Eligible applicants for Hertz Fellowships must be students of the applied physical and biological sciences, mathematics, and engineering who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States of America, and who are willing to morally commit to make their skills available to the United States in time of national emergency (see our Moral Commitment section).
College seniors wishing to pursue the PhD degree in any of the fields of particular interest to the Foundation, as well as graduate students already in the process of doing so, may apply. We generally do not award fellowships to students who are already beyond their first year of graduate study except in cases of "exceptional leverage." Such awards are very rare—only three have been made in the past 10 years.