[July 09, 2018] |
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The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Expands Global Health and Development Fellowship With New Fellows
The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation, a not-for-profit organization
dedicated to empowering America's most brilliant minds in science,
mathematics and engineering, today announced six new Global Health and
Development Fellows. The Global Health and Development Fellowship, in
partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, brings Hertz
Fellows to the Gates Foundation for two summer internships over the
course of their PhD. Fellows learn to apply their expertise in diverse
areas of the applied sciences to the foundation's mission of improving
health and development outcomes around the world.
"The Hertz Foundation is delighted that, after an exciting start last
year, the Gates Foundation has expanded the internship program for our
fellows in Global Health and Development," said Robbee Baker Kosak,
president, Fannie and John Hertz Foundation. "The partnership between
our two foundations started due to a shared belief in the importance of
bringing scientific and technological solutions to the wide range of
health and development challenges faced by people around the world. We
are inspired by these young scientists and engineers and their work to
change millions of lives for the better."
The 2018 Global Health and Development Fellows are:
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Sarah Hooper, a 2018 Hertz Fellow focusing on statistical
approaches to improving malaria diagnosis. Hooper began a PhD in
electrical engineering at Stanford University in the fall of 2017,
where she is applying applications of machine learning and signal
processing to improving domestic and global health outcomes. As an
undergraduate at Rice University, Hooper helped create multiple new
medical devices, including low-cost devices to combat neonatal
hypothermia.
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Maxim Rabinovich, a 2015 Hertz Fellow focusing on statistical
methods for improving the delivery system for malaria medicine.
Rabinovich is a PhD student in computer science at the University of
California, Berkeley, where he is researching machine learning and
natural language processing, with an interest in developing artificial
intelligence tools that support and extend human reasoning.
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Reuben Saunders, a 2016 Hertz Fellow focusing on maternal and
childhood nutrition. Saunders is a PhD student at the University of
California, San Francisco, where he is interested in understanding how
molecules can work together to create something as complicated as a
cell.
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Judith Savitkaya, a 2014 Hertz Fellow focusing on
plant-microbe interactions and agricultural development. Savitskaya is
pursuing a PhD in bioengineering at the University of California at
Berkeley, where she is exploring ways to modify DNA to make new
organisms capable of meeting specific industrial and medical needs.
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Ravi Sheth, a 2015 Hertz Fellow focusing on gut health and
disease and childhood mortality. He is pursuing a PhD in
bioengineering and synthetic biology at Columbia University, where he
works in Harris Wang's lab in the Department of Systems Biology,
developing new tools for engineering microbes.
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Alex Siegenfeld, a 2015 Hertz Fellow focusing on using
geospatial malaria data to better understand how to reduce the malaria
burden in Nigeria. He is pursuing a PhD in physics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where, as part of the
Laboratory for Social Machines and the New England Complex Systems
Institute, he focuses on applying concepts and methods from
statistical physics to further the understanding of social and
political phenomena.
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Alex Ferris, a 2017 Hertz Fellow, who returns for a second
summer after spending last summer developing a field level model for
the spread of cassava brown streak disease and incorporating crop loss
into models with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Alex
is pursuing a PhD in bioengineering at Stanford University as part of
Dr. Elizabeth Sattely's team, researching how plants create specific
natural products and how to engineer these pathways in different plant
species.
The seven Fellows have a variety of focus areas and are working on
different program teams at the foundation. The goals of this program are
two-fold: To provide these top students in science, engineering and math
with hands-on opportunities to learn about global health issues more
deeply via work with the foundations and to be inspired to contribute to
these global challenges in ways that can have lasting impact. The Hertz
Fellowship in Global Health and Development provides another avenue for
the Hertz Foundation to continue its singular mission to identify and
support the next generation of scientific leaders and innovators in the
United States. More information about the Global Health and Development
Fellows can be found on our website: http://hertzfoundation.org/fellowships/global-health.
The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation is the legacy of John Hertz, a
Hungarian immigrant who made his fortune by capitalizing on the
entrepreneurship prospects in the budding automotive industry. He
believed that innovative and entrepreneurial solutions were vital to the
strength, security and prosperity of our nation-and began the Foundation
to support exceptionally talented students expected to have the greatest
impact on the world's problems. The Hertz Community is one of the most
influential groups of leaders, innovators, engineers, mathematicians and
scientists in the American corporate, university, national laboratory
and military sectors. To date, Hertz Fellows collectively possess more
than 3,000 patents, have founded more than 200 companies and have
received more than 200 major national and international awards,
including eight Breakthrough Prizes in Science, a Fields Medal, a Turing
Award and two Nobel (News - Alert) Prizes.
Fannie and John Hertz Foundation
The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation is a not-for-profit organization
changing the world around us by granting freedom of American scientific
research and innovation through fellowship and financial support.
Celebrating 60 years in 2017, the Hertz Fellowship is the most exclusive
fellowship program in the world. Our 1,200 Hertz Fellows are the
leaders, shapers and disruptors of American science, engineering and
mathematics. For more information on the Hertz Foundation and the
innovations led by our Hertz Fellows please visit www.hertzfoundation.org.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180709005018/en/
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