AdvML Rising Star Awards

Call for Year 2026 AdvML Rising Star Award Applications!

Awards will be announced in August
Award talks and ceremonies will take place at The Workshop on AdvML-Frontiers × CoTMA colocated at COLM 2026

Key Dates (AoE):

July 24th, 2026: Candidate material due
July 31st, 2026: Reference letter due

Objective

At the 2026 COLM AdvML-Frontiers × CoTMA Workshop, two rising star awards will be given to young researchers who have made significant contributions and research advances in adversarial machine learning, with a specific emphasis on the robustness, security, and safety of (multi-agent) machine learning systems. The applications will be reviewed by AdvML’s award committee. The awardees will give a presentation about their research works at the COLM AdvML-Frontiers × CoTMA Workshop in Octoboer 2026. We encourage researchers from minority or underrepresented groups to apply.

Domain of Interest

We encourage researchers working on the following research topics to apply:

Safety, security, and robustness of Generative AI and Multi-agent Systems
Adversarial attacks and defenses in machine learning and data mining
Provably robust machine learning methods and systems
Robustness certification and property verification techniques
Trustworthy machine learning and AI ethics
Machine learning under adversarial settings
Generative models and their applications (e.g., generative adversarial nets)
Robust optimization methods and (computational) game theory
Privacy and security in machine learning systems
Novel applications and innovations using adversarial machine learning

Eligibility and Requirements

Senior PhD students enrolled in a PhD program before December 2022 or researchers holding postdoctoral positions (including faculty positions) who obtained PhD degree after April 2023
Applicants are required to submit the following materials:

(a). CV (including a list of publications)

(b). Research statement (up to 2 pages, single column, excluding reference), including your research accomplishments and future research directions

(c). A 5-minute video recording for your research summary

(d). Two letters of recommendation uploaded to this form by the referees before July 31st, 2026 (AoE)

The awardee must attend the COLM AdvML-Frontiers × CoTMA Workshop and give a presentation in person
Submit the required materials (a),(b),(c) to this form by July 24th, 2026 (AoE)