomy at the Edge

UCSD

## Fellowship Winners and Finalists

The Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship began in 2009, and has continued to grow with the addition of more universities, more candidates, and expansion to our research centers internationally. Take a look at a list of all our fellowship winners and finalists from years past:

[Winners](https://www.qualcomm.com/research/university-relations/innovation-fellowship/winners)

[Finalists](https://www.qualcomm.com/research/university-relations/innovation-fellowship/finalists)