Hertz Fellowship

We know the nation’s most promising talent can come in many packages, from different disciplines, backgrounds, and points of view. To help focus our search, we’ve established the following eligibility criteria.

Eligibility

All eligible applicants must:

• be college seniors, first-year graduate students, or in a gap period preparing to apply to graduate school;
• intend to pursue a full-time, in-person PhD in the applied physical and biological sciences, mathematics or engineering at an institution in the United States;
• intend to direct their studies toward understanding and solving major, near-term problems facing society; and
• be citizens or permanent residents of the United States.

We do not award fellowships to applicants pursuing professional degrees other than a PhD, such as an MD, JD, MBA, DPH, or DVM. However, we will support the PhD portion of an MD/PhD program.

Anti-Discrimination Notice: We do not discriminate against any individual on the basis of sex, race, creed, religion, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, registered domestic partner status, age, sexual orientation, military and veteran status, or any other basis protected by law.

Fields of Study

Hertz Fellowships are awarded to graduate students pursuing a PhD in the applied physical and biological sciences, mathematics, or engineering.

We do not award fellowships based on an applicant’s particular field of study; however, we do require that applicants direct their work toward understanding and solving major, near-term problems facing society. For each applicant, that could mean something different — inventing a new technology, developing a business or applying their interests in innovative ways.

It’s up to the applicant to advocate for their specific field of study and demonstrate how it will be applied to address real-world challenges with the greatest impact. Visit the Hertz Fellows Directory to learn more about their interests.

How We Identify Fellows

When we select a Hertz Fellow, we’re investing in a person’s potential to be a leader in their field who will address the most pressing challenges facing society. While there is no perfect predictor of future success, there are certain attributes common to Hertz Fellows that we try to identify when we evaluate applicants.

Deep, Integrated Knowledge

Grades and test scores only tell part of the story. We’re looking for applicants with deep scientific and technical knowledge who can drive the exploration of complex, multidisciplinary topics and who can clearly articulate their ideas during in-person conversations with our interviewers.

Creative Problem Solvers

Today’s challenges cannot be solved with yesterday’s thinking. To make an impact, we need creative problem solvers—fellows who can bring together expertise, resources, and critical thinking from different fields to create a solution far greater than the sum of its parts.

Commitment to the Greater Good

Hertz Fellows aren’t just hoping for a better future. They are working to create it, directing their talents toward solving real-world problems that impact our nation and the world.

Active Leadership

Breakthroughs don’t happen overnight. They require self-starters who can gain the trust of their colleagues, build consensus around an ambitious vision, and then deliver on that promise down to the details.

Lifelong Achievers

Whether it’s innovative undergraduate research, excellence in high school ROTC, or advancing a cause you care about, we’re looking for rising stars with a track record of success every step of the way—and a desire to grow in the process.

Moral Commitment

The Hertz Foundation strongly believes that science and technology should make a positive impact on our nation.

As a public charity, we are committed to empowering young minds who will put their talents to work when it matters most. That’s why before awarding a fellowship, we require that applicants make a non-binding moral commitment to make their skills available to the United States in times of national emergency.

Importantly, this is not a contractual obligation. We don’t tell our fellows that the nation requires their action, and we have no definition for what constitutes a national emergency.

Throughout history, science and technology have played essential roles in overcoming major challenges facing society, from creating vaccines that fight global epidemics to developing technology that predicts natural disasters. We leave it up to each fellow to determine in their eyes whether the nation faces a truly serious challenge and if they are positioned to use their knowledge and abilities to address it.

Participating Schools

The Hertz Foundation has agreements in place with more than 50 universities to allow students to quickly and seamlessly accept their Hertz Fellowships while pursuing PhD studies at one of the following schools.

The Hertz Foundation has established a standard agreement with graduate schools at the following institutions to coordinate paying the stipend, tuition, and other costs for our fellows via a 9-month stipend model. If you’re awarded a fellowship and your school is not on the list of participating schools, you may ask to have it added to the list, and we’ll do our best to work with your school to negotiate an agreement. Fellows may also change to another participating school at any time during their fellowship. For a list of institutions that our fellows have attended for their undergraduate studies, see online.

• Arizona State University
• California Institute of Technology
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Case Western Reserve University
• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• Duke University
• Emory University
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• Harvard University
• Johns Hopkins University
• Lehigh University
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
• New York University
• Northwestern University
• Ohio State University
• Pennsylvania State University
• Princeton University
• Purdue University
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• Rice University
• Rockefeller University
• Stanford University
• State University of New York at Stony Brook
• Texas A&M University
• The Scripps Research Institute
• University of Arizona
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of California, Davis
• University of California, Irvine
• University of California, Los Angeles
• University of California, Riverside
• University of California, San Diego
• University of California, San Francisco
• University of California, Santa Barbara
• University of California, Santa Cruz
• University of Chicago
• University of Colorado Boulder
• University of Colorado Denver
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• University of Maryland
• University of Michigan
• University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• University of Rochester
• University of Southern California
• University of Texas at Austin
• University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
• University of Washington
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Vanderbilt University
• Washington University in St. Louis
• Yale University