Mindy Tran received the 2026 Google PhD Fellowship

For the second year in a row, a doctoral researcher from MPI-SP is included among the winners of this prestigious award

Mindy Tran received one of the 2026 Google PhD Fellowships for her research on developing inclusive security and privacy technology and practice for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) people. Mindy Tran is a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute of Security and Privacy in the Human-Centered Security and Privacy Group.

Her work focuses not only on understanding the deaf and hard-of-hearing users’ needs, but also on working directly with these communities in order to develop privacy and security measures that are truly helpful for them. Her work has now been recognized by Google.org via the 2026 Global Google PhD Fellowship. “This award is very meaningful to me,” says Mindy Tran. “For years, I have admired other peers and mentors who received this award and consider them role models in my own research journey,” she added.

During her doctoral research journey, Mindy has built connections and trust with Deaf communities in Germany and is learning German Sign Language herself. “Her work challenges the label of "hard-to-reach” populations, as she shows that Deaf communities are not hard to reach; rather, researchers need to take the time to go where they are and learn from them, in ways that also improve the research methodology”, says Yixin Zou, her doctoral supervisor and head of the Human-Centered Security and Privacy Group at MPI-SP.

In her future work, she hopes to explore how AI can improve information access for DHH people. For example, she is interested in developing and evaluating the effectiveness of Q&A AI assistants to help DHH users access and understand security, privacy, and safety risks and protective measures. She is currently working with Dr. Tanusree Sharma at Penn State to design more accessible and inclusive AI provenance systems that help DHH people access information about AI-generated content and make more informed judgments about it. “It is so important to involve DHH communities in the design and evaluation of such methods,” says Tran. “Not only to acknowledge the historical discrimination that they have experienced by hearing people, but also to ensure that our research outcomes address the real-world wants and needs of these communities, rather than relying on the assumptions made by hearing researchers. This does not only apply to DHH communities but also to other communities that researchers aim to serve.”

The Global Google PhD Fellowships recognize outstanding graduate students conducting exceptional, innovative research in computer science and related fields, with a particular focus on candidates seeking to influence the future of technology.