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Frequently asked questions

In addition to the FAQs below, please view the ARA Program Rules.
General
General
What research areas does ARA fund?
ARA funds in a variety of research areas relevant to Amazon, such as applied machine learning, automated reasoning, computer vision, fairness in artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms and theory, natural language processing, robotics, security, sustainability and more. Please refer to the detailed CFPs for more information.
What types of proposals does ARA fund?
The Amazon Research Awards (ARA) program funds academic research and related contributions to open-source projects by top academic researchers around the world.
What is the structure of an ARA award? Can it be extended?
Awards are structured as one-time unrestricted gifts to the Principal Investigator's academic institution or organization, and can include cash and AWS Promotional Credits. Though this funding is not extendable, applicants can submit new proposals for subsequent calls.
Applying for an award
How do I apply?
Please follow the instructions on the specific CFP you are applying to.
Who is eligible to apply?
Researchers from around the world are encouraged to apply. Please refer to the ARA Program Rules for eligibility.
What are the timelines for proposal submissions and decisions?
We evaluate research proposals and provide decisions via email to all applicants approximately three months after the submission deadline. Please follow the timeline on the specific CFP you are applying to.
What is an Amazon contact and is one required to apply?
An Amazon contact is an Amazon employee who is aware of the proposal, familiar with the Principal Investigator’s research and may be willing to serve as an Amazon research contact for the proposal, if it is selected. An Amazon contact is not required to submit a proposal. While the ARA team is not able to provide an Amazon contact for the PI prior to submission, all funded proposals will be assigned an Amazon research contact by the review panel.
Is it possible to have multiple faculty members on a single proposal?
Each proposal application should be submitted by a single faculty member, who will serve as the Primary PI. One co-PI per proposal can be included in the application form. ARA defines a co-PI as an individual equally accountable for research performance and management of funding. Formal co-PI’s must be a full-time faculty/permanent researcher and meet ARA eligibility requirements. Other members of the research team can and should be mentioned within the proposal.
Is it possible for one faculty member to be on multiple grants?
Principle Investigators can only submit one proposal at each deadline. A Primary PI can be listed as a co-PI on an additional proposal, but must withdraw if the other proposal is selected. It’s also possible that another CFP may decide to fund your research, if it meets the scope of that CFP.
What budget expenses should I include in my proposal submission?
A proposed cash budget is generally expected to support one to two graduate students (or a post-doctoral researcher) for one year, plus some conference travel and equipment. The budget should include a list of expected costs specified in USD and is not required to include administrative overhead costs. The final award amount will be determined by the awards panel. Please refer to the CFP for specific budget guidelines.


Additionally, proposals may include a request for AWS Promotional Credits1. Proposals should include the requested amount, a short justification, a list of AWS products and any AWS Public Datasets to be used in the proposed research. The final amount of free AWS Promotional Credits will be determined by the awards panel.


1. Please note that your use of any AWS Promotional Credit is subject to the general AWS Customer Agreement terms or other terms governing your use of AWS Services (“Agreement”). In the event of a conflict between these Rules and the Agreement, the Agreement will control with respect to your access to and use of the Service Offerings. Additionally, any use of AWS Promotional Credit will be in accordance with and subject to the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions. In the event of a conflict between these Rules and the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions, the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions will govern with respect to any AWS Promotional Credit you receive.
Proposal review process
Who evaluates the proposals and when will I know the outcome?
Project proposals are reviewed by an internal awards panel and the results are communicated approximately three months after the submission deadline. We will communicate the decision to the primary PI listed on each proposal, and will make an announcement on the ARA website. We expect the primary PI to notify the rest of their team about funding decisions.
Will I be able to find out why my proposal was not accepted?
Unfortunately, due to the number of proposals we receive, we are unable to provide detailed reasons a proposal was not accepted.
Award information
What happens after the ARA recipients are announced?
Each project will be assigned an Amazon research contact. The researchers are encouraged to maintain regular communication with their Amazon contact to discuss ongoing research and project progress. We also encourage publishing the outcome of the project and committing any related code to open-source code repositories.
Does Amazon retain any intellectual property and licensing on the material developed during the time period that a student is funded?
ARA funding is distributed as unrestricted gifts to universities. As such, the funding does not result in any transfer or license of any intellectual property rights. Please refer to the ARA Program Rules for more information.
Do recipients have access to Amazon data?
Recipients will have access to Amazon datasets that are already public, such as the Amazon Bin Image Dataset, but not to non-public data.
Does Amazon accept any legal obligation with respect to submitted proposals?
We are happy to review non-confidential project proposals. As such, project proposals shall not contain any confidential information (please do not include any information in your proposal that you or others consider confidential). Amazon does not accept any legal obligation (whether of confidentiality, compensation, return or otherwise) with respect to any proposals. Amazon reserves the right to implement similar ideas in the future without restriction or obligation. Please refer to the ARA Program Rules for more information.
Other
How can I contact the ARA team?
We provide limited email support via research-awards@amazon.com. Due to the volume of emails we receive, we may not be able to respond to questions where the answer is available on the website.
How can I find out about future ARA calls for proposals?
Please email research-awards@amazon.com to be added to the CFP email announcement.
Is the AWS Machine Learning Research Awards (MLRA) part of ARA?
Yes, in 2020 the two programs merged and MLRA now funds awards through ARA, under the AWS AI call for proposal.
Does Amazon provide any other funding opportunities?
Yes, please visit the collaborations page for more information.

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Member of Technical Staff, Artificial General Intelligence
US, CA, Sunnyvale
The Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) team is looking for a passionate, talented, and inventive Member of Technical Staff with a strong deep learning background, to build industry-leading Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) technology with Large Language Models (LLMs) and multimodal systems. Key job responsibilities As a Member of Technical Staff with the AGI team, you will lead the development of algorithms and modeling techniques, to advance the state of the art with LLMs. You will lead the foundational model development in an applied research role, including model training, dataset design, and pre- and post-training optimization. Your work will directly impact our customers in the form of products and services that make use of GenAI technology. You will leverage Amazon’s heterogeneous data sources and large-scale computing resources to accelerate advances in LLMs. About the team The AGI team has a mission to push the envelope in GenAI with LLMs and multimodal systems, in order to provide the best-possible experience for our customers.
Economist , Economic Decision Science
GB, London
We are looking for an Economist to work on exciting and challenging business problems related to Amazon Retail’s worldwide product assortment. You will build innovative solutions based on econometrics, machine learning, and experimentation. You will be part of a interdisciplinary team of economists, product managers, engineers, and scientists, and your work will influence finance and business decisions affecting Amazon’s vast product assortment globally. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, you know how to deliver results fast, and you have a deeply quantitative, highly innovative approach to solving problems, and long for the opportunity to build pioneering solutions to challenging problems, we want to talk to you. Key job responsibilities * Work on a challenging problem that has the potential to significantly impact Amazon’s business position * Develop econometric models and experiments to measure the customer and financial impact of Amazon’s product assortment * Collaborate with other scientists at Amazon to deliver measurable progress and change * Influence business leaders based on empirical findings
Economist, Ads Econ
US, NY, New York
Amazon Advertising is one of Amazon's fastest growing and most profitable businesses. Our products are used daily to surface new selection and provide customers a wider set of product choices along their shopping journeys. The business is focused on generating value for shoppers as well as advertisers. Our team uses a combination of econometrics, machine learning, and data science to build disruptive products for all our Advertising products. We also generate insights to guide Amazon Advertising strategy, providing direct support to senior leadership. We are looking for an experienced Economist with a deep passion for building econometric solutions and the ability to communicate data insights and scientific vision to execute on strategic projects. Key job responsibilities - Leverage econometrics and ML models to optimize advertising strategies on behalf of our customers. - Influence key business and product decisions based on insights from models you develop. - Perform hands-on analysis and modeling with enormous data sets to develop insights that increase traffic monetization and merchandise sales without compromising shopper experience. - Work closely with software engineers on detailed requirements to productionize the models you build. - Run A/B experiments that affect hundreds of millions of customers, evaluate the impact of your optimizations and communicate your results to various business stakeholders. - Work with other scientists, software developers, and product partners to implement your solutions.
Senior Applied Scientist, Sponsored Products and Brands
US, NY, New York
About Sponsored Products and Brands: The Sponsored Products and Brands (SPB) organization at Amazon Ads is re-imagining the advertising landscape through industry leading generative AI technologies, revolutionizing how millions of customers discover products and engage with brands across Amazon.com and beyond. We are at the forefront of re-inventing advertising experiences, bridging human creativity with artificial intelligence to transform every aspect of the advertising lifecycle from ad creation and optimization to performance analysis and customer insights. We are a passionate group of innovators dedicated to developing responsible and intelligent AI technologies that balance the needs of advertisers, enhance the shopping experience, and strengthen the marketplace. If you're energized by solving complex challenges and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI, join us in shaping the future of advertising. About Our Team: The Brand Beacon team is responsible for inventing impressions offerings for brands to increase share of voice via premium experiences, helping brands get discovered, acquire new customers and sustainably grow customer lifetime value. We build end-to-end solutions that enable brands to drive discovery, visibility and share of voice. This includes building advertiser controls, shopper experiences, monetization strategies and optimization features. We succeed when (1) shoppers discover, engage and build affinity with brands and (2) brands can grow their business at scale with our advertising products. About This Role: As a Senior Scientist for the team, you will have the opportunity to apply your deep subject matter expertise in the area of ML, LLM and GenAI models. You will invent new product experiences that enable novel advertiser and shopper experiences. This role will liaise with internal Amazon partners and work on bringing state-of-the-art GenAI models to production, and stay abreast of the latest developments in the space of GenAI and identify opportunities to improve the efficiency and productivity of the team. Additionally, you will define a long-term science vision for our advertising business, driven by our customer’s needs, and translate it into actionable plans for our team of applied scientists and engineers. This role will play a critical role in elevating the team’s scientific and technical rigor, identifying and implementing best-in-class algorithms, methodologies, and infrastructure that enable rapid experimentation and scaling. You will communicate learnings to leadership and mentor and grow Applied AI talent across org. * Develop AI solutions for advertiser and shopper experiences. Build monetization and optimization systems that leverage generative models to value and improve campaign performance. * Define a long-term science vision and roadmap for our advertising business, driven from our customers' needs, translating that direction into specific plans for applied scientists and engineering teams. This role combines science leadership, organizational ability, technical strength, product focus, and business understanding. * Design and conduct A/B experiments to evaluate proposed solutions based on in-depth data analyses. * Effectively communicate technical and non-technical ideas with teammates and stakeholders. * Stay up-to-date with advancements and the latest modeling techniques in the field. * Think big about the arc of development of Gen AI over a multi-year horizon and identify new opportunities to apply these technologies to solve real-world problems. #GenAI
Applied Science Manager, Stores-Ads Science
US, WA, Seattle
Amazon's Stores-Ads Science team operates at the intersection of Amazon's Stores and advertising businesses. We develop causal measurement systems, optimization algorithms, and machine learning models that inform how advertising affects shopper engagement, driving selling partner growth and marketplace economics. Our science shapes decisions both at the strategic level and in production systems. We are a team of interdisciplinary scientists who combine causal inference, economic modeling, and machine learning to drive measurable business impact. We are looking for an Applied Science Manager to lead our Ads Impact initiative. This team owns the science of understanding and optimizing how advertising creates value for shoppers and selling partners. What makes this role distinctive is its position at the frontier of AI and Economics: as Amazon's shopping experience evolves from traditional search toward LLM-powered, agentic commerce, the fundamental mechanisms through which advertising creates value are changing. This role will partner with leading scientists and academic researchers to measure these effects through large-scale causal experimentation, and develop novel methods to encode causal and economic reasoning into AI systems that optimize the shopping experience. Key job responsibilities In this role, you will lead a team of scientists, setting the technical vision and science roadmap for ads impact measurement and optimization. You will design experiments that identify the causal mechanisms through which advertising drives shopper engagement, advertiser value, and marketplace outcomes. You will develop optimization algorithms that integrate these causal signals into production and business decision-making, in close partnership with engineering and product teams across the organization. You will lead the research and communicate findings and recommendations to senior leadership through written narratives that connect technical science to business strategy. This role requires deep expertise in causal inference and experimental design, combined with strong applied ML skills and the engineering judgment to translate research into production systems. You will hire and develop future science leaders, think strategically, set ambitious roadmaps in highly ambiguous problem spaces, and foster a culture that values both intellectual depth and production impact. You will work cross-functionally, influencing across organizational boundaries to drive alignment on complex, multi-sided tradeoffs.
Senior Research Scientist, Ad Measurements Science
US, NY, New York
The Ads Measurement Science team in the Measurement, Ad Tech, and Data Science (MADS) team of Amazon Ads serves a centralized role developing solutions for a multitude of performance measurement products. We create solutions which measure the comprehensive impact of advertiser's ad spend, including sales impacts both online and offline and across timescales, and provide actionable insights that enable our advertisers to optimize their media portfolios. We also own the science solutions for AI tools that unlock new insights and automate high-effort customer workflows, such as custom query and report generation based on natural language user requests. We leverage a host of scientific technologies to accomplish this mission, including Generative AI, classical ML, Causal Inference, Natural Language Processing, and Computer Vision. As a Senior Research Scientist on the team, you will be at the forefront of innovation, developing measurement solutions end-to-end from inception to production. You will set the technical vision and innovate on behalf of our customers. You will propose, design, analyze, and productionize models to provide novel measurement insights to our customers. You will partner with engineering to deploy these solutions into production. You will work with key stakeholders from various business teams to enable advertisers to act upon those metrics. Key job responsibilities * Lead the development of ad measurement models and solutions that address the full spectrum of an advertiser's investment, focusing on scalable and efficient methodologies. * Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams including engineering, product management, and business teams to define and implement measurement solutions. * Use state-of-the-art scientific technologies including Generative AI, Classical Machine Learning, Causal Inference, Natural Language Processing, and Computer Vision to develop state of the art models that measure the impact of ad spend across multiple platforms and timescales. * Drive experimentation and the continuous improvement of ML models through iterative development, testing, and optimization. * Translate complex scientific challenges into clear and impactful solutions for business stakeholders. * Mentor and guide junior scientists, fostering a collaborative and high-performing team culture. * Foster collaborations between scientists to move faster, with broader impact. * Regularly engage with the broader scientific community with presentations, publications, and patents. A day in the life You will solve real-world problems by getting and analyzing large amounts of data, generate business insights and opportunities, design simulations and experiments, and develop statistical and ML models. The team is driven by business needs, which requires collaboration with other Scientists, Engineers, and Product Managers across the advertising organization. You will prepare written and verbal presentations to share insights to audiences of varying levels of technical sophistication. Team video https://advertising.amazon.com/help/G4LNN5YWHP6SM9TJ About the team We are a team of scientists across Applied, Research, Data Science and Economist disciplines. You will work with colleagues with deep expertise in ML, NLP, CV, Gen AI, and Causal Inference with a diverse range of backgrounds. We partner closely with top-notch engineers, product managers, sales leaders, and other scientists with expertise in the ads industry and on building scalable modeling and software solutions.
Senior Applied Scientist, Industrial Robotics Group
US, WA, Seattle
Amazon Industrial Robotics is seeking exceptional applied science talent to develop AI and machine learning systems that will enable the next generation of advanced manufacturing capabilities at unprecedented scale. We're building revolutionary software infrastructure that combines cutting-edge AI, large-scale optimization, and advanced manufacturing processes to create adaptive production control systems. As a Senior Applied Scientist, you will develop and improve machine learning systems that enable real-time manufacturing flow decisions. You will leverage state-of-the-art optimization and ML techniques, evaluate them against representative manufacturing scenarios, and adapt them to meet the robustness, reliability, and performance needs of production environments. You will invent new algorithms where gaps exist. You'll collaborate closely with software engineering, manufacturing engineering, robotics simulation, and operations teams, and your outputs will directly power the systems that determine what to build next, where to allocate resources, and how to maximize throughput. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in optimization and machine learning, with a proven track record of delivering scientifically complex solutions into production. You are hands-on, writing significant portions of critical-path scientific code while driving your team's scientific agenda. If you're passionate about inventing the intelligent manufacturing systems of tomorrow rather than optimizing those of today, this role offers the chance to make a lasting impact on the future of automation. Key job responsibilities - Identify and devise new scientific approaches for constraint identification, dispatch optimization, WIP release control, and predictive flow intelligence when the problem is ill-defined and new methodologies need to be invented - Lead the design, implementation, and successful delivery of scientifically complex solutions for real-time manufacturing flow optimization in production - Design and build ML models and optimization algorithms including constraint prediction, starvation risk forecasting, and dispatch optimization - Write a significant portion of critical-path scientific code with solutions that are inventive, maintainable, scalable, and extensible - Execute rapid, rigorous experimentation with reproducible results, closing the gap between simulation and real manufacturing environments - Build evaluation benchmarks that measure model performance against manufacturing outcomes including constraint utilization and throughput rather than traditional ML metrics alone - Influence your team's science and business strategy through insightful contributions to roadmaps, goals, and priorities - Partner with manufacturing engineering, robotics simulation, and applied intelligence teams to ensure scientific approaches are grounded in operational reality - Drive your team's scientific agenda and role model publishing of research results at peer-reviewed venues when appropriate and not precluded by business considerations - Actively participate in hiring and mentor other scientists, improving their skills and ability to deliver - Write clear narratives and documentation describing scientific solutions and design choices
Applied Scientist II- Recruiting AI Agents, Recruiting Agents & Candidate Voice
US, WA, Seattle
Do you want a role with deep meaning and the ability to make a major impact? As part of Intelligent Talent Acquisition (ITA), you'll have the opportunity to reinvent the hiring process and deliver unprecedented scale, sophistication, and accuracy for Amazon Talent Acquisition operations. ITA is an industry-leading people science and technology organization made up of scientists, engineers, analysts, product professionals and more, all with the shared goal of connecting the right people to the right jobs in a way that is fair and precise. Last year we delivered over 6 million online candidate assessments, and helped Amazon deliver billions of packages around the world by making it possible to hire hundreds of thousands of workers in the right quantity, at the right location and at exactly the right time. You’ll work on state-of-the-art research, advanced software tools, new AI systems, and machine learning algorithms, leveraging Amazon's in-house tech stack to bring innovative solutions to life. Join ITA in using technologies to transform the hiring landscape and make a meaningful difference in people's lives. Together, we can solve the world's toughest hiring problems. Recruiting Agents and Candidate Voice team is revolutionizing how Amazon finds and connects with talent worldwide! We're looking for an experienced Applied Scientist to design and implement agentic solutions that help millions of candidates find their dream jobs at Amazon. Key job responsibilities • Design and architect AI-powered agentic solutions that help candidates navigate Amazon's hiring process, including scoping requirements, identifying dependencies and constraints, and creating robust scientific and technical designs that balance candidate experience with system scalability. • Implement and deploy conversational AI agents leveraging state-of-the-art LLM and GenAI technologies to enable candidates to explore job opportunities, understand role requirements, and receive personalized guidance throughout their hiring journey. • Develop rigorous evaluation frameworks to measure agent effectiveness, candidate satisfaction, and hiring outcomes—continuously iterating on models to improve accuracy, fairness, and user experience across millions of candidate interactions. • Collaborate cross-functionally with Research Scientists, Software Engineers, and Product teams to integrate agentic solutions into Amazon's candidate-facing platforms, ensuring seamless deployment and alignment with broader Talent Acquisition goals. • Drive innovation in agentic AI research by staying current with advances in NLP, LLMs, and autonomous agent architectures, while contributing to the scientific community through publications, internal tech talks, and knowledge sharing. About the team Our team focuses on understanding and improving the experience of both job seekers and the recruiters who support them. You'll be at the intersection of people, data, and technology—solving fascinating problems that directly impact how we hire the best talent globally.
Applied Scientist III- Recruiting AI Agents, Recruiting Agents & Candidate Voice
US, WA, Seattle
Do you want a role with deep meaning and the ability to make a major impact? As part of Intelligent Talent Acquisition (ITA), you'll have the opportunity to reinvent the hiring process and deliver unprecedented scale, sophistication, and accuracy for Amazon Talent Acquisition operations. ITA is an industry-leading people science and technology organization made up of scientists, engineers, analysts, product professionals and more, all with the shared goal of connecting the right people to the right jobs in a way that is fair and precise. Last year we delivered over 6 million online candidate assessments, and helped Amazon deliver billions of packages around the world by making it possible to hire hundreds of thousands of workers in the right quantity, at the right location and at exactly the right time. You’ll work on state-of-the-art research, advanced software tools, new AI systems, and machine learning algorithms, leveraging Amazon's in-house tech stack to bring innovative solutions to life. Join ITA in using technologies to transform the hiring landscape and make a meaningful difference in people's lives. Together, we can solve the world's toughest hiring problems. Recruiting Agents and Candidate Voice team is revolutionizing how Amazon finds and connects with talent worldwide! We're looking for an experienced Applied Scientist to design and implement agentic solutions that help millions of candidates find their dream jobs at Amazon. Key job responsibilities • Design and architect AI-powered agentic solutions that help candidates navigate Amazon's hiring process, including scoping requirements, identifying dependencies and constraints, and creating robust scientific and technical designs that balance candidate experience with system scalability. • Implement and deploy conversational AI agents leveraging state-of-the-art LLM and GenAI technologies to enable candidates to explore job opportunities, understand role requirements, and receive personalized guidance throughout their hiring journey. • Develop rigorous evaluation frameworks to measure agent effectiveness, candidate satisfaction, and hiring outcomes—continuously iterating on models to improve accuracy, fairness, and user experience across millions of candidate interactions. • Collaborate cross-functionally with Research Scientists, Software Engineers, and Product teams to integrate agentic solutions into Amazon's candidate-facing platforms, ensuring seamless deployment and alignment with broader Talent Acquisition goals. • Drive innovation in agentic AI research by staying current with advances in NLP, LLMs, and autonomous agent architectures, while contributing to the scientific community through publications, internal tech talks, and knowledge sharing. About the team Our team focuses on understanding and improving the experience of both job seekers and the recruiters who support them. You'll be at the intersection of people, data, and technology—solving fascinating problems that directly impact how we hire the best talent globally.
Senior Applied Scientist, AWS Automated Reasoning
GB, London
Sr. Applied Scientists in AWS Automated Reasoning are dedicated to making AWS the best computing service in the world for customers who require advanced and rigorous solutions for automated reasoning, privacy, and sovereignty. Key job responsibilities The successful candidate will: Solve large or significantly complex problems that require deep knowledge and understanding of your domain and scientific innovation. Own strategic problem solving, and take the lead on the design, implementation, and delivery for solutions that have a long-term quantifiable impact. Provide cross-organizational technical influence, increasing productivity and effectiveness by sharing your deep knowledge and experience. Develop strategic plans to identify fundamentally new solutions for business problems. Assist in the career development of others, actively mentoring individuals and the community on advanced technical issues.
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