45 Finalists Named for the 2024 Hertz Fellowships

Selected from more than 860 applicants and representing 27 universities, the finalists advance to a culminating round of interviews for one of the most competitive and coveted doctoral fellowships in the nation. The 2024 class of Hertz Fellows will be announced in May.

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 opportunities have led Hertz Fellows to form research collaborations, commercialize technology, and create and invest in early-stage companies together.

"This year’s finalists embody the Hertz Foundation's mission of thinking bigger and pursuing goals that will have an outsize and enduring impact on behalf of the nation and the world," said Derek Haseltine, director of the Hertz Fellowship Program. "At this early stage of their career, each one of these individuals has already demonstrated high amounts of initiative and creativity in their work and the innovative mindset needed to solve complex problems."

The Hertz Foundation is committed to investing in future science and technology leaders who will fuel our nation’s security and economic vitality through life-changing innovations. Achieving these innovations requires bold ideas and relentless drive — qualities that are at the heart of Hertz Fellows. Through a highly rigorous selection process, led by Hertz Fellows Philip Welkhoff, director of the malaria program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Anna Bershteyn, associate professor of population health at New York University, 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 our society. 

Throughout the foundation’s 60-year history of awarding fellowships, more than 1280 Hertz Fellows have established a remarkable track record of accomplishments. 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 34 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.

Finalists are listed with their field of study and most recent university affiliation.