Preston Kemeny is currently a T.C. Chamberlin and National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago.
In 2022, Kemeny received a PhD in Geochemistry from Caltech for research conducted with Jess Adkins and Woodward Fischer. During graduate school, he was supported by the Hertz Fellowship and the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship.
Prior to Caltech, Kemeny graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2015 with a degree in Geosciences and certificates in Environmental Studies and Planets & Life. He conducted research with Daniel Sigman, John Higgins, and Gerta Keller, and for this work he was awarded the Edward Sampson, Class of 1914, Prize in Environmental Geosciences.
Outside of research, Kemeny plays with his retired racing greyhound, named Tethys. He enjoys reading popular science books, typically about earth history and the history of earth science, and he wrote the wikipedia article on the reference materials used in stable isotope analysis.
“The community of Hertz Fellows is a deep source of inspiration and ideas."
– Preston Kemeny
Graduate Studies
California Institute of Technology
Geochemistry
A Fluvial Perspective on the Role of Sulfide Oxidation in the Global Carbon Cycle
Hertz Fellow Seth Stein has made seminal contributions to Earth and space sciences. Stein is most proud, however, of the work he considers essential to the future of science: serving as a collaborator and mentor to 30 PhD students.
The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation is proud to recognize the most recent graduates of the Hertz Fellowship in applied science, mathematics, and engineering.
As a PhD student at the California Institute of Technology, Hertz Fellow Preston Kemeny uses the ratios between different sulfur isotopes to study the movement of protons, electrons, and nutrients though rivers and floodplains over timescales of decades, millennia, and millions of years.
The most selective fellowship program in the country supports brilliant, disruptive minds in science, engineering and mathematics for a full five years of research freedom.
