Graduate Fellowship Program

The Norton Labs Graduate Fellowship

(formerly known as the Symantec Research Labs Fellowship)

Norton Labs’ research on cyber safety influences future technology and impacts the consumer cybersecurity industry worldwide. Norton Labs is part of NortonLifeLock, a global leader in consumer cyber safety.

The selection process for the 2022 Norton Labs Graduate Fellowship program has come to a close. We thank all those who applied, and are pleased to announce our 2022 winners, who are listed below. We plan to accept applications for the 2023 Fellowship in the Fall of 2022. 

Fellowships will be bestowed on exceptional Ph.D. students who meet the eligibility criteria listed below. Our program aims to fund innovative research that has real-world value and aligns well with key areas within our business. Topics of interest include:

• Privacy and Identity: Applied and novel techniques for privacy and identity-protection objectives such as authentication, authorization, verifiable claims, trust, anonymity, ubiquitous and usable encryption, and privacy-preserving analytics.
• Security: Achieving security objectives in consumer-related contexts including operating systems, web, mobile devices, Internet of Things, and cloud-based services through such mechanisms as trusted hardware, secure programming languages, security by design, threat and malware characterization, and auditing and deception techniques.
• Machine Learning: Robustness, interpretability, security, privacy, and accountability of machine learning systems. This includes scalable machine learning methods for graph and time-series analyses, anomaly detection, natural language processing, and distributed model training, in support of the privacy/identity and security areas mentioned above.
• Human Factors: Applications of psychology, sociology, anthropology, behavioral economics, human-computer interaction, linguistics, and other human sciences to security and privacy. These include usable security, use of technology for social good, effective notifications for privacy, security, and identity theft, and both human-assisted AI and AI-assisted humans.

Provisions of the Award

The Norton Labs Graduate Fellowship provides up to $20,000 USD that may be used to cover one year of the student's tuition fees and/or reimburse expenses incurred by the student during research collaboration with Norton Labs. Common examples of expenses include, but not limited to, conference registration fees, travel expenses, hardware, etc. If the recipient's intended use of the endowment is to cover tuition, this portion of the award will be made available through the university.

Most importantly, each award includes a salaried internship with Norton Labs. In most cases, interns will collaborate with Norton Labs at one of our locations (Culver City, CA, USA; Mountain View, CA, USA; Dublin, Ireland; Sophia-Antipolis, France). Please note that all fellowship applicants shall be considered for internships and full-time employment with NortonLifeLock and may be encouraged to apply for open positions.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applying students must be enrolled in a Ph.D. program.
• Preference will be given to students who desire to work in an industrial research lab and to those working on innovative research projects in areas related to NortonLifeLock's businesses and interests.
• Recipients will also be selected based on their overall potential for research excellence and their academic progress to date as evidenced by publications. Typically, award recipients are expected to have produced multiple relevant publications at top-tier conferences.

Required Application Information

Application materials must include the following:

• Resume or CV. Please include current enrollment year of grad school as well as anticipated graduation date. (Please use the following naming convention for the file: cv_<lastname>_<firstname>.pdf*)
• Personal statement of research interests, not exceeding 750 words, excluding references. Applicants are strongly encouraged to articulate the value and novelty of their past and current research, and to describe their future research plans and interests. (Use the following naming convention for the file: research_stmt_<lastname>_<firstname>.pdf*)
• Two letters of recommendation from professors or industry researchers who can evaluate the applicant's scientific aptitude and potential for research. In order to preserve confidentiality, authors may send letters of recommendation directly to NortonLifeLock. (Use the following naming convention for the file: recommendation_letter_<applicant_lastname><applicant_firstname><recommender_lastname>.pdf*)

* When emailing the application please use "Norton Labs Fellowship Application" in the subject line. All fellowship application materials will be handled in accordance with NortonLifeLock's privacy policy for job applicants, which can be found here: https://www.nortonlifelock.com/us/en/benefits/privacy/

Application Dates and Process for the 2022 Fellowship

• Fellowship applications, including resumes or CVs, personal statements of research, and letters of recommendation, must be received no later than 11:59pm on January 12, 2022, Pacific Time Zone. Please note that this deadline is firm and will not be extended.
• As part of the application process, some candidates may be contacted for telephone interviews.
• Final award decisions will be announced in February 2022.
• Applications and letters of recommendation can be sent to us via email: 

Email to: Norton_Labs@nortonlifelock.com

Questions?

Please direct any additional questions about the Norton Labs Fellowship Program to: Norton_Labs@nortonlifelock.com

Meet the 2022 Norton Labs (formerly Symantec Research Labs) Graduate Fellowship Winners

• Yue Zhao, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
• Xinlei He, CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Germany