Caltech-Affiliated Students Awarded 2025 Hertz Fellowships

Cloris Cheng, a Caltech computer science (CS) major graduating this spring, has been awarded a fellowship from the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation. Hertz Fellows receive five years of funding for graduate study. Cheng is one of 19 students selected from among more than 1,000 applicants this year.

Incoming graduate student Edward Chen, who will graduate this spring from the United States Military Academy at West Point, is also among the new cohort of Hertz Fellows.

Cheng grew up in Xiamen, China, and attended boarding school in Santa Barbara, California, prior to Caltech. "My boarding school was very focused on the liberal arts, and it was easier for me to excel in math and physics," Cheng says. "All the teachers were incredibly supportive toward my passion for STEM-related subjects and encouraged me along the way, and I guess you end up liking what you're good at."

"I came to Caltech wanting to major in pure mathematics," Cheng says, "but I took abstract algebra in the same term that I took a machine learning class, and I decided to pivot to machine learning. I think that mathematicians tend to look for hard problems. I really admire people who can persist that long to prove a theorem. In computer science though, especially in the current machine learning wave, people are more likely to look for problems that can be solved and create a bigger impact."

Throughout her undergraduate career, Cheng has participated in computer science research projects that have a clear social impact. "One project I did was aimed at designing antibodies with algorithms. Another was trying to reconstruct molecular structures through nuclear magnetic resonance data," says Cheng, who is now interning for Gridmatic, a company using artificial intelligence (AI) to foster sustainable energy. "We cannot know for sure when the wind is going to blow or when it's going to be sunny, so there's a lot of uncertainty for managers of energy grids or electric providers," Cheng explains. "The hope is that with machine learning models we can have more accurate predictions that will make it possible to migrate the entire energy grid to renewable energy."

"I don't have enough words to express how much I learned from my friends at Caltech, both emotionally and intellectually," Cheng says. "My advisors, [Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences] Yisong Yue and [Carl F. Braun Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences] Adam Wierman, were super supportive. I started emailing them when I was a first year, and they both responded. I don't think you get that at large universities. I was able to do research during my first year at Caltech. I asked Professor Wierman if I could tag along on a CS project, and he was very helpful. I'm sure I didn't help much with any actual research as a freshman, but it was such a valuable learning experience."

Cheng looks forward to having greater flexibility in choosing what she wants to study in graduate school with the help of the Hertz Fellowship.

Incoming chemical engineering graduate student Edward Chen, a native of Madison, Wisconsin, will graduate from West Point this month with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, with honors, and a minor in engineering management. At West Point, Chen—who leads 1,099 cadets as the 1st Regiment command sergeant major and competed on the Army water polo team—conducted research focused on the applications of redox flow batteries for grid-scale renewable energy storage, work that has taken him to Army bases across the US and to the Pentagon to study energy resilience for national security.

The Hertz Foundation began awarding fellowships in 1963 and has since supported more than 1,300 fellows, many of whom have gone on to illustrious careers in academia, industry, and government. John Hertz, a Hungarian immigrant who made his fortune in the auto industry, created the scholarship fund as "a way to show my gratitude and love for America," according to the foundation's website.