The Hertz Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing American scientific and technological leadership, today announced 54 finalists for the 2026 Hertz Fellowships in applied sciences, mathematics and engineering.
Selected from more than 1,450 applicants, the finalists advance to a culminating round of interviews for the most competitive doctoral fellowship in the nation. The 2026 class of Hertz Fellows will be announced in May.
“These finalists have demonstrated both exceptional scientific rigor and a commitment to work that matters,” said Derek Haseltine, director of the Hertz Fellowship Program. “We’re looking forward to learning more about their vision during the interview process.”
Since 1963, the Hertz Foundation has granted fellowships empowering the nation’s most promising young minds in science and technology. Hertz Fellows receive five years of funding, which offers flexibility from the traditional constraints of graduate training and the independence needed to pursue research that tackles some of the most pressing challenges facing our nation and the world.
The Hertz Fellowship experience continues beyond the initial award to include permanent membership in a multigenerational, intellectual community of peers that includes some of the nation’s most noted science and technology leaders. Fellows are able to deepen their experience through mentorship activities, events and professional development opportunities and networking. These interactions have led Hertz Fellows to form research collaborations, commercialize technology, and create and invest in early-stage companies together.
Through a rigorous selection process honed over seven decades, the Hertz Fellowship selection committee seeks out exemplary candidates poised to continually think bigger and pursue goals that will have a transformational and lasting impact on society. The selection process is led by Hertz Fellows Philip Welkhoff, director of the malaria program at the Gates Foundation, and Anna Bershteyn, associate professor of population health at New York University,
To enhance the Hertz Fellowship experience, the Hertz Foundation partners with influential organizations in science, technology, national security, and philanthropy. In recent years, the foundation has partnered with Gates Foundation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Analog Devices, and Breakthrough Energy, among other organizations. The Hertz Foundation recently agreed to partnerships with Case Western Reserve University and Texas A&M University, which will offer full financial benefits to Hertz Fellowship Finalists who attend the universities for graduate school, even if the student is not selected as a Hertz Fellow.
Among past Hertz Fellow recipients are Nobel laureate John Mather, a NASA astrophysicist and project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope; Kimberly Budil, director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Nathan Myhrvold, founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures, founding director of Microsoft Research, and former chief technology officer at Microsoft; Kathleen Fisher, former deputy office director for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Information Innovation Office; and Dario Amodei and Jared Kaplan, co-founders of Anthropic, an AI safety and research company.
Throughout the foundation’s 63-year history of awarding fellowships, 1,305 Hertz Fellows have established a remarkable track record of accomplishments and breakthroughs that change people’s lives for the better. Their ranks include two Nobel laureates; recipients of 11 Breakthrough Prizes and three MacArthur Foundation “genius awards”; and winners of the Turing Award, the Fields Medal, the National Medal of Technology and the National Medal of Science. In addition, 53 are members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and 37 are fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Hertz Fellows hold over 3,000 patents, have founded more than 375 companies and have created hundreds of thousands of science and technology jobs.
2026 Hertz Fellowship Finalists
Finalists are listed with their field of study and most recent university affiliation.
Aneetej Arora
Ohio State University
Computer Science (Machine Learning)
Yasa Baig
Stanford University
Undergrad: Duke University
Bioengineering
Hannah Barsouk
Stanford University
Undergrad: Yale University
Biochemistry
Mason Bates
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Undergrad: Princeton University
Quantum Science and Engineering
Montgomery Bohde
Texas A&M University
Computer Science
Riley Carpenter
Stanford University
Undergrad: Santa Clara University
Applied Physics
Jason Chen
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Undergrad: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mechanical Engineering and Computational Science
Andrew Chu
Harvard University
Chemistry & Physics
Elizabeth Chung
University of California, San Francisco
Undergrad: Ohio State University
Systems Biology and Neuroimmunology
Charles Colvin
Pennsylvania State University
Plant Sciences
Shelby Desroches
University of California, Berkeley
Undergrad: Rice University
Mechanical Engineering
Adam Distler
Harvard University
Undergrad: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Astronomy/Astrophysics
Xagros Faraji
University of California, Santa Barbara
Bioengineering
Sam Foxman
California Institute of Technology
Aeronautics and Astronautics
James Galante
Stanford University
Undergrad: University of Notre Dame
Genetics
Preston Hess
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Undergrad: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Computational Cognitive Science
Tyler Hou
University of California, Berkeley
Computer Science
Nishaant Akash Jacobus
University of Toronto
Chemical Physics
Ishaan Kannan
Harvard University
Undergrad: California Institute of Technology
Physics and Computer Science
Elizabeth Kozlov
Princeton University
Undergrad: Harvard University
Astrophysics, Physics
Andrew Krapivin
University of Cambridge
Undergrad: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey: New Brunswick/Piscataway
Advanced Computer Science
Hana Lampson
University of California, Berkeley
Undergrad: Harvard University
Physics
Daniel Lesman
Harvard University
Undergrad: Ohio State University
Medicine
Annabella Li
University of Washington – Seattle
Biology and Biological Engineering
Christine Li
Columbia University
Computer Science (Quantum Computing)
Harper Lowrey
Stanford University
Undergrad: Yale University
Biology
Miller MacDonald
Harvard University
Physics and Astronomy
Annika Marschner
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mechanical Engineering
Arianna McCarty
University of Colorado Boulder
Bioengineering
Alvin Meng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Undergrad: University of Virginia
Chemistry
Myles (Max) Miller
Washington University in St. Louis
Biomedical Engineering
Harrison Ngue
Harvard University
Undergrad: Harvard University
Cancer Biology and Bioengineering
Rishab Parthasarathy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Laura Pierson
University of Waterloo
Undergrad: Harvard University
Mathematics
Johnathan Pinc
United States Military Academy
Chemistry
Jackson Powell
Stanford University
Undergrad: University of Pennsylvania
Bioengineering
Jacqueline Prawira
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Materials Science and Engineering
Julianna Schneider
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Robotics
Nikhil Seshadri
Harvard University
Chemistry & Physics, Computer Science
Jaron Shoemaker
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Undergrad: Duke University
Biomedical Engineering
Zachary S. Siegel
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Undergrad: Princeton University
Artificial Intelligence
Behrgen Smith
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Undergrad: Milwaukee School of Engineering
Biochemistry and Structural Biology
Lucas Sosnick
Stanford University
Bioengineering
Titus Tsai
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Inorganic Chemistry
Katherine Tung
Harvard University
Mathematics
Andrew Van Camp
Harvard University
Undergrad: Harvard University
Biomedical Informatics
Matthew Wanta
United States Military Academy
Mathematical Sciences, Computer Science
Matthew Werneken
Harvard University
Undergrad: Columbia University
Astronomy and Astrophysics
April Wu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Biochemistry
Zoe Xi
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Undergrad: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Computer Science
Willian Yang
University of Pennsylvania
Undergrad: Princeton University
Electrical Engineering
Zain Zaidi
Princeton University
Undergrad: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Chemistry
Alan Zhu
University of Pennsylvania
Applied Physics
Eric Zhu
University of California, Santa Barbara
Physics
About the Hertz Foundation
The Hertz Foundation is the nation’s preeminent nonprofit organization committed to advancing American scientific and technological leadership. For more than 60 years, it has stood as an unwavering pillar of independent support through the renowned Hertz Fellowship, cultivating a multidisciplinary network of innovators whose work has positively impacted millions of lives. Learn more at hertzfoundation.org.
