Fanny and John Hertz Foundation

The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation is an American non-profit organization that awards fellowships to Ph.D. students in the applied physical, biological and engineering sciences. The fellowship provides $250,000 of support over five years. The goal is for Fellows to be financially independent and free from traditional restrictions of their academic departments in order to promote innovation in collaboration with leading professors in the field. Through a rigorous application and interview process, the Hertz Foundation seeks to identify young scientists and engineers with the potential to change the world for the better and supports their research endeavors from an early stage. Fellowship recipients pledge to make their skills available to the United States in times of national emergency.

Hertz Fellowship

History

The Hertz Foundation was established in 1957 with the goal of supporting applied sciences education. The founder, John D. Hertz, was a European emigrant whose family arrived in the United States with few resources, when the Hertz was five years old. Hertz matured into a prominent entrepreneur and business leader (founder of the Yellow Cab Company and owner of the Hertz corporation) as the automotive age burgeoned in Chicago. Initially, the Foundation granted undergraduate scholarships to qualified and financially limited mechanical and electrical engineering students. In 1963, the undergraduate scholarship program was phased out and replaced with postgraduate fellowships leading to the award of the Ph.D. The scope of the studies supported by the fellowships was also enlarged to include applied sciences and other engineering disciplines.

Competitiveness

For the 2017-2018 academic year
nearly 800 applicants applied for 10 spots
giving it an acceptance rate of 1.5%. Since 1960, the foundation has made awards to 1,271 fellows, with 309 fellows affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 255 with Stanford University; 104 with the University of California, Berkeley; 95 with the California Institute of Technology; and 76 with Harvard University. These top five universities account for nearly two-thirds of all fellows.

Eligibility and application

To be eligible for a Hertz Fellowships, a student must be citizen or permanent resident of the United States of America. Eligible applicants must be students of the applied sciences, math or engineering, and desire to pursue a Ph.D. degree in the applied sciences, math or engineering. College seniors as well as graduate students already pursuing a Ph.D. may apply.

The application period opens in August, when electronic applications are made available by the Hertz Foundation. All Fellowship applicants are notified by mail of the Foundation's action on their application on or before April 1.

Notable Fellows

* Lars Bildsten, Director, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at University of California, Santa Barbara
* Eric Boe, NASA Astronaut
* Stephen P. Boyd, Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University
* Ed Boyden, 2016 Breakthrough Prize
* James E. Brau
* Mung Chiang, Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor at Princeton University, 2013 Alan T. Waterman Award recipient
* Isaac Chuang, Quantum computing pioneer
* Kevin M. Esvelt
* Doyne Farmer, an originator of econophysics
* Mike Farmwald, Founder of Rambus
* Alex Filippenko, Richard & Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Physical Sciences and Professor of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley
* Kathleen Fisher, Deputy Director at DARPA's Information Innovation Office and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Tufts University
* Alice P. Gast, President, Imperial College of London
* Kenneth M. Golden, Fellow of Explorers Club
* Leonidas J. Guibas, researcher in computational geometry and Paul Pigott Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University
*Kevin Karplus, Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz
* David Kriegman, researcher in computer vision and Professor of Computer Science at University of California, San Diego
* Peter Hagelstein, Inventor, X-ray laser
* Danny Hillis, Inventor, entrepreneur, and author
* Andrew Houck, Quantum Computist
* Tianhui Michael Li, first Data Scientist in residence at Andreessen Horowitz, founder of The Data Incubator
* Po-Shen Loh, Coach of USA International Mathematical Olympiad Team and Professor of Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University
* Derek Lidow, Founder of iSuppli Corp.
* Robert Lourie, Head of Futures research at Renaissance Technologies
* John C. Mather, Nobel Laureate 2006
* Mike Montemerlo, Winning Team Leader, DARPA Grand Challenge 2005
* Nathan Myhrvold, Founder, Intellectual Ventures, former CTO, Microsoft
* Dianne P. O'Leary, applied mathematician
* Sabrina Pasterski, Young Physicist
* General Ellen M. Pawlikowski, Commander, Air Force Material Command
*Emma Pierson, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University
* Joseph Polchinski, Fundamental Physics Prize 2017
* William H. Press, Former Deputy Director for Science and Technology, Los Alamos National Laboratory
* Robert Sedgewick, William O. Baker Professor in Computer Science at Princeton University
* Katelin Schutz
* Kenneth L Shepard
* Ray Sidney, Google entrepreneur
* Alfred Spector, CTO of Two Sigma and former VP of Research at Google
* Rich C. Staats, Commanding General, United States Army Reserve Innovation Command
* Astro Teller, Director, Google X
* Michael Telson, Former CFO at the Department of Energy
* Lee T. Todd, Jr., Entrepreneur, past president of the University of Kentucky
* Philip Welkhoff, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
* Christian Wentz, electrical engineer & entrepreneur
* Carl Wieman, Nobel Laureate 2001
* Ned Wingreen
In 2018, some 30 Hertz Fellows were recognized by MIT Technology Review, Forbes, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, National Academy of Sciences and many others for outstanding work in their respective fields.

Thesis Prize

The Hertz Foundation requires that each Fellow furnish the Foundation a copy of his or her doctoral dissertation upon receiving the Ph.D. The Foundation's Thesis Prize Committee examines the Ph.D. dissertations for their overall excellence and pertinence to high-impact applications of the physical sciences. Each Thesis Prize winner receives an honorarium of $5,000.

* 2017 Kyle Loh, A Developmental Roadmap for the Diversification of Human Tissue fates from Pluripotent Cells
* 2016 Paul Tillberg, Expansion Microscopy: Improving Imaging Through Uniform Tissue Expansion
* 2015 Jeffrey Weber, Far-From-Equilibrium Phenomena in Protein Dynamics
* 2014 Matthew Pelliccione, Local Imaging of High Mobility Two-Dimensional Electron Systems with Virtual Scanning Tunneling Microscopy
* 2014 Joseph Rosenthal, Engineered Outer Membrane Vesicles Derived from Probiotic Escherichia Coli Nissle 1917 as Recobinant Subunit Antigen Carriers for the Development of Pathogen-Mimetic Vaccines
* 2013 Alex Hegyi, Nanodiamond Imaging: A New Molecular Imaging Approach
* 2012 Dario Amodei, Network-Scale Electrophysiology: Measuring and Understanding the Collective Behavior of Neural Circuits
* 2012 Vincent Holmberg, Semiconductor Nanowires: From a Nanoscale System to a Macroscopic Material
* 2012 Daniel Slichter, Quantum Jumps and Measurement Backaction in a Superconducting Qubit
* 2011 Anna Bershteyn, Lipid-coated micro- and nanoparticles as a biomimetic vaccine delivery platform
* 2011 Kevin Esvelt, A System for the Continuous Directed Evolution of Biomolecules
* 2011 Monika Schleier-Smith, Cavity-Enabled Spin Squeezing for a Quantum-Enhanced Atomic Clock
* 2010 Erez Lieberman-Aiden, Evolution and the Emergence of Structure
* 2009 Paul Podsiadlo, Layer-by-Layer Assembly of Nanostructures Composites: Mechanics and Applications
* 2009 Mikhail Shapiro, Genetically Engineered Sensors for Non-Invasive Molecular Imaging using MRI
* 2008 Alexander Wissner-Gross, Physically Programmable Surfaces
* 2007 Lilian Childress, Coherent Manipulation of Single Quantum Systems in the Solid State
* 2007 Christopher Loose, The Production, Design, and Application of Antimicrobial Peptides
* 2007 Cindy Regal, Experimental Realization of BCS-BEC Crossover Physics with a Fermi Gas of Atoms
* 2006 Edward Boyden, Task-Selective Neural Mechanisms of Memory Encoding
* 2005 Cameron G. R. Geddes, Plasma Channel Guided Laser Wakefield Accelerator
* 2004 Youssef Marzouk, Vorticity Structure and Evolution in a Transverse Jet with New Algorithms for Scalable Particle Simulation
* 2003 David Kent IV, New Quantum Monte Carlo Algorithms to Efficiently Utilize Massively Parallel Computers
* 2002 Daniel Steck, Quantum Chaos, Transport, and Decoherence in Atom Optics
* 2001 Krishna S. Nayak, Fast Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging
* 2000 Joseph H. Thywissen, Internal State Manipulation for Neutral Atom Lithography
* 1999 Andrew J. Thiel, Detection of DNA Hybridization to Oligonucleotide Arrays on Gold Surfaces Using In Situ Surface Plasmon Resonance and Fluorescence Imaging Techniques
* 1998 Adam T. Woolley, Microfabricated Integrated DNA Analysis Systems
* 1997 Deirdre Olynick, In-Situ Studies of Copper Nano-Particles Using a Novel Tandem Ultra-High Vacuum Particle Production Chamber Transmission Electron Microscope
* 1997 Eli N. Glezer, Ultrafast Electronic and Structural Dynamics in Solids
* 1996 Andrew H. Miklich, Low-Frequency Noise in High-T2 Superconductor Josephson Junctions, SQUIDs, and Magnetometers
* 1996 Krishna Shenoy, Monolithic Optoelectronic VLSI Circuit Design and Fabrication for Optical Interconnects
* 1995 Eric Altschuler, The Movement Rehearsal Paradigm is a Mental Communication Channel
* 1994 Richard D. Braatz, Robust Loopshaping for Process Control
* 1992 Kenneth L Shepard, Electron Transport in Mesoscopic Conductors
* 1992 Robert C. Barrett, Development and Applications of Atomic Force Spectroscopy
* 1990 Scott L. Rakestraw, Monoclonal Antibody-Targeted Laser Photolysis of Tumor Tissue
* 1990 H. Paul Shuch, Near Midair Collisions as an Indicator of General Aviation Collision Risk
* 1989 W. Neil McCasland, Sensor and Actuator Selection for Fault-Tolerant Control of Flexible Structures
* 1988 Michael Reed, Si-SiO₂ Interface Trap Anneal Kinetics
* 1988 Eric Swartz, Solid-Solid Thermal Boundary Resistance
* 1988 K. Peter Beiersdorfer, High Resolution Studies of the X-Ray Transitions in Highly Charged Neonlike Ions of the PLT Tokamak
* 1987 Douglas Bowman, High Speed Polycrystalline Silicon Photoconductors for On-Chip Pulsing and Gating
* 1987 Brian L. Heffner, Switchable Optical Fiber Taps Using the Acousto-Optic Bragg Interaction
* 1987 Dale Stuart, A Guidance Algorithm for Cooperative Tether-Mediated Orbital Rendezvous
* 1987 Aryeh M. Weiss, Real Time Control of the Permeability of Crosslinked Polyelectrolyte Membranes to Fluorescent Solutes
* 1986 Lawrence C. West, Spectroscopy of GaAs Quantum Wells
* 1986 Joel Fajans, Radiation Measurements of an Intermediate Energy Free Electron Laser
* 1985 W. Daniel Hillis, The Connection Machine
* 1985 Stephen P. Boyd, Volterra Series: Engineering Fundamentals
* 1985 Steven R. Hall, A Failure Detection Algorithm for Linear Dynamic Systems
* 1984 Andrew M. Weiner, Femtosecond Optical Pulse Generation and Dephasing Measurements in Condensed Matter
* 1984 David Tuckerman, Heat-Transfer Microstructures for Integrated Circuits
* 1984 Michel A. Floyd, Single-Step Optimal Control of Large Space Structures
* 1983 Emanuel M. Sachs, Edge Stabilized Ribbon Growth: A New Method for the Manufacture of Photovoltaic Substrates
* 1982 Mike Farmwald, On the Design of High Performance Digital Arithmetic Units
* 1982 Lawrence C. Widdoes, Automatic Physical Design of Large Wire-Wrap Digital Systems
* 1981 Sherman Chan, Small Signal Control of Multiterminal DC/AC Power Systems
* 1981 Peter L. Hagelstein, Physics of Short Wavelength Laser Design
* 1981 Charles E. Leiserson, Area-Efficient VLSI Computation
* 1981 Thomas McWilliams, Verification of Timing Constraints on Large Digital Systems

See also

* Computational Science Graduate Fellowship
* NDSEG Fellowship
* NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

References

External links

Hertz Foundation

{{Livermore, California

Educational foundations in the United States
Organizations based in California
Organizations established in 1957
1957 establishments in California