Google Research

Visiting researcher program

Google is always looking to work with bright computer scientists, and many of them can be found at universities.

Through our Visiting Researcher program, both Google and Academia benefit as exciting ideas and research challenges are shared. In doing so, Google's world-class computing infrastructure is utilized to explore new projects at industrial scale, helping universities to be well-equipped to train the next generation of computer scientists to do long-term research.

Program information

The Visiting Researcher Program is available to both postdoctoral and university faculty candidates/applicants. Positions are flexible as part-time or full-time arrangements to accommodate a variety of schedules and commitments. Visiting Researchers typically collaborate with research and engineering teams at Google for 3 - 12 months.

Eligibility criteria

  • PhD or equivalent practical experience

    • Current PhD students may express interest, but will not be selected for a Visiting Researcher position until they have graduated from their program

  • Strong publication record (e.g., at top-tier, peer reviewed conferences and/or journals)

  • Ability to design and execute on a research agenda
  • Relevant research experience, including PhD/post-doc and full-time faculty experience, in one of the research areas listed below

Supporting cutting-edge research

Google is building the next generation of intelligent systems for all Google products. To achieve this, we’re working on projects that utilize the latest computer science techniques developed by the best and brightest software engineers and research scientists in the world.

Googlers collaborate across product areas, maintaining the flexibility and versatility required to adapt new projects that meet the demands of the world’s fast-paced business needs. We ask interested faculty and PhD graduates to categorize their proposals into one of the following areas of interest to Google in computer science and adjacent fields:

  • AI for social good
  • Algorithms and optimization
  • Algorithmic fairness
  • Computational neuroscience
  • Computer human artificial intelligence
  • Cooling and power
  • Geo/maps
  • Health research
  • Human-computer interaction
  • Information retrieval and real time content
  • Machine learning and data mining
  • Machine perception
  • Machine translation
  • Mobile
  • Natural language processing
  • Networking
  • Other
  • Physical interfaces and immersive experiences
  • Privacy
  • Quantum computing
  • Recommendation systems
  • Security
  • Social signal processing
  • Software engineering and programming languages
  • Speech
  • Structured data, extraction, semantic graph, and database management
  • Systems (hardware and software)
  • Virtual reality

Frequently asked questions

Learn more about our programs and outreach efforts on our FAQ page.

See FAQs