Two Harvard students named 2025 Hertz Fellows

Harvard College senior Soy Choi and Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student Ananthan Sadagopan were among the 19 recipients of the 2025 Hertz Fellowship in applied science, engineering, and mathematics. Three additional Harvard affiliates were also named fellows of this year’s cohort.

“Hertz Fellows embody the promise of future scientific breakthroughs, major engineering achievements and thought leadership that is vital to our future,” said Stephen Fantone, chair of the Hertz Foundation board of directors. “The newest recipients will direct research teams, serve in leadership positions in our government and take the helm of major corporations and startups that impact our communities and the world.”

The Hertz Fellowship grants five years of funding for doctoral studies, as well as access to mentoring, events, and networking. The 19 new fellows will join a group of more than 1,300 Hertz Fellows around the world.

“I’m very excited because the Hertz fellowship empowers me to take risks and explore outside of engineering,” said Choi, a senior concentrating in mechanical engineering with a secondary in global health and health policy. She plans to pursue a doctorate in mechanical engineering at Stanford University to further improve healthcare access through robotics.

For the past three years, the Melbourne, Florida, native has worked at the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory under Robert Wood, the Harry Lewis and Marlyn McGrath Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Choi, who is interested in wearable technology and healthcare robotics, has been working on a robotic gripper with the delicate feel and touch of a human hand.

Sadagopan, a first-year Ph.D. student in the biological and biomedical sciences program, said he is also excited to join the ranks of Hertz fellows. “I think it’s a great cohort to be in. I’ve met a lot of excellent people, and I’m really excited to see where it goes,” he said.

The Westborough, Massachusetts, native said he is looking forward to continuing his work developing new therapeutic strategies. Sadagopan hopes to dedicate his doctoral studies to harnessing chemical biology to pioneer next-generation treatments for currently intractable diseases.

Harvard alumni Arav Karighattam ’24, Grace Ra Kim ’23, and Lillian Kay Petersen ’24 were also named fellows of this year’s cohort. Karighattam is set to begin his doctoral studies in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kim and Petersen are doctoral students at Stanford University, with Kim studying aeronautics and astronautics and Petersen studying genetics.

The John and Fannie Hertz Foundation was founded in 1957 to pursue research that best advances the nation’s security and leads to life-changing innovations. The Hertz Fellowships were first awarded in 1963 and require new fellows to commit to making their skills available to the U.S. in times of national emergency.