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Terms and conditions: Amazon Physical Science Fellowship Competition

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Official Rules

NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING.

PLEASE READ THESE OFFICIAL RULES CAREFULLY. BY ACCESSING OR PARTICIPATING IN THE COMPETITION, YOU (“Participant”, “you” “your”) AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THESE OFFICIAL RULES AND ALL TERMS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE OFFICIAL RULES, YOU CANNOT PARTICIPATE IN THE COMPETITION.

ELIGIBILITY: The Amazon Physical Science Fellowship Competition (“Competition”) is open for participation by invitation only to natural persons who are legal residents of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding Quebec), Switzerland, China, Czech, The Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Poland, Singapore, Sweden and the fifty United States and the District of Columbia, who are at least 18 years of age at the time of entry or the age of majority in such person’s jurisdiction of residence, whichever is greater, who (i) hold a PhD in Physics or a related discipline, (ii) have a current, or confirmed pending, professorial affiliation with an academic institution with a high-ranking Physics Departments at universities in the referenced jurisdictions (provided that the total duration of such affiliation is not greater than 10 years), and (iii) are invited to participate. Amazon.com Services, LLC (“Sponsor”) and its parent, subsidiary and affiliate companies, employees, agents and suppliers, and the immediate family (spouse, parents, siblings and children) and household members of each such person are not eligible to participate, enter, or win any grant. In the event of a dispute as to the identity of a participant, the individual whom Sponsor invited to participate and whose name is identified in the participating QMarkets account (described below) will be deemed to be the Participant. Potential winners are subject to verification before any grant will be awarded. By participating in the Competition, Participants fully and unconditionally agree and accept these official rules (“Official Rules”) and Sponsor’s decisions, which are final and binding in all matters related to the Competition. Winning a grant is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements set forth herein. VOID WHEREVER PROHIBITED OR RESTRICTED BY LAW.

COMPETITION PERIOD:

This Competition will follow the approximate schedule outlined below, subject to adjustment as reasonably necessary:

Registration and Initial Submission Phase: May 29, 2022 to June 18, 2022

Debiasing Phase: June 26, 2022 to July 2, 2022

Curation Phase: July 3, 2022 to July 23, 2022

Judging Phase: July 24, 2022 to September 3, 2022

Interview Phase: September 4, 2022 to September 17, 2022 (Subject to change pending availability of the members of the Review Board)

HOW TO ENTER: The Competition will consist of several phases discussed below.

Pre-Competition Phase: Sponsor will send out invitations to participate in the Competition (“Invitation Email” or collectively, “Invitation Emails”). Creation of an account and use of the QMarkets platform is free of charge for Participants.

Registration and Initial Submission Phase: After potential Participants have received the Invitation Email, they must follow the link to register on Qmarkets and complete a profile by answering all of the questions in the registration form.

Participants must submit three answers to the following question – What scientific results since the year 2000 have had the most profound impact on what you think is possible? Participants must provide the following for each submission (each such submission and collectively, an “Initial Submission”):

  1. Title of Submission briefly stating the applicable scientific result;
  2. Category (Participant will select from provided options);
  3. Paragraph description of the scientific results understandable by an undergraduate in a technical field (limited to 2500 characters);
  4. Concept (Participant will be able to select multiple responses from provided options);
  5. URL or DOI to at least one but up to three publications on the applicable scientific result;
  6. Earliest date of the applicable scientific result; and
  7. Optional, the names of up to two principal investigators associated with the applicable scientific result.

Participants who submit at least three (3) Initial Submissions by June 18, 2022 will advance to the next stages of the Competition. Only the first three (3) Initial Submissions submitted by Participant will be eligible for judging during any of the subsequent phases. The Sponsor may combine Initial Submissions covering the similar subject matter and each Participant will receive full credit for the Initial Submission.

Debiasing Phase: Participant must vote on which scientific results described in the Initial Submission(s) made available during this phase to Participant has had a more profound impact/or has changed what you think is possible.

Curation Phase: Participant must submit commentaries (each a “Commentary” collectively “Commentaries”) on ten (10) of the Initial Submissions compiled by Sponsor and made available during this phase to Participants. Each Commentary must comply with the Materials Guidelines (defined below).

Participants who submit at least ten (10) Commentaries by July 23, 2022 will advance to the next stages of the Competition. The first ten (10) Commentary provided by a Participant will be considered their portfolio for judging purposes (“Commentary Portfolio”).

Judging Phase: Sponsor will begin the Judging Process which is broken down into two (2) stages:

  • Triage Stage: A panel of judges comprised of Sponsor’s personnel will review the Initial Submissions and Commentary Portfolios and will judge them by giving a score from 1-10 in each of the following categories:
    • Initial Submissions are clearly written and understandable at the general technical undergraduate level.
    • Initial Submissions efficiently and effectively describe a scientific result since the year 2000.
    • Initial Submissions are clearly unique and independent from Initial Submissions submitted by other Participants.
    • Initial Submissions are innovative and insightful with the potential to change the world.
    • Commentary Portfolio is clearly written and understandable at the general technical undergraduate level.
    • Commentary Portfolio efficiently and effectively describes the importance of the corresponding results.
    • Commentary Portfolio covers results from multiple different scientific disciplines
    • Commentary Portfolio covers results that are innovative and insightful with the potential to change the world.
    • Commentary Portfolio adds unique insight or perspectives that were not included in the results to which the Commentaries correspond.

Participants will also receive points for each time one of the scientific results identified in their Initial Submissions received a vote in the Debiasing Phase based upon the following equation: [(10) x (# of Votes for that Initial Submission)] / (Highest # of Votes given to any Initial Submission).

The ten (10) Commentary Portfolios with the highest scores will advance to next stage of the Judging Phase unless there are ties in which case up to fifteen (15) Commentary Portfolios with the highest scores will advance to next stage of the Judging Phase.

In case there are ties:

  1. If the ties lead to fewer than or equal to 15 Commentary Portfolios achieving qualifying scores all 15, or fewer as applicable, respective Participants will advance to the following stage.
  2. The Commentary Portfolios with the higher score in the category “Commentary Portfolios cover results that are innovative and insightful with the potential to change the world” will be deemed the higher scoring Commentary Portfolios among the tied Commentary Portfolios scores
  3. In case there are ties leading to more than 15 Commentary Portfolios achieving qualifying scores after 2., the remaining tied Commentary Portfolio(s) with the higher score in the category “Commentary Portfolios efficiently and effectively describe the importance of the corresponding results” will be deemed the higher scoring Commentary Portfolios among the tied Commentary Portfolios scores.
  4. In case there are ties leading to more than 15 Commentary Portfolios achieving qualifying scores after 3., Sponsor will select and apply successive skill-based judging criteria from the above list to the remaining tied Commentary Portfolios to determine the higher scoring Commentary Portfolios among the tied Commentary Portfolios until there are 15 or fewer Commentary Portfolios remaining. The 10-15 Commentary Portfolio(s) selected in this stage are referred to as the “Shortlist Portfolio.”
  • Shortlist Stage: A Review Board of up to ten (10) Sponsor designated individuals will each evaluate the Shortlist Portfolios. Review Board members will give each Shortlist Portfolio a score from 1-10 on each of the following criteria:
    • Initial Submissions are innovative and insightful with the potential to change the world
    • Commentary Portfolio covers results that are innovative and insightful with the potential to change the world
    • Commentary Portfolio adds unique insight or perspectives that were not included in the results to which the Commentary Portfolio corresponds
    • Commentary Portfolio offers evidence that the Participant can conceive of novel applications and disruptive technologies
    • Commentary Portfolio offers evidence that the Participant can perceive broad significance of specific results in applied research
    • Commentary Portfolio offers evidence that the curator can think practically and ambitiously-realistically in both an engineering and business sense
    • Commentary Portfolio is clear, informative, and succinct
    • Commentary Portfolio offers evidence that the Participant appears to have command over a broad technical area, as opposed to a very specialized field of expertise
    • Commentary Portfolio offers evidence that the Participant is aware of emerging technologies and some history of physical sciences-based innovation

In case of any ties in the Shortlist Stage, Sponsor will apply the same tie-breaker criteria identified in the Triage Stage to the tied Shortlist Portfolios except that only five (5) Shortlist Portfolios will be selected. The Participants with the five (5) top scoring Shortlist Portfolios will advance to the next phase (“Finalists”).

Interview Phase: The Finalists will complete a technical interview (the “Technical Interview”) with members of the Review Board. The Finalists who receive the highest scores from the Technical Interviews will be the potential winners of the Competition, subject to verification.

Each Technical Interview will include members of the Review Board where Finalists will be asked substantive questions about their Commentary Portfolio, their area of study, and general knowledge in the Physics field. Review Board members will evaluate Finalists by providing a score from 1-10 in the following categories:

  • Number of publications and frequency of science conference attendance.
  • Technical command of a relatively broad field.
  • Familiarity with (i) applications of physical sciences to the development of technologies and services, (ii) practical impacts of their technical field and (iii) potential applications that are the primary drivers of current research.
  • Research and other evidence demonstrate an aptitude for finding surprising solutions to tough problems and/or asking important questions.
  • Ability to communicate clearly and succinctly regarding the significance of technical ideas with a non-expert audience; able to adapt the register of their writing/speech for audiences of varying technical expertise.
  • Ability to connect basic scientific results with significant contribution to practical methods and technologies
  • Earnestly enthusiastic for the Fellow's role and ability of finding ways to turn scientific results into technologies with the ability to improve the world

In case there are ties:

  1. Finalist with the higher score in the preceding fourth bullet point category above will be deemed the higher scoring Finalist between or among the tied Finalists.
  2. The remaining tied Finalist (if any) with the higher score in the preceding third bullet point category above will be deemed the higher scoring Finalist between or among the tied Finalists.

WINNER DETERMINATION AND NOTIFICATION: On or about September 25, 2022, potential winners (the “Winners”) will be informed via email that they have been selected pending verification of their qualifications, to be completed no later than October 30, 2022.

Winners must complete the following documents: affidavit of eligibility, tax documentation, and, except where prohibited, a release of liability and a publicity release (collectively, “Winner Documentation”) to receive the Grant (or direct a charity donation if applicable).

GRANT: Up to three (3) Winners will receive Fifty Thousand US Dollars (US$50,000.00) per year for three (3) years ($150,000.00 total for each Winner). Approximate Retail Value (“ARV”) of each Grant: $150,000.00.

Grants may be subject to United States or other jurisdictions’ withholding taxes and/or to taxation in your country of residence. Any valuation of the Grant stated above is based on available information provided to Sponsor and the value of any Grant awarded to a Winner will be reported for tax purposes as required by law. Each winner must provide Sponsor with a valid taxpayer identification number or social security number (as applicable) before any grant will be awarded. Grants may be subject to 25% (or a different amount) federal tax withholding and additional applicable state withholdings depending on winner’s place of residence. Outside of the US, the Winner may be subject to a tax on the value of any grant awarded. The Winners are solely responsible for reporting and paying any and all applicable taxes. The Winners understand and agree that the winners may be responsible for taxes exceeding the amounts listed above, for reasons such as, without limitation, winner’s tax bracket. Winner should consult an accountant or tax professional to determine tax implications in accepting and using any Grant.

Grants may not be transferred, assigned, or substituted. Grants will not be redeemed or exchanged for cash, except where required by law. In no event will more than the stated number of Grants be awarded. No grant substitution or exchange will be allowed, except by the Sponsor, who reserves the right to substitute a grant for a prize of equal or greater value at any time and for any reason.

Winners who cannot accept the grant or direct a charity donation as described below for any reason (including, but not limited to, the terms of their employment and regulations and laws that apply based on their citizenship, location of residence, or location of employment) will be ineligible for receiving the Grant (or directing the charity donation). Italian residents are ineligible for receiving the Grant but are still eligible to receive the title of “Amazon Physical Science Fellow”.

In the case that a potential Fellow (i) is ineligible to receive the Grant, (ii) does not return the completed and executed Winner Documentation by October 30, 2022, or (iii) prefers not to receive the Grant, the fund will be donated to the Association for Women in Science (or if permitted under the applicable laws, regulations and policies, to a non-profit charity of the potential Fellow’s choice from those listed on guidestar.org).

In the event a Grant is forfeited for any reason, including for non-compliance with these Official Rules, Sponsor may disqualify such Finalist and award the Grant to the next highest scoring Finalist.

SUBMISSION AND PORTFOLIO REQUIREMENTS: Participants agree, represent and warrant that all materials, including without limitation Initial Submissions and Commentary Portfolios and parts thereof (“Materials”), submitted to Sponsor at any point during the Competition meet the following requirements (“Material Guidelines”):

  • Materials must be in text format and in English language.
  • Materials must not include or disclose any trade secret or confidential information.
  • Materials must not contain unsafe behavior or situations, profanity, nudity, pornographic images or explicit sexual themes, graphic violence, defamatory or libelous statements, false or misleading advertising, or any other material considered illegal or inappropriate. Materials containing any such aspects and/or that are in violation of a law or otherwise deemed by Sponsor, in its sole discretion, to be prejudicial to Sponsor or any other person or party affiliated with the promotion and administration of this Competition or inappropriate in any way, may be disqualified.
  • Initial Submissions and Commentary Portfolios must be the original work of the Participant (except for public domain material that is clearly identified as such in the Initial Submission or Commentary Portfolio) and must be under no restriction, contractual or otherwise, that will prevent Sponsor’s use of the Initial Submission or Commentary Portfolio and each and every aspect of the Initial Submission or Commentary Portfolio must be free of any and all liens, encumbrances, and claims of third parties.
  • Materials must not infringe on any copyrights, patents, confidential information, trade secrets, trademarks, or proprietary, industrial, or other rights belonging to any person or entity, or violate any person’s rights of privacy or publicity or violate any law, rule, statute, or order of any jurisdiction.
  • Initial Submissions and Commentary Portfolios must be in compliance with Participant’s employer’s policies.

Sponsor may in its sole discretion disqualify any Participant that is responsible for submitting any Material that Sponsor determines violates the Materials Guidelines or the Official Rules. Sponsor may also, in its sole discretion, disqualify any Participant who has engaged or engages in behavior that is disparaging or derogatory of Sponsor, members of the Review Board or any other person or party affiliated with the promotion and administration of this Competition, or of any other Participant. Sponsor may also disqualify any Participant who violates any law, rule, statute, or order of any jurisdiction in connection with the Competition, or whose participation in the Competition results in Sponsor’s, or puts Sponsor at risk of, violation of any law, rule, statute, or order of any jurisdiction. Sponsor may also disqualify any potential or confirmed winner (a) who has engaged or engages in behavior that: (i) is illegal; (ii) (as determined by Sponsor in its sole and absolute discretion) is inappropriate, threatening, illegal or that is intended to annoy, abuse, threaten, harass, victimize, degrade, or intimidate any other individual or group of individuals on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, age, or disability; or (b) in the reasonable opinion of Sponsor expose Sponsor to disrepute, contempt, scandal or ridicule, or shock, insult or offend the public; and in each case Sponsor reserves the right to not award the potential winner a Grant, or to withdraw or terminate any Grant already awarded. Each Participant further agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the Sponsor and each of their respective employees, officers, directors, and agents from and against any claims, lawsuits, liabilities, and expenses (including attorney’s fees) arising out of the use of the Materials submitted in the Competition and/or their participation in the Competition By participating in the Competition, each Participant further agrees at all times to be in compliance with all relevant anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws, and Participant’s employers’ internal anti-bribery, anti-corruption, gifts and other relevant policies. Participant is solely responsible for compliance with any applicable laws, rules and regulations, contractual limitations and/or school or company policies, if any, regarding Participant’s participation in the Competitions, Submissions, and acceptance and use of any Grant.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: Participant hereby grants to Sponsor and its affiliates, and each of their respective licensees, successors and assigns (the “Sponsor Parties”) a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, freely transferable and sublicensable, royalty-free right and license to use, promote, transmit, reproduce, copy, modify, publicly distribute, publicly display and prepare derivative works based on the Participant’s submitted Materials, in whole or in part, including all copyrights and other intellectual property rights therein, throughout the universe for all or any purposes whatsoever, including without limitation for the purpose of advertising, publicity, promotion, and/or other marketing for Sponsor, its products or services, and/or the Participant’s Materials, in any and all media or form of distribution now known or hereafter developed.

PUBLICITY: By participating in the Competition, participants consent to the use of their names, biographical information, Initial Submissions, images and/or likenesses in any manner and in any medium for any purpose in connection with the Competition, including worldwide, without additional compensation, except where prohibited by law.

PRIVACY: Information submitted by you is subject to Sponsor’s privacy notice. Whenever we transfer personal information to countries outside of the European Economic Area or the UK, we ensure that the information is transferred in accordance with this privacy notice and as permitted by the applicable laws on data protection. We rely on European Commission adequacy decisions or use contracts with standard safeguards published by the European Commission and similar measures under UK laws for such transfers. In addition, Sponsor will share your personal information with third parties that have a need to know, such as the Review Board, and by participating, you agree to the sharing of your information with the Review Board.

If you have any concerns about the authenticity of this e-mail or to find out more about Amazon's competition program, please visit the Amazon Customer Service help page

ERRORS AND UNAUTHORIZED ACTIVITIES: In the event that the operation, security, or administration of the Competition is impaired in any way for any reason, including without limitation, fraud, virus or other technical problem, or any other reason beyond the control of Sponsor, Sponsor may, in its sole discretion, either: (a) suspend the Competition; or (b) cancel or terminate the Competition. Sponsor reserves the right to modify grant award procedures. Any attempt by any person to undermine the legitimate operation of the Competition may be a violation of criminal and civil law, and should such an attempt be made, Sponsor reserve the right to seek damages from any such person to the fullest extent permitted by law. Sponsor’s failure to enforce any provision of these Official Rules shall not constitute a waiver of that provision. Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel or suspend this Competition should virus, bugs, fraud, hacking, or other causes corrupt the administration, security, or proper play of the Competition or in the event Sponsor does not receive a minimum of two qualified entries from separate eligible Entrant Teams. Sponsor further reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel or suspend this Competition or to reschedule or reformat events, should Sponsor be prevented, in any manner whatsoever, from holding this Competition or any event due to any present or future law (whether or not valid); any act of God, earthquake, fire, flood, epidemic (including, without limitation, any pandemic), accident, explosion or casualty; any civil disturbance or armed conflict; or any other cause of any similar nature outside of Sponsor’s control. In all such cases, notice to this effect will be posted on the Competition Site and prizes to the extent awarded will be awarded as determined by Sponsor prior to cancellation

RELEASE: Subject to any applicable laws, by participating in the Competition, you agree to release Sponsor, promotional agencies, franchisees, and each of their respective parent companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, successors, assigns, agents, representatives, officers, directors, shareholders, and employees (collectively, “Released Parties”), from and against any and all liability for any claims, costs, injuries, losses or damages of any kind arising in connection with the Competition to the extent possible under applicable law. You agree that in any cause of action, the Released Parties’ liability shall, to the extent permitted by applicable law, be limited to any cost of entering and participating in the Competition and in no event shall the Released Parties be liable for attorneys’ fees or other legal costs.

You acknowledge that the Released Parties have neither made nor are in any manner responsible or liable, to the extent permitted by law, for any warranty, representation or guarantee, expressed or implied, in fact or in law, relative to a grant.

SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATIONS OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

Each Participant hereby acknowledges and agrees that the relationship between themselves and the Sponsor is not a confidential, fiduciary, or other special relationship, and that the Participant’s decision to provide the Materials to Sponsor for purposes of the Competition does not place the Sponsor in a position that is any different from the position held by members of the general public with regard to elements of the Materials, other than as set forth in these Official Rules. Each Participant understands and acknowledges that the Sponsor has wide access to Materials, technology, designs, and other materials, and that new ideas are constantly being submitted to them or being developed by their own employees. Each Participant also acknowledges that many ideas may be competitive with, similar to, or identical to the Materials in theme, idea, format, or other respects. Each Participant acknowledges and agrees that such Participant will not be entitled to any compensation as a result of Sponsor’s use of any such similar or identical material that has or may come to Sponsor, or any of them, from other sources. Participants acknowledge that other Participants may have created ideas and concepts contained in their Material design that may have familiarities or similarities to their Material design, and that they will not be entitled to any compensation or right to negotiate with the Sponsors because of these familiarities or similarities. Participants also acknowledge that the Sponsors will not restrict work assignments or representatives who have had access to your Materials. By entering this Competition, Participants agree that use of information in Sponsor’s representatives’ unaided memories in the development or deployment of Sponsor’s products or services does not create liability for Sponsor under these Official Rules or copyright or trade secret law.

INTERPRETATION: These Official Rules will be interpreted according to its plain meaning without presuming that it should favor either party. Unless stated or context requires otherwise: (i) lists of examples following “e.g.”, “including”, “for example”, or the like are interpreted to include “without limitation,” unless qualified by words such as “only” or “solely”; (ii) except as otherwise specified, all monetary amounts are expressed and, if applicable, payable, in U.S. dollars; (iii) URLs are understood to also refer to successors, localizations, and information or resources linked from within websites at the specified URLs; (iv) a writing is signed; and (v) a party’s choices or determinations under these Official Rules are in its sole discretion. The section headings of these Official Rules are for convenience only and have no interpretive value.

ENTIRE AGREEMENT: These Official Rules are the parties’ entire agreement regarding the subject matter hereof and merges and supersedes all related agreements, oral understandings, representations, prior discussions, proposals, and letters of intent with respect to the subject matter of these Official Rules. Only authorized officers of Amazon may enter into agreements on its behalf and no other Personnel may bind Amazon. In particular, no shrink-wrap, click-wrap, click-through, click-accept, or other online terms or polices (“Supplier Additional Terms”) provided with any Products or Services hereunder shall be binding on Amazon, even if use of such Products or Services requires an affirmative “acceptance” of those Supplier Additional Terms before access or use is permitted. All such Supplier Additional Terms shall be of no force or effect and shall be deemed rejected by Amazon in their entirety. NEITHER PARTY WILL BE BOUND BY, AND EACH SPECIFICALLY OBJECTS TO, ANY PROVISION THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM OR IN ADDITION TO THESE OFFICIAL RULES (WHETHER PROFFERED VERBALLY OR IN ANY QUOTATION, INVOICE, SHIPPING DOCUMENT, ONLINE TERMS AND CONDITIONS EXCEPT FOR THOSE EXPRESSLY REFERENCED IN THIS AGREEMENT, ACCEPTANCE, CONFIRMATION, CORRESPONDENCE, PROPOSAL, OR OTHERWISE), UNLESS SUCH PROVISION IS SPECIFICALLY AGREED TO IN A WRITING SIGNED BY BOTH PARTIES.

SEVERABILITY: If a court finds part of these rules illegal, the rest will continue in force. Each of the paragraphs of these rules operates separately. If any court or relevant authority decides that any of them are unlawful, the remaining paragraphs will remain in full force in effect.

DISPUTES: To the extent permitted by law, this Competition is governed by the laws of the United States and the State of Washington, USA. As a condition of participating in this Competition, participants agree that any and all disputes which cannot be resolved between the parties, and causes of action arising out of or in connection with this Competition, shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, exclusively before a court located in King County, Washington, USA having jurisdiction. Further, in any such dispute, under no circumstances will participants be permitted to obtain awards for, and hereby waive all rights to claim, punitive, incidental or consequential damages, including attorneys' fees, other than participant’s actual out-of-pocket expenses (e.g. costs associated with entering), and participant further waives all rights to have damages multiplied or increased. Participants agree that the decisions of Sponsor and the judges related to the Competition are final.

WINNER’S LIST: To obtain a list of the names of winners, email your request to, up to sixty (60) days after the close of the Competition, to b-wyker@amazon.com with the subject line “Amazon Physical Science Fellowship Competition WINNERS LIST”.

SURVIVAL: Terms related to termination rights, indemnification rights, limitations of liability, damages, confidentiality, licenses that expressly survive expiration or termination and perpetual licenses will survive the termination or expiration of this Agreement.

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Member of Technical Staff - Simulation, Frontier AI Robotics
US, CA, San Francisco
We are seeking a Member of Technical Staff Simulation Engineer to join our AI robotics research team developing foundation models for robotics. You will rapidly develop 3D physics-based and photorealistic simulations alongside scientists to enable training large-scale machine learning models. Key job responsibilities - Develop simulations for reinforcement learning, closed-loop simulations and synthetic data generation - Implement essential robotics features, including accurate modeling of sensors, actuators, and controllers - Build real-to-sim workflows for dynamic environments and robotics tasks - Implement simulation features to minimize sim-to-real gaps through domain randomization and system identification - Create asset toolchains supporting industry-standard formats (URDF, MJCF, USD) - Collaborate closely with a team of ML researchers to enable large-scale robotics training pipelines About the team At Frontier AI & Robotics (FAR), we're not just advancing robotics – we're reimagining it from the ground up. Our team is building the future of intelligent robotics through frontier foundation models and end-to-end learned systems. We tackle some of the most challenging problems in AI and robotics, from developing sophisticated perception systems to creating adaptive manipulation strategies that work in complex, real-world scenarios. What sets us apart is our unique combination of ambitious research vision and practical impact. We leverage Amazon's massive computational infrastructure and rich real-world datasets to train and deploy state-of-the-art foundation models. Our work spans the full spectrum of robotics intelligence – from multimodal perception using images, videos, and sensor data, to sophisticated manipulation strategies that can handle diverse real-world scenarios. We're building systems that don't just work in the lab, but scale to meet the demands of Amazon's global operations. Join us if you're excited about pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotics, working with world-class researchers, and seeing your innovations deployed at unprecedented scale.
Applied Scientist, RBS Tech
IN, KA, Bengaluru
RBS (Retail Business Services) Tech team works towards enhancing the customer experience (CX) and their trust in product data by providing technologies to find and fix Amazon CX defects at scale. Our platforms help in improving the CX in all phases of customer journey, including selection, discoverability & fulfilment, buying experience and post-buying experience (product quality and customer returns). The team also develops GenAI platforms for automation of Amazon Stores Operations. As a Sciences team in RBS Tech, we focus on foundational ML research and develop scalable state-of-the-art ML solutions to solve the problems covering customer experience (CX) and Selling partner experience (SPX). We work to solve problems related to multi-modal understanding (text and images), task automation through multi-modal LLM Agents, supervised and unsupervised techniques, multi-task learning, multi-label classification, aspect and topic extraction for Customer Anecdote Mining, image and text similarity and retrieval using NLP and Computer Vision for product groupings and identifying duplicate listings in product search results. Key job responsibilities As an Applied Scientist, you will be responsible to design and deploy scalable GenAI, NLP and Computer Vision solutions that will impact the content visible to millions of customer and solve key customer experience issues. You will develop novel LLM, deep learning and statistical techniques for task automation, text processing, image processing, pattern recognition, and anomaly detection problems. You will define the research and experiments strategy with an iterative execution approach to develop AI/ML models and progressively improve the results over time. You will partner with business and engineering teams to identify and solve large and significantly complex problems that require scientific innovation. You will independently file for patents and/or publish research work where opportunities arise. The RBS org deals with problems that are directly related to the selling partners and end customers and the ML team drives resolution to organization level problems. Therefore, the Applied Scientist role will impact the large product strategy, identifies new business opportunities and provides strategic direction which is very exciting.
Member of Technical Staff - Infrastructure Engineer, Frontier AI & Robotics (FAR)
US, CA, San Francisco
Amazon’s Frontier AI & Robotics (FAR) team is seeking a Member of Technical Staff, Infrastructure to build and scale the foundational systems that power our robotics research and development platform. In this role, you will design and operate the distributed infrastructure that enables our researchers and engineers to train foundation models, run large-scale experiments, and deploy intelligent robotic systems at Amazon scale. Join the next revolution in robotics, where you’ll work alongside world-renowned AI pioneers to push the boundaries of what’s possible in robotic intelligence. As a Member of Technical Staff focused on Infrastructure, you’ll build the critical platform layer that accelerates every aspect of FAR’s research — from high-throughput data pipelines and experiment management systems to low-latency model serving and configuration delivery for robotic deployments. This role is deeply technical and focuses on performance, scalability, and reliability at scale. You will design systems that support volumes of training data, operate with strict latency requirements, and provide the compute and data foundation that enables breakthrough research across FAR’s robotics ecosystem. Key job responsibilities - Design and build scalable data infrastructure to support AI robotics research, including automated pipelines for data ingestion, processing, curation, and delivery - Build highly scalable experimentation and analytics infrastructure to support model evaluation, A/B testing, and feature performance monitoring across robotic systems - Design and operate low-latency configuration and model delivery systems powering progressive rollouts across FAR’s robotic platforms - Improve the performance, efficiency, and reliability of FAR’s core compute and storage infrastructure, ensuring systems remain fast and stable as research scales - Develop tooling and frameworks that accelerate research workflows, including dataset management, visualization, and quality assessment systems - Optimize query performance and data availability for experimentation and analytics workflows used by research teams - Collaborate directly with science and robotics teams to support research projects through both infrastructure development and hands-on technical contribution - Lead large technical initiatives and shape the architecture of FAR’s research platform infrastructure
Sr. Applied Scientist, AWS Just-Walk-Out Science Team
US, CA, East Palo Alto
As part of the AWS Solutions organization, we have a vision to provide business applications, leveraging Amazon’s unique experience and expertise, that are used by millions of companies worldwide to manage day-to-day operations. We will accomplish this by accelerating our customers’ businesses through delivery of intuitive and differentiated technology solutions that solve enduring business challenges. We blend vision with curiosity and Amazon’s real-world experience to build opinionated, turnkey solutions. Where customers prefer to buy over build, we become their trusted partner with solutions that are no-brainers to buy and easy to use. Key job responsibilities Everyone on the team needs to be entrepreneurial, wear many hats and work in a highly collaborative environment that’s more startup than big company. We’ll need to tackle problems that span a variety of domains: computer vision, image recognition, machine learning, real-time and distributed systems. As a Sr. Applied Scientist, you will help solve a variety of technical challenges and mentor other scientists. You will be the thought leader of the team. You will tackle challenging, novel situations every day and given the size of this initiative, you’ll have the opportunity to work with multiple technical teams at Amazon in different locations. You should be comfortable with a degree of ambiguity that’s higher than most projects and relish the idea of solving problems that, frankly, haven’t been solved at scale before - anywhere. Along the way, we guarantee that you’ll learn a ton, have fun and make a positive impact on millions of people. A key focus of this role will be developing and implementing advanced visual reasoning systems that can understand complex spatial relationships and object interactions in real-time. You'll work on designing autonomous AI agents that can make intelligent decisions based on visual inputs, understand customer behavior patterns, and adapt to dynamic retail environments. This includes developing systems that can perform complex scene understanding, reason about object permanence, and predict customer intentions through visual cues. About the team Just Walk Out (JWO) is a new kind of store with no lines and no checkout—you just grab and go! Customers simply use the Amazon Go app to enter the store, take what they want from our selection of fresh, delicious meals and grocery essentials, and go! Our checkout-free shopping experience is made possible by our Just Walk Out Technology, which automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in a virtual cart. When you’re done shopping, you can just leave the store. Shortly after, we’ll charge your account and send you a receipt. Check it out at amazon.com/go. Designed and custom-built by Amazonians, our Just Walk Out Technology uses a variety of technologies including computer vision, sensor fusion, and advanced machine learning. Innovation is part of our DNA! Our goal is to be Earths’ most customer centric company and we are just getting started. We need people who want to join an ambitious program that continues to push the state of the art in computer vision, machine learning, distributed systems and hardware design.
Robotics/AI Motor Control Scientist, Fauna
US, NY, New York
We are seeking a Robotics/AI Motor Control Scientist to develop cutting-edge machine learning algorithms for motor control systems in robots. In this role, you will focus on creating and optimizing intelligent motor control strategies to enable robots to perform complex, whole-body tasks. Your contributions will be essential in advancing robotics by enabling fluid, reliable, and safe interactions between robots and their environments. Key job responsibilities - Develop controllers that leverage reinforcement learning, imitation learning, or other advanced AI techniques to achieve natural, robust, and adaptive motor behaviors - Collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams to integrate motor control systems with robotic hardware, ensuring alignment with real-world constraints such as actuator dynamics and energy efficiency - Use simulation and real-world testing to refine and validate control algorithms - Stay updated on advancements in robotics, AI, and control systems to apply advanced techniques to robotic motion challenges - Lead technical projects from conception through production deployment - Mentor junior scientists and engineers - Bridge research initiatives with practical engineering implementation About the team Fauna Robotics, an Amazon company, is building capable, safe, and genuinely delightful robots for everyday life. Our goal is simple: make robots people actually want to live and interact with in everyday human spaces. We believe that future won’t arrive until building for robotics becomes far more accessible. Today, too much effort is spent reinventing the fundamentals. We’re changing that by developing tightly integrated hardware and software systems that make it faster, safer, and more intuitive to create real-world robotic products. Our work spans the full stack: mechanical design, control systems, dynamic modeling, and intelligent software. The focus is not just functionality, but experience. We’re building robots that feel responsive, expressive, and genuinely useful. At Fauna, you’ll work at the frontier of this space, helping define how robots move, manipulate, and interact with people in natural environments. It’s an opportunity to solve hard problems across hardware and software with a team focused on making robotics accessible and joyful to build. If you care about making robotics real for everyone and building systems that are as delightful as they are capable, we’re interested in hearing from you. an opportunity to solve hard problems across hardware and software with a team focused on making robotics accessible and joyful to build. If you care about making robotics real for everyone and building systems that are as delightful as they are capable, we’re interested in hearing from you.
Applied Scientist II
US, MA, N.reading
Amazon is seeking exceptional talent to help develop the next generation of advanced robotics systems that will transform automation at Amazon's scale. We're building revolutionary robotic systems that combine cutting-edge AI, sophisticated control systems, and advanced mechanical design to create adaptable automation solutions capable of working safely alongside humans in dynamic environments. This is a unique opportunity to shape the future of robotics and automation at an unprecedented scale, working with world-class teams pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotic dexterous manipulation, locomotion, and human-robot interaction. We are seeking a talented Applied Scientist to join our advanced robotics team, focusing on developing and applying cutting-edge simulation methodologies for advanced robotics systems. This role centers on research and development of physics-based simulation techniques, sim-to-real transfer methods, and machine learning approaches that enable rapid development, testing, and validation of robotic systems operating in complex, real-world environments. Key job responsibilities - Advance physics-based simulation fidelity for contact-rich manipulation and locomotion - Design and build high-performance simulation tools integrated into a robotics design stack - Translate research ideas into robust, verifiable data - Develop methods to quantify and reduce simulation-to-reality gaps across design, safety, and control - Architect scalable simulation solutions for rigid and deformable body dynamics - Build simulation pipelines optimized for a digital twin level of fidelity - Establish frameworks for continuous simulation improvement using real-world hardware - Collaborate with engineering, science, and safety teams on simulation requirements and validation About the team Our team is building a comprehensive robot simulation and modeling platform for advanced robotics development, combining locomotion and manipulation capabilities. We operate at the cutting edge of physics simulation, reinforcement learning, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), and sim-to-real transfer, collaborating with world-class robotics engineers, scientists, and mechanical designers in a fast-paced, innovation-driven environment. This role uniquely combines fundamental research with real-world development. You will pursue core research questions in physics-based simulation while seeing your work translated into real robots, validated on real hardware. Working alongside Robot scientist and designers, you will help transform research ideas into scalable, quantifiable simulation capabilities that directly impact how robots are designed and built.
Applied Scientist II, Sponsored Products Autonomous Campaigns
US, CA, Palo Alto
We are looking for a passionate Applied Scientist to help pioneer the next generation of agentic AI applications for Amazon advertisers. In this role, you will design agentic architectures, develop tools and datasets, and contribute to building systems that can reason, plan, and act autonomously across complex advertiser workflows. You will work at the forefront of applied AI, developing methods for fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, and preference optimization, while helping create evaluation frameworks that ensure safety, reliability, and trust at scale. You will work backwards from the needs of advertisers—delivering customer-facing products that directly help them create, optimize, and grow their campaigns. Beyond building models, you will advance the agent ecosystem by experimenting with and applying core primitives such as tool orchestration, multi-step reasoning, and adaptive preference-driven behavior. This role requires working independently on ambiguous technical problems, collaborating closely with scientists, engineers, and product managers to bring innovative solutions into production. Key job responsibilities - Design and build agents for our autonomous campaigns experience. - Design and implement advanced model and agent optimization techniques, including supervised fine-tuning, instruction tuning and preference optimization (e.g., DPO/IPO). - Curate datasets and tools for MCP. - Build evaluation pipelines for agent workflows, including automated benchmarks, multi-step reasoning tests, and safety guardrails. - Develop agentic architectures (e.g., CoT, ToT, ReAct) that integrate planning, tool use, and long-horizon reasoning. - Prototype and iterate on multi-agent orchestration frameworks and workflows. - Collaborate with peers across engineering and product to bring scientific innovations into production. - Stay current with the latest research in LLMs, RL, and agent-based AI, and translate findings into practical applications. About the team The Sponsored Products and Brands team at Amazon Ads is re-imagining the advertising landscape through the latest 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. The Autonomous Campaigns team within Sponsored Products and Brands is focused on guiding and supporting 1.6MM advertisers to meet their advertising needs of creating and managing ad campaigns. At this scale, the complexity of diverse advertiser goals, campaign types, and market dynamics creates both a massive technical challenge and a transformative opportunity: even small improvements in guidance systems can have outsized impact on advertiser success and Amazon’s retail ecosystem. Our vision is to build a highly personalized, context-aware campaign creation and management system that leverages LLMs together with tools such as auction simulations, ML models, and optimization algorithms. This agentic framework, will operate across both chat and non-chat experiences in the ad console, scaling to natural language queries as well as proactively delivering guidance based on deep understanding of the advertiser. To execute this vision, we collaborate closely with stakeholders across Ad Console, Sales, and Marketing to identify opportunities—from high-level product guidance down to granular keyword recommendations—and deliver them through a tailored, personalized experience. Our work is grounded in state-of-the-art agent architectures, tool integration, reasoning frameworks, and model customization approaches (including tuning, MCP, and preference optimization), ensuring our systems are both scalable and adaptive.
Manager, Applied Science, International Seller Services
US, WA, Seattle
Are you interested in leading growth initiatives for one of Amazon’s most significant and fastest growing businesses? Selling Partners offer hundreds of millions of unique products and are a critical to delivering on our vision of offering the Earth’s largest selection and lowest prices. The Amazon Marketplace enables over 2 million third-party selling partners in eleven marketplaces to list their products for sale to Amazon customers across the world. Within our WW Marketplace business, International Seller Services (ISS) oversees the recruiting and development of Selling Partners for all of our international marketplaces (e.g. UK, Germany, Japan, Middle East etc.). ISS also enables global selling, helping Sellers in one country expand and sell internationally. Are you fascinated by the power of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLM) to transform the way we interact with technology? Are you passionate about applying advanced machine learning techniques to solve complex challenges in the e-commerce space? If so, the Central Science Team of Amazon's International Seller Services has an exciting opportunity for you as an Applied Science Manager. We are seeking an experienced science leader who is adept at a variety of skills; especially in generative AI, computer vision, and large language models that will help international sellers succeed as they sell on Amazon. The right candidate will provide science leadership, establish the right direction and vision, build team mechanisms, foster the spirit of collaboration and innovation within the org, and execute against a roadmap. This leader will provide both technical direction as well as manage a sizable team of scientists. They will need to be adept at recruiting, launching AI models into production, writing vision/direction documents, and building team mechanisms that will foster innovation and execution. Additionally, while the position is based in Seattle, this leader will interact with global leaders and teams in Europe, Japan, China, Australia, and other regions. Key job responsibilities Key job responsibilities Responsibilities include: * Drive end-to-end applied science projects that have a high degree of ambiguity, scale, complexity. * Provide technical / science leadership related to NLP, computer vision and large language models. * Research new and innovative machine learning approaches. * Recruit high performing Applied Scientists to the team and provide mentorship. * Establish team mechanisms, including team building, planning, and document reviews. * Communicate complex technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, providing clear explanations and guidance on proposed solutions and their potential impact.
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