Hertz Foundation
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The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation is an American non-profit organization that awards fellowships to Ph.D. students in the applied physical sciences. It is considered one of the most competitive and prestigious graduate fellowships in science and engineering. The fellowship provides $240,000 of support over five years. The goal is for fellows to be financially and, to an extent, politically independent of their academic departments so as to not be limited by them. Notably, the fellowships are awarded on the condition that the recipient pledges to make his or her "skills available to the United States in times of national emergency" (as stated on the Foundation's website).
The founder, John D. Hertz, was an Austrian emigrant who came to the United States and lived the American Dream. He arrived from Europe as a very poor young boy and matured into a prominent man of many accomplishments, most notably as a leader in the advent of the automotive age. To enhance the technological stature of the United States, the Foundation was established in 1957.
Recipients of the Hertz Fellowship typically attend very competitive graduate schools, such as Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Princeton University, and UC Berkeley. Notable Hertz Fellows include Nobel Laureates Carl Wieman (2001, Hertz Fellow 1977) and John Mather (2006, Hertz Fellow 1974), Stanford DARPA Grand Challenge team leader Mike Montemerlo, and Google entrepreneur Ray Sidney. In 2007, three of MIT Technology Review's TR35 young innovators were Hertz Fellows.
In 2007, 15 Fellows were named, with awards mostly in the physical sciences, with fellowships of approximately $250,000 apiece.
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