50 Finalists Announced for Hertz Foundation Fellowship

Today, the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation announced finalists for the 2015 class of Hertz Fellows.The Foundation was created by entrepreneur John Hertz to inspire and invest in the future of scientific exploration by providing resources and academic freedom to young minds.The Foundation funds graduate education for leaders in the fields of applied physical, biological and engineering sciences and encourages its awardees to pursue science for the public good.

“These 50 students are smart, creative and innovative,” said Jay Davis, PhD, Hertz Foundation President.“They rose to the top in a pool of 800 applicants and no doubt will use their time in graduate school to pursue groundbreaking scientific discoveries.While we will choose only a select few for the Hertz Fellowship, each of these finalists is worthy of acclaim.”

Each Fellowship consists of up to 5 years of academic fiscal support valued at $250,000 and research freedom at a participating graduate institution in the United States.Finalists represent many of the top public and private universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Princeton University, Columbia University, and the University of California, Berkeley.Finalists will now participate in an in-depth interview and technical review process.The Fellows will be selected based on their vision, intensity, and the opportunities they see for the future of their work.

“Students pursue the Hertz Fellowship due to the academic freedom it affords,” added Davis. “Hertz Fellows look for ways to collaborate across disciplines and departments to have exponential impact on their field of study and beyond,” he concluded.

Alumni of the Hertz Fellowship include two Nobel Laureates, a Fields Medal Recipient, and a National Science Medal Recipient.Fellows have also gone on to found more than 200 companies, register 3,000 patents, head major universities, lead in key positions at National Laboratories, and hold senior positions in the United States military.

Ed Boyden, an Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab and a 1999 Hertz Fellow offered his perspective on the benefit of this Fellowship saying, “The Hertz fellowship gave me the freedom, when I was a PhD student, to fuse together different disciplines and help drive the new field of neuroengineering, which yielded optogenetic tools that are used throughout the field of neuroscience.”

Finalists listed with field of study and present or recent school.

Amol Aggarwal
Mathematics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Mihir Bhaskar
Physics
Columbia University

Katie Bodner
Bioengineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jonathan Chen
Chemical Biology
Princeton University

Sway Chen
Biology
Columbia University

Bridget Connor
Chemistry
California Institute of Technology

John Cooper
Neuroscience
Northwestern University

Jordan Cotler
Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Christopher Douglas
Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology

Kayla (Felger) Wolf
Bioengineering
University of California-Berkeley

Andrew Fillingim
Electrical Engineering
Texas Tech University

Zachary Funke
Aerospace Engineering
United States Air Force Academy

Alexandre Gauthier
Applied Physics
University of Pittsburgh

Cole Graham
Mathematics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Gabriella Heller
Biophysics
University of Cambridge, UK

Adam Jermyn
Physics
California Institute of Technology

Emma Kast
Geosciences
Princeton University

Samuel Kazer
Chemistry
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Fiona Kearns
Chemistry
University of South Florida

Jesse Kirkpatrick
Biomedical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Andrea Kriz
Bio and Biomedical Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ernest Lee
Bioengineering
University of California-Los Angeles

Allen Lin
Systems Biology
Harvard University

William Lindemann
Materials Science
Iowa State University

Stephen Linderman
Biomedical Engineering
Washington University

Benjamin Mildenhall
Computer Science
Stanford University

Andrew Milewski
Biophysics/Bio-Engineering/Quant. Biology
Cornell University

Timothy Moon
Applied Mathematics
Stanford University

Daniel Mossing
Applied Physics
Princeton University

Jelena Notaros
Electrical Engineering
University of Colorado-Boulder

Sabrina Pasterski
Physics
Harvard University

Eliad Peretz
Materials Science & Mechanical Engineering
Technion Israel Ins Of Tech

Melinda Perkins
Engineering
Stanford University

Abigail Plummer
Physics
Brown University

Maxim Rabinovich
Computer Science
University of California-Berkeley

Philip Saad
Physics
University of California-Santa Barbara

Adrian Sanborn
Computer Science
Stanford University

Ben Shababo
Neuroscience and Applied Statistics
University of California-Berkeley

Ravi Sheth
Bioengineering
ice University

Alexander Siegenfeld
Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sandya Subramanian
Biomedical Engineering
Johns Hopkins University

Hursh Sureka
Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology

Jason Szafron
Engineering
Texas A&M – College Station

Alexander Tarashansky
Bio-Engineering
University of Southern California

Leonid Timashev Molecular & Cellular
Biology
Rockefeller University

Charles Tschirhart
Experimental Physics
California Institute of Technology

Aaron Wienkers
Computational Science and Engineering
University of California-Berkeley

Jacob Witten
Computer & Systems Biology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Katherine Xue
Genome Sciences
University of Washington Seattle

Allen Yuan
Mathematics
Harvard University

About the Hertz Foundation

For more than half a century, the Hertz Foundation has found and supported the best and brightest graduate students in the sciences, furthering our country’s leadership in these fields. Hertz Fellows pursue a PhD in the STEM fields and follow their academic curiosity with greater financial independence. These students are chosen for their intellect, their ingenuity and their potential to make scientific advancements for the public good. The Hertz Foundation also builds a vibrant Hertz Fellows community, gathering the Fellows together at annual workshops and retreats to allow them to inspire and learn from one another across generations. For more information visit www.hertzfoundation.org and follow the Foundation on Facebook.