19 Winners Receive 2026 Hertz Fellowship

Recently, The Hertz Foundation announced 19 recipients of the 2026 Hertz Fellowship in the fields of applied sciences, engineering, and mathematics.

Among the new fellows, 4 undergraduates are from Harvard University, and 2 undergraduates are from The Ohio State University. Among graduate students, 5 are from Harvard University, 4 each are from MIT and Stanford University, and 3 are from Princeton University.

Below is the list of the 2026 Hertz Fellowship recipients:

Awarded through a rigorous selection process honed over eight decades, the Hertz Fellowship is the nation’s most competitive doctoral fellowship in science and technology. Hertz Fellows receive up to five years of financial support — a stipend and full tuition equivalent — offering the rare freedom to pursue bold ideas and a community of influential peers dedicated to their success.

The 2026 Hertz Fellows are pursuing solutions to some of the most pressing challenges in science and technology, including developing RNA-based tools to combat multidrug-resistant bacteria, building a satellite mission to locate the universe’s missing matter, creating AI systems that learn and reason like humans, and advancing quantum simulation to probe questions once thought purely theoretical.

The new fellows represent a wide range of disciplines — astrophysics, quantum chemistry, robotics, plant science, neuroscience and more — and will conduct their doctoral research at some of the nation’s most distinguished research universities. The class also includes the latest Hertz Fellow to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, continuing an enduring tradition of Hertz Fellows with distinguished military careers.

In addition to financial support, the 19 new fellows join an interdisciplinary community of more than 1,300 Hertz Fellows worldwide, collectively responsible for some of the most significant scientific and technological progress of the past century. From the James Webb Space Telescope to global defense networks, and from advanced medical therapies to computational systems used by billions, Hertz Fellows turn groundbreaking research into real-world impact.

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.

Throughout the foundation’s 63-year history of awarding fellowships, more than 1,300 Hertz Fellows have established a remarkable track record. Their ranks include 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 hold more than 3,000 patents, have founded more than 375 companies and have created hundreds of thousands of science and technology jobs.