The Hertz Foundation, the nation’s preeminent nonprofit group dedicated to advancing American scientific and technological management, has introduced 19 recipients of the 2026 Hertz Fellowship in the utilized sciences, engineering and arithmetic.
Awarded via a rigorous choice course of honed over eight a long time, the Hertz Fellowship is the nation’s best doctoral fellowship in science and know-how. Hertz Fellows obtain as much as 5 years of monetary assist — a stipend and full tuition equal — providing the uncommon freedom to pursue daring concepts and a neighborhood of influential friends devoted to their success.
The 2026 Hertz Fellows are pursuing options to some of the most urgent challenges in science and know-how, together with growing RNA-based instruments to fight multidrug-resistant micro organism, constructing a satellite tv for pc mission to find the universe’s lacking matter, creating AI methods that study and cause like people, and advancing quantum simulation to probe questions as soon as thought purely theoretical. Like each Hertz Fellow since 1963, the latest recipients make an ethical dedication to assist the United States in instances of nationwide emergency.
“Year after year, the Hertz Fellowship identifies individuals whose ambitions go far beyond personal achievement. This class is no exception,” mentioned (*19*), chair of the Hertz Foundation board of administrators and president and CEO of Optikos Corporation. “Our newest Hertz Fellows are committed to solving problems that matter for our national security, our health and our future.”
The new fellows characterize a variety of disciplines — astrophysics, quantum chemistry, robotics, plant science, neuroscience and extra — and can conduct their doctoral analysis at some of the nation’s most distinguished analysis universities. The class additionally contains the newest Hertz Fellow to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, persevering with a permanent custom of Hertz Fellows with distinguished army careers.
In addition to monetary assist, the 19 new fellows be a part of an interdisciplinary community of more than 1,300 Hertz Fellows worldwide, collectively liable for some of the most important scientific and technological progress of the previous century. From the James Webb Space Telescope to international protection networks, and from superior medical therapies to computational methods utilized by billions, Hertz Fellows flip groundbreaking analysis into real-world impression.
Fellows additionally achieve entry to lifelong programming, together with mentoring, occasions and networking, that has supported analysis collaborations, know-how commercialization, and the creation of early-stage firms. They profit from partnerships with influential organizations in science, know-how, nationwide safety and philanthropy, together with the Gates Foundation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Analog Devices and the American Physical Society.
“The strength of the Hertz Fellowship has always been its commitment to the long view — supporting fellows not just through graduate school but throughout their lives,” mentioned Wendy Connors, president of the Hertz Foundation. “The 2026 class joins a community that spans generations and disciplines, and we are committed to their success.”
Through a rigorous and time-tested choice course of, led by Hertz Fellows Philip Welkhoff, director of the malaria program at the Gates Foundation, and Anna Bershteyn, affiliate professor of inhabitants well being at New York University, the Hertz Fellowship identifies doctoral college students with the extraordinary creativity and principled management essential to deal with issues others can’t resolve.
“What particularly impresses me about this cohort is their fearlessness in taking on new challenges and advancing the frontiers of science. Each has exhibited tremendous creativity, grit and vision, and I cannot wait to see what each accomplishes with the freedom to innovate provided by the Hertz Fellowship,” mentioned Welkhoff. “Each of them will contribute to and benefit from the interdisciplinary Hertz community, and the impact of their work will benefit the United States in profound and lasting ways.”
“It’s an honor to welcome these brilliant minds into the Hertz community. Each of them has a unique way of being curious about the world, and took a unique path to this moment,” mentioned Bershteyn. “Now, they’ll have the opportunity to uplift one another and join forces at the interfaces between their fields. That’s what makes the Hertz community such a powerful engine of innovation.”
Among previous Hertz Fellow recipients are Nobel laureate John Mather, a NASA astrophysicist and former challenge scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope; Kimberly Budil, director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Kathleen Fisher, chief govt officer of Aria; and Dario Amodei and Jared Kaplan, co-founders of Anthropic, an AI security and analysis firm.
Throughout the basis’s 63-year historical past of awarding fellowships, greater than 1,300 Hertz Fellows have established a outstanding monitor file. Their ranks embrace two Nobel laureates; recipients of 11 Breakthrough Prizes and three MacArthur Foundation awards; and winners of the Turing Award, the Fields Medal, the National Medal of Technology, the National Medal of Science and the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award. 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 maintain greater than 3,000 patents, have based greater than 375 firms and have created lots of of hundreds of science and know-how jobs.
Meet the 2026 Hertz Fellows
Undergraduate: Yale University
Graduate: Stanford University
Field of Study: Biochemistry
Hannah Barsouk is a first-year doctoral scholar in biochemistry and a chemical-biology interface trainee at Stanford University, the place they goal to develop RNA-based applied sciences to allow programmable management of organic methods and outline how regulatory networks turn out to be disrupted in illness. In 2025, Barsouk graduated from Yale University with joint bachelor’s and grasp’s levels in biophysics and biochemistry.
Field of Study: Materials Science and Engineering
Undergraduate: Harvard University
Graduate: Stanford University
Andrew Chu is a senior at Harvard University learning chemistry and physics, with analysis pursuits at the intersection of supplies science and electrochemistry for vitality know-how. As an undergraduate, Chu labored with MIT professor Yet-Ming Chiang on sustainable electrochemical metals manufacturing and separations. At electrical automobile producer Rivian, he led efforts on battery provide chain decarbonization and circularity. He will start doctoral research at Stanford University in fall 2027.
Undergraduate: The Ohio State University
Graduate: University of California, San Francisco
Field of Study: Systems Biology and Neuroimmunology
Elizabeth Chung is an MD-PhD scholar at the University of California, San Francisco, the place she harnesses medical insights and methods biology to develop novel therapeutics for neuroimmune illnesses. Driven by her late father’s analysis with a number of sclerosis, Chung’s analysis integrates large-scale epidemiological information with mechanistic insights into how the immune system interacts with the nervous system. Chung earned a bachelor’s diploma in biology magna cum laude from The Ohio State University, the place she started full-time collegiate research at age 14 and graduated from each college and highschool concurrently.
Undergraduate: The Pennsylvania State University
Graduate: Duke University
Field of Study: Plant Sciences
Charles Colvin is finishing his undergraduate schooling in plant sciences at The Pennsylvania State University and can start his doctoral research at Duke University in fall 2026. Colvin investigates how plant genetics form ecological interactions, with the purpose of main public analysis that leverages genomics and molecular breeding to develop resilient crop methods requiring fewer chemical inputs. Among his notable accomplishments is uncovering how maize flavonoids restructure insect intestine microbial communities, revealing a beforehand underexplored mechanistic hyperlink between host plant metabolism and insect-microbe dynamics.
Undergraduate: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Graduate: Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Field of Study: Astronomy, Astrophysics
Adam Distler is a first-year doctoral scholar in astronomy and astrophysics at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, the place he research the hyperlink between the galactic setting and planetary construction. Distler is broadly concerned with how adjustments in the galactic setting have an effect on the habitability of exoplanets in the seek for life throughout the galaxy. His earlier work targeted on exoplanet detection and characterization, and he additionally has investigated gravitational dynamics starting from small planets to large black holes. Distler earned his bachelor’s diploma in two years from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in astronomy-physics and arithmetic.
Undergraduate: California Institute of Technology
Graduate: Stanford University
Field of Study: Aeronautics and Astronautics
Sam Foxman is a senior in pc science at the California Institute of Technology, the place he has labored throughout 4 NASA missions on spacecraft communication, mission operations, fluid dynamics and synthetic intelligence. In fall 2026, Foxman will start graduate research in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University. His future analysis pursuits embrace spacecraft communication and navigation architectures, AI in house, autonomous automobiles and studying extra about the universe.
Undergraduate: University of California, Berkeley
Graduate: Princeton University
Field of Study: Computer Science, Mathematics
Tyler Hou is an undergraduate in arithmetic and pc science at the University of California, Berkeley. His analysis applies algebra and logic to develop extra subtle reasoning methods for programming languages and distributed methods. At Berkeley, Hou has labored towards growing frameworks and instruments to assist pc scientists higher specify, cause about and optimize distributed methods. During a summer time analysis fellowship, he developed a mathematical formalism to specify and cause about distributed stream packages utilizing monoids and monoid homomorphisms. He will start doctoral research at Princeton University in fall 2026.
Undergraduate: Harvard University
Graduate: Princeton University
Field of Study: Astrophysics, Physics
Elizabeth Kozlov is a doctoral scholar in astrophysics at Princeton University, the place she research the geometry of spacetime at its most excessive limits. Her present work investigates how photon ring observables, the slim, self-similar options shaped by photons that orbit the black gap a number of instances earlier than reaching the observer, encode the geometry of their underlying emission surfaces in Kerr spacetime, characterizing the degeneracy construction of these observables below variations in inclination, emission physics, and magnetic discipline configuration, and figuring out observable combos that let sturdy spin inference. Kozlov graduated from Harvard cum laude with excessive honors in physics, receiving the Carol Davis Prize, the Herchel Smith Fellowship and a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching for her work in quantum mechanics.
Undergraduate: The Ohio State University
Graduate: Harvard University
Field of Study: Synthetic Biology
Dan Lesman is an MD-PhD scholar at Harvard University, the place his analysis facilities on growing computational and experimental methods to check proteins that flow into in the blood. Before beginning his MD-PhD, Lesman spent two years at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, incomes grasp’s levels in international well being and statistics. Lesman earned a bachelor’s diploma in biomedical science from The Ohio State University, the place he labored on therapeutics for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Undergraduate: Harvard College
Graduate: Harvard University
Field of Study: Physics and Astronomy
Miller MacDonald is a senior undergraduate learning physics and arithmetic at Harvard College, the place he works to know the high-energy astrophysical sources of elementary particles referred to as neutrinos. He at present works inside the IceCube Collaboration, utilizing information collected by the largest telescope on Earth to seek for neutrino emission from sources in the Milky Way. As a Fulbright Fellow, he’ll spend the 2026-27 tutorial yr as a visitor researcher at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen earlier than starting his doctoral research at Harvard University.
Undergraduate: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Graduate: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Field of Study: Mechanical Engineering
Annika Marschner is a fourth-year undergraduate in mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a analysis give attention to the design of electromechanical methods for biointerfacing settings. When she begins doctoral research at MIT in fall 2026, Marschner plans to proceed her work on each {hardware} and management system design in biologically related settings, particularly in the areas of assistive medical know-how and surgical robotics.
Undergraduate: University of Virginia
Graduate: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Field of Study: Chemistry
Alvin Q. Meng is an inorganic chemist and doctoral scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the place he works to know the elementary interactions underlying chemical construction and reactivity. He is at present learning iron–sulfur clusters below the steering of Professor Daniel L.M. Suess. He obtained undergraduate levels in chemistry and arithmetic from the University of Virginia, the place he labored below Professor W. Dean Harman researching the synthesis and characterization of dihapto-coordinated tungsten complexes of cyclopentadiene.
Undergraduate: University of Pennsylvania
Graduate: Stanford University
Field of Study: Bioengineering
Jackson Powell is a second-year medical scholar in Stanford University’s MD-PhD program, the place he research the mind via cross human-mouse analysis in the Deisseroth Lab and Human Neural Circuitry program. Powell’s analysis goals to raised perceive elementary rules about the mind and drive future remedies. He plans to turn out to be a neurosurgeon and hopes his work can bridge fundamental neuroscience and medical care. Powell earned his bachelor’s diploma in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in the Vagelos Molecular Life Sciences program.
Undergraduate: Harvard University
Graduate: California Institute of Technology
Field of Study: Chemistry
Nikhil Seshadri is a post-bachelor’s scholar at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) engaged on elementary issues in theoretical chemistry, chemical physics and the physics and chemistry of supplies. At LANL, Seshadri works with Dr. Yu Zhang on cavity quantum electrodynamics, particularly extending the Gutzwiller wavefunction methodology to account for nonlocal electron-electron and electron-photon interactions. This work goals to supply a unified framework for learning the interaction between these interactions, and the way they are often tuned to find new quantum phases and management materials properties. He will pursue doctoral research at the California Institute of Technology in fall 2026.
Undergraduate: Princeton University
Graduate: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Field of Study: Artificial Intelligence
Zachary S. Siegel is a doctoral scholar in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the place he works at the intersection of robotics, cognitive science and synthetic intelligence. Siegel’s analysis purpose is to construct machines that study and cause extra like individuals — methods that may study from restricted information and generalize to new conditions by combining robotic planning and Bayesian inference. Siegel graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a B.S.E. in pc science and a minor in philosophy.
Undergraduate: United States Military Academy at West Point
Graduate: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Field of Study: Operations Research
Matthew Wanta will graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point class of 2026 with a bachelor’s diploma in pc science and mathematical sciences, each with honors, with a analysis give attention to autonomous methods and machine studying for protection and nationwide safety functions. At West Point, Wanta serves as firm commander for Bravo Company, 2nd Regiment, president of Upsilon Pi Epsilon and vp of Phi Kappa Phi. He is an Astronaut Scholar and Sapper faculty graduate. He will fee as an Army officer in the Cyber Corps and intends to pursue a doctorate in Operations Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in fall 2026.
Undergraduate: Columbia University
Graduate: Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Field of Study: Astronomy, Astrophysics
Matthew Werneken is an astronomy doctoral scholar and NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, the place he works on astrophysical instrumentation and observational surveys to check the environments of the Milky Way galaxy and its neighbors. Werneken goals to make use of this twin focus in designing the subsequent era of observatories on floor and in house, to unravel the mysteries behind how galaxies type and evolve. He is at present engaged on a significant new survey to map the chilly fuel in the halo of our galaxy and set constraints on the distribution, mass, and temperature phases of this “circumgalactic medium”. He can also be supporting the design and construct of an accompanying high-throughput spectrograph, which might be a cornerstone instrument in measuring astrophysical transients after it’s commissioned in 2027. Werneken graduated from Columbia University with twin levels in mechanical engineering and astrophysics in 2025.
Undergraduate: Stony Brook University
Graduate: Princeton University
Field of Study: Theoretical and Computational Chemistry
Zain Zaidi is a doctoral scholar in theoretical and computational chemistry at Princeton University, the place he seeks to uncover the mechanisms governing vitality switch inside and between molecules, supplies and options. Under the steering of Dr. Joseph Subotnik, Zaidi’s work goals to allow next-generation supplies and applied sciences for sustainable vitality functions. Zaidi obtained his bachelor’s diploma in chemistry from Stony Brook University in three years.
Undergraduate: University of California, Santa Barbara
Graduate: Harvard University
Field of Study: Quantum Physics
Eric Zhu is an undergraduate scholar in physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with analysis pursuits at the intersection of theoretical physics and cutting-edge experimental platforms in atomic, molecular and optical physics. Zhu will pursue doctoral research at Harvard University in fall 2026. He hopes to make use of quantum simulators — units with quickly rising capabilities for coherent management over quantum levels of freedom — to experimentally probe questions that had been as soon as regarded as purely theoretical.
About the Hertz Foundation
The Hertz Foundation is the nation’s preeminent nonprofit group dedicated to advancing American scientific and technological management. For greater than 60 years, it has stood as an unwavering pillar of unbiased assist via the famend Hertz Fellowship, cultivating a multidisciplinary community of innovators whose work has positively impacted hundreds of thousands of lives. Learn extra at hertzfoundation.org.